DEFENSE LAWYERS IN FRANCKE CASE SUSPECT LINK WITH ANOTHER SLAYING

Author: PHIL MANZANO - of the Oregonian Staff

A man killed two weeks after the Jan. 17, 1989, slaying of Corrections Director Michael Francke may have some connection to the case, say lawyers for the man accused of killing Francke.

Attorney Robert Abel, representing Frank Gable, asked Marion County Circuit Judge Gregory West on Tuesday to order the district attorney's office to release police and autopsy reports of the shooting of Timothy D. Natividad. West did not rule on the motion Tuesday.

Natividad, 24, was shot twice in the chest Jan. 31 by his girlfriend in a Northeast Salem apartment. A jury found her not guilty of murdering him after she claimed she fired in self-defense.

According to court documents, Natividad threatened to kill her at the time of the shooting.

Abel said he wants the reports because Natividad's name appears five times in Oregon State Police reports of the Francke investigation.

Gable, 31, of Salem has been charged with six counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder in Francke's death. He has yet to enter a plea, but he has denied involvment in the murder.

Sarah Moore, a Marion Courty deputy district attorney, told the judge that no evidence links Natividad's killing to the Francke case, and argues that her office should not be compelled to turn over material that has no bearing on the Francke killing.

``We don't think it has any relevance to the case,'' she said.

Moore also said Gable's attorneys have seven investigators who can subpoena records if they need them.

Abel said there are witnesses who claim that Natividad has some involvement in the case, and there are rumors that Natividad had wounds showing he was involved in an altercation shortly before he died.

``Maybe the DA's office has ruled out Mr. Natividad as a suspect; we have not,'' Abel said.

Abel said outside the courtroom that he did not know whether Natividad's death is relevant to the Francke case, but without the full file on his death, ``we don't know,'' he said.

Francke was stabbed to death about 7 p.m. as he was leaving the Corrections Department headquarters in Salem. He was found by a security guard about five hours later on a porch of the building.

Abel entered into the court file police reports and interviews that Francke detectives made with individuals who had heard or thought that Natividad was involved in the Francke case.

According to police reports, Natividad's involvement stems mainly from a woman who knew Natividad and told police that he ``wanted to find someone to kill somebody.''

The woman told police that Natividad never mentioned Francke's name, but that she assumed Natividad was referring to Francke because her husband, an Oregon State Penitentiary inmate, was having problems in prison and Natividad had asked him if he wanted to get even.

Gable's attorneys also subpoenaed District Attorney Dale Penn and Tom Denney, chairman of the grand jury that indicted Gable, for Tuesday's hearing.

But neither testified after Abel agreed to withdraw his motion to void the indictment of Gable.

The defense had filed a motion to quash the indictment because Denney, an Oregon assistant attorney general, knew Scott McAlister, a former assistant attorney general who was questioned in the Francke case.

Penn has said that McAlister was never a suspect in the case and that McAlister had passed a polygraph test demonstrating no involvement in the case.

In other related matters, Francke's younger brother, Kevin, was at Tuesday's hearing. He said he has closed his construction business in Florida and has moved to Oregon to be closer to the investigation and trial.

At Tuesday's court appearance, Gable was asked by reporters whether he had ever been sexually abused by his foster father, Les Gederos of Lakeside, who was arrested Friday on eight counts of sexually abusing adolescent boys during a three- to four-year period.

``No comment,'' Gable said.