Fatal Choice

[MUSIC] On the night of August 16th, 2009, I was returning home from vacation with my family when I received a phone call from my lieutenant who told me that there was a stabbing over on Stafford Road. When I arrived at the scene, I talked with some of the other officers, and they said that Sandra Franklin, the wife, was responsible for stabbing Dr. Franklin in the chest. I'm Detective Sergeant Andy Kelly with Bainbridge Police Department in Jug County, Ohio. She's brought back to the station by one of our officers. Her photograph is taken. From there, she was brought up to the interview room. Hi, I'm Sergeant Kelly. This is in a case of who'd done it, and she admitted that she had stabbed him, but now we needed to find out how this occurred, why it occurred. He snapped me hard in the face and knocked me in the ground. And who was the primary aggressor in this case? I loved Peter, and Peter loved me, because I'd kill you before I let you have my property. At least I thought he did. It all happened so fast. One word leads to another, and he hits me. He was in the process of attacking me. I grabbed a knife. I was not wielding it at him. He's angry, and he's sweating, and I'm backed up to the sink. Anybody in that laundry room at that time would have done the same thing. And I went and went like that. I didn't want to kill him. I hope he's not dead. It was too early at that point to draw a conclusion, but some of her story just wasn't matching up. There was no signs of any physical violence in the house. She said that she was slapped in the face, knocked to the ground. She said she had this big red mark. I didn't see it at all. There was no mark whatsoever. My intent was to just get out of a dangerous situation. She attacked him. There's no rational reason for me to do this. I don't have any motive to kill my husband. It is a case of murder. He had had the keys shocked up against my throat saying he was going to kill me. I'm not going to die. On a hot August night, 56-year-old Sandra Franklin calls police to report a violent confrontation. As paramedics and police in Bainbridge, Ohio rushed to Sandra's horse farm. Oddly, a second call comes in from the same address. What's the problem there? Stab wound. This one from the victim himself. You were stabbed with a knife who stabbed you. My wife. 73-year-old Peter Franklin. He stumbled into the backyard, bleeding heavily from a single stab wound to the chest. Did she do it intendingly? Yes. Within hours, Peter Franklin was dead, and his wife Sandra was charged with his murder. I'm absolutely not a murderer. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't cry. But what could have brought a loving relationship to this? I still love my husband. Sandra and Peter's love affair had started nine years earlier. He was just a fantastic figure of a man to me. After several failed relationships, they both felt they'd finally met the love of their lives. He was a doctor, and I love that about him too, that he was out there helping people. In fact, since his early 20s, Peter Franklin's whole life had been about helping others. He was a person who cared deeply for other people. He wanted to learn different things about different countries. Liz Franklin is Peter's first wife. They met in her home country, South Africa, while he was in the Peace Corps in the early 60s. And he also wanted to go to Vietnam to help somehow there. After the Peace Corps, Peter did go to Vietnam. Volunteering to help wounded children trapped in the war zone. The experience inspired him to become a doctor. It was Peter a good man. I think he was a very good man. He could drive your nuts, but he was a very good man. Peter Franklin was brilliant, but he could be infuriating with his detachment. Peter and Liz settled in a small town just outside of Cleveland, Ohio, where Peter started a family medical practice. In 1965, the couple had a son, Braum. Everyone called him Braumy. Tragically, while on a camping trip with his father, Braumy was killed in a freak accident while playing near an abandoned gas tank. He was just 10 years old. What impacted Braumy's death have on Peter? A huge impen. And he was very, very sad and really missed him very much. After Braumy's death, Peter and Liz drifted apart. Their 17-year-long marriage ended in divorce. When I met him, he was a kind and very generous person. Three years later, Peter met Bobby Orders, a single mom of two boys. My sons were 12 and 13. They looked up to him. If anything I could bank him for is my one son as a doctor now, any other sons and engineer. And they quite recall all the good things he did for them. He was such a good person. But like Liz, Bobby noticed there was a strange underside to Peter's personality. Could Peter be exasperating at times? He could be because he lacked the emotion and the awareness that I think a woman or most people would want. It led to their breakup. And Peter remained one of the most eligible bachelors in the county for years. Until he met Sandra. This was an amazing thing to fall so deeply in love with somebody so quickly. We would go hunting and the rest of the group couldn't find us. They were getting angry with us because we'd be dropping off and dropping off and getting lost in the woods