HuffPost Live aired new audio recordings from an interview with Joseph Paul Franklin, the man who confessed to shooting Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt in 1978 and has been convicted in a series of racially motivated murders.
Larry Flynt tells HuffPo Live that life in prison is a more fitting punishment for Franklin.
Flynt joined HuffPost Live to listen and respond to the recording and to continue his advocacy against the death penalty for the man whose bullet put him in a wheelchair for life.
Flynt is careful to say that though he does not support the death penalty, he is not ready to “turn the other cheek.”
Franklin is on Missouri’s Death Row, scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 20 for staking outside of a St. Louis area synagogue and firing on Jewish congregation members as they left the service.
He has been convicted of several murders, and given six life sentences, as well as a death sentence. He confessed to the attempted murders of two prominent men: Flynt in 1978, and Vernon Jordan, Jr., the civil rights activist, in 1980. Franklin has not been convicted in either of those cases.
Timeline:
- July 29, 1977: Beth Sholom synagogue in Chattanooga is firebombed. Franklin has confessed to the crime.
- August 7, 1977: dressed in cowboy regalia, Franklin fatally shot a black man and a white woman, Alphonse Manning and Toni Schwenn, while driving away from a bank robbery in Madison, Wis.
- October 8, 1977: Franklin hid in long grass behind a telegraph pole at Brith Shalom, a synagogue in Richmond Heights, Missouri and used a hunting rifle to kill Gerald Gordon and injure two others. He confessed in 1995 and was tried in 1997. He was sentenced to death.
March 6, 1978: Franklin claims he used a .44 caliber rifle to ambush Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and his lawyer Gene Reeves in Lawrenceville, Ga. In his confession, Franklin said this was in retaliation for an edition of Hustler displaying interracial sex. Flynt remains paralyzed from the waist down. Flynt has said he believes Franklin’s confession, but there were never any charges in the case. Many law enforcement agents investigating the shooting have stated they believe Franklin is the man who shot Flynt.- July 29, 1978: Franklin hid near a Pizza Hut in Chattanooga, and shot and killed Bryant Tatum with a 12-gauge shotgun. He also shot Tatum’s girlfriend, Nancy Hilton, who survived. Franklin received a life sentence for the crime.
- July 12, 1979: Taco Bell manager Harold McIver, a black man, was fatally shot through a window from 150 yards in Doraville, Ga. Franklin confessed but was not tried. Franklin said that McIver was in close contact with white women, which is why he murdered him.
- August 18, 1979: Franklin shot and killed a black man at a Burger King in Falls Church, Va. Franklin confessed to the murder.
- October 21, 1979: Franklin used a rifle to kill an interracial couple, Jesse Taylor, who was black, and Marian Bresette, in Oklahoma City. He has not been tried.
- December 5, 1979: Franklin shot and killed 15-year-old prostitute Mercedes Lynn Masters, with whom he had previously lived in Dekalb County, Ga. She had apparently told Franklin that she had black customers.
- January 8, 1980: Franklin murdered a 19-year-old black man in a long-distance rifle attack in Indianapolis. Franklin awaits trial for aggravated murder.
- January 16, 1980: Franklin shot a black man with the same rifle from 150 yards in Indianapolis. He awaits trial for aggravated murder.
- May 2, 1980: Franklin shot hitchhiker Rebecca Bergstrom with a handgun in Monroe County, Wis. He confessed in 1984.
- May 29, 1980: Franklin says he shot and seriously wounded civil rights activist and Urban League president Vernon Jordan, Jr. after seeing him with a white woman in Fort Wayne, Ind. Franklin initially denied any part in the crime and was acquitted, but later confessed.
- June 8, 1980: Franklin confessed to killing cousins Darrell Lane, 14, and Dante Evans Brown, 13, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Waiting on an overpass to shoot a racially mixed couple, he shot the boys instead. He was convicted in 1998 and received two life sentences for these murders.
- June 15, 1980: Franklin shot and killed an interracial couple, Arthur Smothers, 22, and Kathleen Mikula, 16, in Johnstown, Pa. Franklin has confessed, although Pennsylvania has not extradited and tried him.
- June 25, 1980: Franklin used a .44 Ruger pistol to kill two hitchhikers, Nancy Santomero, 19, and Vicki Durian, 26, in Pocahontas County, W. Va. He confessed to the crime in 1997, saying he picked up the white girls and decided to kill them after one said she had a black boyfriend. Jacob Beard of Florida, was convicted and imprisoned in 1993 on these charges. He was freed in 1999 and a new trial was ordered based on Franklin’s confession.
- August 20, 1980: Franklin killed two black men, Ted Fields and David Martin, near Liberty Park in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was tried on federal civil rights charges as well as state first-degree murder charges. Franklin received two life sentences for the murders.
- September 1980: Franklin escaped from police custody, but was recaptured in Florida.
Full Interview with Larry Flynt: http://huff.lv/1fBUavq
