Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)

April 11, 1990

`EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST,' HE SAID

Author: PHIL STANFORD - of the Oregonian Staff

Correction: PUBLISHED CORRECTION RAN 4/12/90: A typesetting error eliminated much of one paragraph of Phil Stanford's column in one edition of The Oregonian on Wednesday. The missing words detailed some of the charges against Frank E. Gable in the Michael Francke murder case. The complete paragraph follows:

Count IV said it was ``to conceal the identity of the perpetrator'' of the robbery. Counts V and VI alleged that the murder was to conceal a ``theft'' or the ``identity of the perpetrator of the theft.''

Article Text:

At about 8:30 Monday morning Oregon time, Dale Penn, the Marion County DA, put in a call to the home of Michael Francke's parents in Kansas. They'd been expecting it. If not today, then next week or next month. Sooner or later, someone would have to stand trial for their son's murder.

And since they'd been following the news reports out of Oregon, they weren't terribly surprised at the name Penn gave them: Frank Gable, a 30-year-old con who, before his most recent arrest last September, had been part of Salem's drug underworld.

The grand jury had returned a secret indictment against him on Friday, Penn explained. Gable had been formally charged that morning.

And then, with the preliminaries out of the way, Penn proceeded to read the indictment -- all seven counts of it.

Six of the counts, which were for aggravated murder, listed six different motives. (Under Oregon law, for a killing to be considered aggravated murder -- and therefore punishable by execution -- a motive must be declared.) The seventh, for the lesser charge of murder, simply alleged that Gable had killed Michael Francke by stabbing him.

Naturally, the Franckes were puzzled. First of all, why all the different charges?

In fact, the indictment did present a bewildering collection of possible motives, starting with Count I, which alleged that the murder was ``related to the performance of James Michael Francke's official duties.''

Count II seemed to suggest that the murder involved ``theft of property.''

Count III, ``an effort to conceal the commission of the crime of robbery.''

Count IV said it was ``to conceal the identity of the perpetrator'' of the robbery. Counts V and VI alleged that the murder was to conceal a ``theft'' or the ``identity of the perpetrator of the theft.''

Did all this mean that the prosecutors actually didn't have the slightest idea why Michael Francke was murdered? Were they simply throwing everything against the wall in hopes that something might stick?

When the question came up later that morning at the press conference, Penn dealt with it this way:

``Those are legal theories,'' he said, ``and they are alternative theories of one specific murder.''

There was really nothing odd about listing a range of motives, Penn told the press. It happens all the time in aggravated murder cases.

As he tried to explain, the ``legal theory'' is based on whatever ``someone is thinking at the time they committed the crime.''

And since it was obviously possible to think multiple thoughts, ``All of these things can be happening at the same time.''

As usual, Penn's answer was so carefully stated that unless you read carefully between the lines you couldn't know exactly what he was saying.

However, with the parents of Michael Francke, he was considerably more explicit -- and what he revealed to them this Monday is a dramatic departure from anything that has been released to date by investigators on the Francke murder.

There was, Penn said, ``evidence to suggest'' that Michael Francke was murdered for information in his car or in his briefcase. In other words, he is no longer working on the theory that the murder was a random act, committed by someone who was surprised in the act of burglarizing Francke's car.

There was, Penn told the Franckes, a ``reason this particular car was picked out.'' And that reason, he said, was that Francke had some papers or computer disks with information that would have been useful to drug dealers.

The Franckes got the impression that Penn believes that Francke might have been conducting some sort of investigation, and that some of the results of that investigation, including immunity agreements with informants, might have been in his car or briefcase. This information would have been valuable to certain unidentified drug dealers.

Specifically, the investigators now believe, Frank Gable (who says he is ``100 percent not guilty'') killed Francke while trying to rob him of this information, which he would then sell or give to these drug dealers.

Whether they believe Gable was operating on his own or on orders, Penn wouldn't say. But he did tell the Franckes that the indictment of Gable doesn't mean that the state's investigation is over.

Far from it, it now appears.