together. It was just so spectacular. There's nothing quite like being in love. But the two of them had come from different worlds. While Peter had grown up wealthy in New York City, Sandra came from a poor family in rural Ohio. I lived in trailer parks quite a bit and my mother was a breadwinner. I was horse crazy from the time I was three. And through horses, she made a career, teaching riding to children. I just loved the interaction that I had with the kids. And it was really just a wonderful, wonderful life. A wonderful life, she hoped she'd continue with Peter. I pronounced it to your husband and wife. Only three months after their first date, Sandra became Mrs. Franklin. This was the start of something that was going to be just the best thing in my life. But the romance quickly faded. I think he has something wrong with him. He would hit me. He would pick me up and throw me. He was killer, be killed. That's right. Peter really loved his horses and I love the horses too. Yes. Peter and Sandra married in 2000, spending as much time as they could on horseback. Peter would say, someday I'd like to find my life long princess. And Sandy McDermott, Peter's office manager for nearly 20 years, says he acted as if he'd finally found his princess. He loved me with all his heart as far as I could see, early on. But soon after they were married, Sandra started taking control of Peter's life, including the office. And when she was there, she segregated Peter off to himself. Eventually, she fired McDermott and took over managing the office herself. I worked very, very hard for the office and policy making and answering the phone. Almost immediately, things began to change. In 2003, in a move to increase profits, Peter dropped his malpractice insurance. Something Sandra says she objected to. I said, "Peter, please don't do this. Just get the insurance." And to protect his wealth, in case he was ever sued, Peter transferred all of his assets worth $3 million to Sandra. He said, "I'm putting it in your name, everything." And then I protected him, and I can save that money. And there were more changes at the practice. Peter shifted from family medicine to pain management, where he prescribed powerful narcotics. I tried to talk him out of it. Sandra says Peter began dispensing an alarming amount of narcotics. And I would say, "What are you doing? This is enough to kill a horse." State drug investigators became suspicious, and in early 2009, rated Peter's office for allegedly over-prescribing pain killers. Although there were no arrests, authorities were still watching Dr. Peter Franklin. I came to fear him intensely. Sandra says the enormous stress changed Peter. He became violent. He would slap me, shake me, push me against the wall. But did that really happen? Peter's former girlfriend, Bobby Arters, has heard doubts. "You never raised a hand to you." "Never, ever raised a hand. He never raised his voice. He never showed any aggression." "They didn't know him. I knew him. I didn't know him, apparently, when I married him." By the summer of 2009, the couple was on the brink of divorce. Peter was demanding his $3 million in assets back. Sandra refused to turn them over. He says, "I want my land back. He had threatened me that if he didn't get his land back, that he was going to kill me." "The average 911 was the emergency. My name is Sandra Franklin, and my husband threatened me." Just a week before Peter's death, Sandra made this 911 call, fearing she says for her life. "They sent three policemen or four policemen, and he was escorted out of the house." Peter denied threatening Sandra, but agreed to stay in the couple's trailer. And then, on August 16, 2009, their arguing reached the boiling point. "It was a hot August day. We were in the barn, feeding horses. Peter seemed angry." "We walked into the house, and we're arguing." It was here in the hallway directly off the kitchen, says Sandra, that the argument escalated out of control. "So we're in the hallway. One word leads to another, and then he hits me. He hit me in the face. I always said, "I feel this sharp thing on my chest." Sandra says she backed away towards the kitchen, where she instinctively found something she could protect herself with. Still holding the knife, Sandra says she stumbled into the small laundry room where Peter cornered her. "And he just goes like this, and he's coming down with this metal right here, right over my head. And I'm thinking, I'm not going to let him kill me. I took my knife up and I went a short. And I winced. I closed it when I was looking up. And I winced and went like that. And he went, "Oh, oh." Bleeding internally, Peter staggers through the house toward the garage as Sandra calls 911. Peter managed to get out into the backyard where he dialed 911. Within minutes, police and paramedics arrived at the scene and took Sandra Franklin away in handcuffs. Was it self-defense? As Peter Franklin laid Dine on the grass outside his home, he made one last effort to save his own life. Trying to stop the bleeding, he clutches a bundle of clothing to his chest. Peter is a Dine man, he's catching his last press. And Dr. Peter Franklin wastes his last words on her calling 911, because he didn't think anybody was going to help him. She's