DETECTIVES FAIL TO LINK DEAD MAN, FRANCKE CASE

Author: PHIL MANZANO - of the Oregonian Staff

Summary: A woman says the man she killed in self-defense looked like the sketch of a man seen at the Dome Building the night the corrections director was stabbed to death

Investigators said Wednesday they had yet to find a connection between the murder of Corrections Director Michael Francke and a man who was killed in a domestic dispute in Salem last year.

The Salem Statesman-Journal reported Wednesday that Elizabeth Godlove, who killed Timothy Natividad on Jan. 31, 1989, two weeks after the Francke murder, believes that Natividad was involved in the Francke case.

Tom Bostwick, a Marion County deputy district attorney, said an investigation into the Natividad case had turned up nothing that tied Natividad to the Francke killing.

``At this point, nothing in our investigation shows that Mr. Natividad had anything to do with Mr. Francke's death,'' Bostwick said. During the weekend, he said, Godlove had told police that Natividad had never told her he killed Francke.

In addition, Natividad's older brother, T.J. Natividad, said Wednesday that his brother had visited him the evening Francke was killed and showed no signs of having been involved in a struggle.

Francke was stabbed to death about 7 p.m. Jan. 17, 1989, outside the Corrections Department offices as he was leaving work for the day. Frank Gable, 31, was charged April 6 with six counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder and is awaiting trial.

Two weeks after the Francke murder, Godlove shot Natividad to death after what she contended were years of physical and mental abuse. She said he had held a gun to her head the morning of his death. Godlove, 27, pleaded self-defense, and a jury acquitted her of a murder charge in the spring of 1989.

The Salem newspaper reported that Godlove said Natividad, the father of her son, had told her a week after Francke's death that he had killed a man, but she said he never had told her whom he supposedly had killed.

Godlove said she came to believe Natividad was involved in the Francke case after seeing a police artist's sketch of a man with an olive complexion and pin-stripe suit. Police wanted to question the man, who was seen near Francke's office before the killing.

T.J. Natividad, however, said his younger brother, Godlove and their son had come to his home after 9:30 p.m. the evening Michael Francke was killed and hadn't left until about 3 a.m. Also in the house was T.J. Natividad's wife, Teresa, who said she remembered the occasion because it fell on her brother's birthday.

T.J. Natividad said his brother did not appear to have been involved in any fight earlier that evening and did not have any fresh bruises or cuts. At one point after arriving, Timothy Natividad, who was wearing a short-sleeve shirt, showed off how much weight he had recently lost. Timothy Natividad said he had spent the early evening at a toy store with his son, according to T.J. Natividad.

He said he believed his brother was being made a scapegoat for the Francke murder.

``They're looking for someone to pin it on, and who better than my brother,'' said Natividad. ``Who better to blame it on than a dead man?''

Gable's lawyer, Robert Abel, last week asked a judge to order prosecutors to turn over to him more information on Timothy Natividad. Abel said Natividad's name showed up in some of the police reports he had been given so far in the case.

Prosecutor Sarah Moore argued that the Natividad investigation had no relevance to the Francke case. Marion County Circuit Judge Greg West has not ruled on Abel's request.