DEFENSE NEAR TO RESTING CASE IN GABLE TRIAL

Author: PHIL MANZANO and JOHN SNELL - of the Oregonian Staff

Summary: A California criminalist and Michael Francke's widow testify Tuesday

The defense in the Frank E. Gable murder trial is likely to conclude its case this week, Gable's lawyer said Tuesday.

The widow of Corrections Director Michael Francke, whom Francke is charged with killing, and a California criminalist were among the defense's witnesses Tuesday.

``I will not rest the case tommorrow, but I anticipate resting soon after,'' defense attorney Robert Abel said after court recessed Tuesday afternoon.

Gable is charged with six counts of aggravated murder, which carry the death penalty, and one count of murder in the Jan. 17, 1989, stabbing death of Francke.

Abel said he planned to call a private pathologist, who would testify about the autopsy, on Wednesday and is mulling over whether to call one more witness, whom he would not name.

The trial began May 1 in Marion County Circuit Court and is in its eighth week.

Tuesday, criminalist Richard Fox chipped at the way police processed the crime scene but also agreed with the scenario police criminalists constructed of Francke's last moments alive.

But Fox continued hammering on a theme staked out early by the defense that there is no physical evidence linking Gable to the Francke murder scene.

On cross-examination, Fox stung the prosecution when Marion County deputy district attorney Tom Bostwick asked him if he thought it was unusual for cases to be prosecuted successfully without physical evidence.

Fox replied that he rarely comes across murder cases where there is no physical evidence linking the defendant to the crime.

Prosecutors believe Francke was killed about 7 p.m. as he left the Corrections Department and interrupted Gable rifling through his car. They believe Gable lunged out of the car and stabbed Francke in the chest. They say Francke then walked back to the Corrections Department and was found about 5 1/2 hours later on a recessed porch of the building.

Fox said the first police who arrived at the scene should have cordoned off a wider area to include the parking area and especially a grassy area in front of the porch.

``It's of such close proximity that as a criminalist I am concerned it was not cordoned off,'' he said.

Fox also said that although it was very likely that all the blood at the crime scene was Francke's, he would have taken more random samples to assure himself that it was true.

Police criminalists sampled blood found on the sidewalk and blood found on the top of the stairs leading to the porch area where Francke's body was found.

For instance, Fox would have taken samples from the stair railing, from a handprint most probably made by Francke as he broke a window to get in the building and from a pool of blood near Francke's body.

On cross-examination, Fox agreed with Bostwick that the first people responding to the scene thought it was a medical call and the first officers at the scene immediately roped off the porch area.

He also agreed that as more information came in, the crime zone expanded; but Fox reiterated that the initial crime scene should have included any area near the porch where someone could have fled.

Bostwick and Fox also got into a semantic battle when Bostwick asked if Fox agreed with police conclusions that no one else was on the porch with Francke when he died.

Fox said yes but added that there is no evidence to conclude that someone else wasn't there.

Also testifying Tuesday was Francke's widow, Bingta, who said that her husband was ``extremely security conscious'' and that was part of the reason they moved to an isolated home in Scotts Mills in October 1988.

``It had to do with his line of work, the position he was in,'' Francke said.

She said it was not unusual for them to get calls notifying them of certain escapes and they would be instructed to lock up the house, bring the dog in and for Francke to get out his personal handgun.

Before they moved to Scotts Mills from Salem, Francke locked his car in a locked garage and their dog, a German shepherd, would be left in the garage.

On cross-examination by deputy district attorney Sarah Moore, Francke said that her husband on several occasions locked himself out of the car and ran out of gas.

A question in the trial has been why Francke's car alarm, if armed, did not sound the night he was killed. Prosecutors have tried to show that it was malfunctioning and that Francke may have shut off the alarm.

Bingta Francke said they were having problems with the alarm but when she left to stay with her mother in California the week before the murder, the alarm was working.

She also said that her husband had major concerns about personnel beneath him and was under pressure to release or fire people that he wanted to keep.

Under cross-examination, Francke said her husband did not want to carry out an apparent order from Gov. Neil Goldschmidt to fire Corrections assistant administrator Dave Caulley.

The department at the time of the killing was under tight scrutiny by legislators for cost overruns in its building program.