not a loving wife who, "Oh my God, I made a mistake. I still love you, Peter." She called 911 from inside the house, and she didn't take any steps to help. As far as she was concerned, he was bleeding to death in that backyard, and she could care less than was going to leave him there. Jogga County prosecutors, Dave Joyce and Carly Snavely believe Sandra Franklin's 911 call was nothing more than the first step in fabricating her claim of self-defense. What do you think of Sandra's story of what she claims happened in this space? I think everything she said was a lie. Peter Karen's sweet believes Sandra was the aggressor. It came over to the laundry room to get some clothing out of the dryer, and as you stood up, he turned, and I think it was totally caught off guard. I think it was ambushed. I think Sandra was right here and just stabbed him right there in the home right here. Right there. So he had no idea this was coming? No, I think he had no clue whatsoever, because he had no defense ones. There's no blood trail. In fact, there was no blood at all in the laundry room. Sweet says that's because Dr. Franklin was holding laundry he'd taken out of the dryer when he was attacked. He had to have that laundry in his hand to apply to the wound immediately, because that was such a severe wound it would have been bleeding all over the floor. But Sandra has a different explanation. She claims that in the middle of his vicious attack on her, Peter suddenly stopped. To get his laundry. He bends over and he goes into the dryer. He opens the dryer to get his clothes. What's our scene though? In one moment you said he was attacking you and cutting you, and then he decides to do some laundry? He originally came in there in the house to get his clothes for the next day. Why would he take a break in the middle of killing someone to get laundry? That's crazy. "I feared for my life he said he was going to kill me." When Sandra was questioned at the station that night by Sergeant Andy Kelly, she was quick to point out the wounds on her arm she had suffered at the hands of her husband. "You some sharp object, I thought it was a knife, I don't know what it was, but it went like that." injury that I had noticed was some scratch marks on her left forearm. Okay, Sandra, can you sit down here for me, please? In the interview, she'll go look into the mirror and she says that there's a red mark there. It could be a hard here, it's all red. I did not observe any red mark on her face whatsoever. I'll tell you what, we'll photograph your injuries there. Later, when Sandra was photographed, police discovered another set of scratches on her chest that she never told police about in the interview. After the interview, she was placed into a holding cell by herself. And that's when I believe that she caused these scratches to herself. I think she was sitting in that jail cell going, "Oh crap, I'd better get some more injuries on me if I'm going to get a self-defense case." And then he put it in somebody's room and I'm going to kill you. In the police interrogation, Sandra never identified exactly what the sharp object was that Peter used to leave those marks. And investigators never found that weapon at the scene. The only thing that the metal object that was located was the 12-inch butcher knife that Sandra had used to stab Dr. Franklin. But when she returned home after making bail, Sandra claims she found this sharp object, the key chain and two-inch pen knife, which she turned over to her lawyers. This is a pen knife that was found nowhere on the crime scene. Why shouldn't we believe that at that moment, you sucker punched this guy, sucker knifed him and you murdered him. Because that's not what happened. Because I don't have any motive to kill my husband. But according to investigators, Sandra had plenty of motive. In a divorce, she stood to lose $3 million worth of Peter's assets that he had signed over to her and was now demanding back. She wouldn't ever plus $60,000 a year job and house and in the benefits it came with being the doctor's wife. She's back to Sandra Franklin, 57 years old and basically a barn hean. There was also the matter of the ongoing drug investigation into Dr. Franklin's highly profitable pain management practice. Police documents show Sandra was also a target of the investigation. Do you believe that Sandra was using Dr. Franklin to raise all this cash? She encouraged him to get into this illegal drug business. I do. And Sandra stood to get even more money. With Peter out of the picture, she would collect on his million dollar life insurance policy. That policy was due to end in two weeks and because they were divorcing, the likelihood of him throwing at another $20,000 cash to renew that policy was probably mill. It was one of those things where all of a sudden there was a million dollars out there and he was worth more to her dead than alive. She saw her little world starting to turn and as the water is going down the drain, she didn't want to be part of it and I think she worked herself up into this frenzy and eventually she exploded and had explosion unfortunately was his death. Just nine months after Peter's death, Sandra's trial is set to begin. Sandra Franklin purposely caused the death of her husband, Peter S. Franklin. They wanted to charge her with murder, they did charge her with murder. Her attorney, Steve Bell, is confident about her defense. Mrs. Franklin's only intent on August 16, 2009 was to defend herself not one minute was spent by the Bainbridge Police Department trying to understand what she had been through, to embarrassment, the law enforcement. She's not a murderer. She didn't murder her husband. Do you have a dark curiosity? Heart starts pounding, horror's hauntings and mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me and Kaelin Moore. Each week I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwards horror and more. So if you're looking to join a passionate community of the Darkly Curious, check out Heart Starts pounding on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay curious. You know, it's been a horrible nightmare and the only time I can truly forget about my troubles is to be on a horse. As her trial starts, Sandra Franklin is confident she will be acquitted of murdering her husband. It's a beautiful day, you're good. I'm going to get through this. If Sandra is convicted, she could spend the rest of her life in prison. This case is about murder. Prosecutor David Joyce waste no time getting to the grizzly details of Peter's death. Sandra Franklin, the 12-inch butcher knife, and pushed a 4.5 inches into her husband's chest. We're going to talk during this trial about who the aggressor was in this fight. That aggressor, defense attorney Steve Bell argues, was Peter Franklin, and Sandra had no choice but to defend herself. She believed during that struggle with Dr. Franklin that she was about to suffer death or serious physical harm. Sergeant Andy Kelly, who interrogated Sandra only hours after Peter was fatally stabbed, takes the stand. How many homicide cases have you investigated? This would be probably the first. Bell zeroes in on Sergeant Kelly's inexperience. You some sharp object, I thought it was a knife. Focusing on the sharp object, the weapon that Sandra says Peter attacked her with. Did you tell any of the Bainbridge officers to please be on the lookout for any sharp shiny object? I know I did that. They were not interested in finding the shiny object, because for minute one, they had decided that Sandra Franklin committed murder, not that Sandra Franklin had acted in self-defense. Steve Bell introduces that shiny object, Peter's keys and pen knife, which Sandra says she found days after his death. We swabbed this item and tested it for blood. Defense witness Dr. Julie Heinegg says her lab found Sandra's blood and DNA all over the key chain and knife. The only way that could have happened is if Peter had been using that knife in the struggle that Sandra has described. Her blood was the only blood that you detected on a small pen knife. But prosecutors argue that Sandra herself could have tampered with the key ring and pen knife before she turned it over to her lawyers. Certainly Mrs. Franklin could have scratched herself, placed her blood on there, and sent it down to you and say, hey, can you test this for me? Yeah, we only know what happened to the correct. Okay. This pen knife, do you think this is all just a bunch of nonsense? I don't doubt for a minute that it was manufactured. But that little pen knife, according to Steve Bell, is the weapon that caused the wounds on Sandra's arms and chest. I think the most direct explanation for the jury is simply to use something that looks like human skin. It is decidedly a lethal weapon. So they're the cuts on the melon that you just made. They're the cuts on the arm. They're almost identical. This is the knife that was used to make those cuts. And to make his point, Dr. Wecht, I've handed you a small utility knife. Bell brings in renowned pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht, well known for his expert testimony in the deaths of JFK, Elvis Presley, and John Boney Ramsey. And are the abrasions on Mrs. Franklin's chest also consistent with wounds that could have been caused by that utility knife? Yes. Jury here. The defense then calls on doctors and therapists to discuss Peter's alleged physical abuse of Sandra over the previous years, though she filed no police reports to support her claims. She told me that she was hitting the head with a clipboard by her husband. A complaint of being struck in the left side of the face by her husband. Would you raise your right hand? The prosecution attempts to counter the portrayal of Peter by calling his ex-wife Liz to the stand. He could get angry, but never dangerously angry. She's traveled all the way from South Africa to testify. He never did anything to hurt me or anything like that. He certainly never felt inferior to him. No, never, never. Sandra never takes the stand, but Bell plays the police video of Sandra describing her husband's alleged attack. And he hit me and knocked me to the floor. Then you went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. The knife was just right there on the counter. I took one knife up and I went a short and I winced. But you're a song. a very different version in the police video. "No! I'm like that!" She drove that knife into his chest with a no force to cut through bone. In closing, Prosecutor Carly Snavily argues that whatever ignited the fatal confrontation between Peter and Sandra, it was not a fair fight. "Even if you believe every word out of the defendant's mouth, if this is not disproportionate, I don't know what is." This thing in the hands of an angry physician who knew where to cut, knew where to kill, going to kill you, bitch. Going to kill you, bitch. Need to put yourself in the shoes of Sandy Frank on that night. What did she see? What did she feel? What did she fear? It came in right at his heart. But Prosecutor Joyce leaves the jury with a very different scenario. "She takes this knife. She says she's hiding it somewhere in this area. And this poor guy is walking out with his laundry on his way, telling me, "I've had enough. I'm done with you." That she says, "No, you're not." Didn't happen, right Sandra? Yeah. After a four-day trial, the jury begins deliberating. Sandra Franklin returns to her horse farm, wondering if this is the last time she'll be free to ride. "I don't want to ever lose what I have here. I don't think that I would do well in prison." "You have any plans or have any thought that far ahead?" "If I'm fully acquitted, I'd like to take a little vacation." The night before her case goes to the jury, Sandra spends what might be one of her last moments of freedom at home with her friends. "I don't know if I'm any more anxious now than I ever was. You know, it's been coming on for such a long time." "You're innocent and you should be exonerated, immediate." "I couldn't wait until that moment comes around." "Well, I'll fix that. I'll fix it up." "There we go." "Salutes." The next morning, bullsides converge on the courthouse. "Good morning." "Good morning, everybody." Unsure of what the day will bring. "Jury's been out about four and a half hours. They appear to be having some internal disagreements. There are no rules for how they do these things and it's just amazing that it ever gets done." Day one, no verdict. "We put on the best case we could put on for the state of Ohio. We let 12 people decide whether or not they're self-defense issues here or whether or not we proved our case." As day two begins, there is nothing to do but wait. "I'm terrified. Any moment these people could come up with a verdict that could be not favorable to me and it's very scary." Finally, after nine more hours of deliberation, the jury returns to the courtroom with the verdict. "The verdict forms all in turn to be completed. The indictment reads as follows. We the jury find a defendant's son to eat Franklin guilty of the extensive murder." Guilty. "Count 2. Sandra is stunned." "Thank you. The jury is discharged." Then, as the jury leaves the courtroom, she lashes out. "Shame on you all." A defiant Sandra is taken into custody. "I've been at trial. I don't know how they came up with that verdict. They are wrong. I mean, take my innocence forever." "Very disappointed, obviously. It's a shock. I have to say I had a real loss to explain what the jury had on its mind. She's strong. She's tough and she'll get through it. She has to." And, of course, it's called to order this morning. Will the defense please rise and advise of any reason why the sentencing should not proceed? Three weeks later, "I don't think you should proceed with sentencing because I am innocent of all charges." Sandra finally speaks out in court, determined to go down fighting and using Peter's final call for help to do it. "That is an I-1-1 call when the operator asked him if there had been an argument and he replied, she won. And what did I win? I won my life. Fair and square, I won my life." I think it's disgusting that someone can say that they won their life by killing their husband. I don't believe she showed one bit of remorse. "You sent me to prison for the rest of my life. For grabs, I didn't commit." "And when I go to that steel and the stone south, I'll be taking a little piece of every one of you in this courtroom with me." Sandra's plea is in vain. "The defendant should be imprisoned and stay penal institution for an indefinite term of 15 years to life." Judge David Fury gives her the mandatory sentence. This time, as she's led out of the courthouse, her anger has turned to despair. In one moment of conflict, two lives were lost. All that remains, the possessions Sandra and Peter were fighting so bitterly over are now being auctioned off to the highest bidder. "I'm really sad about the whole thing." Peter's ex-wife, Liz Franklin, sees the vindication as bitter sweet. "It's a waste of her life, it's a waste of his life. Nobody's winning, you know, it's not a winning thing and it doesn't bring Peter back. But I'm glad he's been vindicated and that he's not this once said that she made him out to be." In a graveyard outside of town, Peter Franklin has been reunited with his beloved lost son. His ashes were spread over Brahmi's grave. Now streaming, from Executive Producer Kim Kardashian, and the producers of Love Island's USA, baseball and spot-style go hand in hand. "Games or intense parents can also be very intense." A new, unscripted series about the parents behind Elite Youth baseball, "This is going to stop. Let the games begin." Team Mom's baseball, new series now streaming only on Paramount Plus.