Original subtitles

ANNOUNCER: This program is about unsolved mysteries.

Whenever possible, the actual family members

and police officials have participated

in recreating the events.

What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.

ROBERT STACK: Chicago, the 1930s.

Notorious mobster Al Capone ruled the city

until a young treasury agent named Eliot Ness brought down

his empire as a leader of the immortal crime-busting unit,

The Untouchables.

But after his success in Chicago,

Eliot Ness encountered the one criminal

he could not bring to justice, a fiendish serial killer who

may have claimed as many as 30 victims.

Join us for this special segment,

Eliot Ness' unsolved mystery.

Also, the controversial murder case of prison

reformer Michael Francke.

Shortly before he died, Francke began

to collect information about corruption

in the Oregon prison system.

In 1989, he was found stabbed to death just outside his office.

Did someone want Michael Francke silenced permanently?

In September, 1989, three-month-old Ryan Stallings

was hospitalized in critical condition, the apparent victim

of poisoning.

Three days later, Ryan died.

His mother, Patty Stallings, was charged with murder

and subsequently convicted.

Patty and her husband insist that Ryan

died from a rare genetic disorder, which

now plagues their second child.

The prosecutor, however, maintains that she is guilty.

Join me as we examine this controversial case,

the final appeal of Patty Stallings.

[theme music]

[music playing]

Chicago, 1929.

Prohibition was the law of the land.

With alcohol illegal, speakeasies

sprung up on every street corner and every alleyway.

Bootlegging and police corruption were rampant.

An aggressive 26-year-old treasury agent

was hired to smash the gangland rackets that gripped the city.

His name, Eliot Ness.

After crushing Capone in Chicago,

Eliot Ness became one of the most respected

lawmen in the country.

When I portrayed Ness on television,

I learned that, like many well-known figures,

there was a secret private side to his public persona.

Those who knew him agree that his iron-willed quiet

countenance cloaked a fearless determination

to wipe out corruption.

But he is also a man who was not above bending the law himself

to bring a criminal to justice.

After The Untouchables, Ness went

on to encounter the one case he could not crack,

a case which would haunt him for the rest of his life.

September, 1934.

Mr. Ness!

ROBERT STACK: Eliot Ness came to Cleveland, Ohio

as public safety director, a position

comparable to a modern day police commissioner.

- --here in Cleveland? - Police corruption.

ROBERT STACK: When Ness arrived, Cleveland

was a known safe haven for gangsters and street criminals.

Over the next year, arrests went up and crime went down.

But there was another evil afoot in the city

which would soon overshadow Ness' primary mandate.

Two boys playing in Kingsbury Run come across these.

Two bodies, both decapitated.

ROBERT STACK: In September of 1935,

the mutilated bodies of two men were found in Kingsbury Run,

a slum district swarming with hobos,

prostitutes, and street toughs.

Keep me posted.

Will do.

ROBERT STACK: At the time, the case

was dismissed as a vicious, but routine, double homicide.

By the summer of 1936, three more bodies had been found.

A discovery of a sixth victim that fall

threw Cleveland into an uproar.

Mr. Ness, a body's been found under the bridge.

Two kids found it.

Coroner's been here.

Nothing's been moved.

It's been here about five hours.

STEVEN NICKEL: When number six turned up,

it was like a bombshell going off.

The city really exploded.

The press and the public now had no doubts

that there was a serial killer out there,

that this individual was going to keep killing,

and they wanted it stopped.

ROBERT STACK: The body count in the Kingsbury Run area

would eventually reach 12.

As many as 18 other murders in greater Cleveland

were thought to be connected to the case.

The killer primarily stalked society's outcasts

and vagrants.

Men as well as women fell prey.

Only two of the victims were ever positively identified,

Edward Andrassy, a small-time hood, and Florence Polillo,

a 41-year-old prostitute.

All the victims had been decapitated, in some cases

while they were still alive.

Five were found floating in water, the blood drained

completely out of their bodies.

The tabloids dubbed the killer The Butcher of Kingsbury

Run and The Torso Slayer.

Mr. Ness, we found the body late this morning.

The arms and legs have been cut off.

Scene of the crime.

The men are still looking.

Decapitated?

Yes, sir.

Looks like the same killer.

We're having trouble keeping the crowd back.

STEVEN NICKEL: Ness got into the case quite extensively.

In fact, he devoted almost full time to it.

But at the same time, there's also sort of an uneasiness

with Ness about this.

He didn't know quite how to proceed with this case.

It wasn't a matter of finding out where the brewery was

and where the mobsters were hiding

and go and smash away into the place.

This was a different type of criminal

that Eliot Ness was facing.

The bodies were kept for about, oh, I'd say six months.

We have no idea who they are.

But it certainly was a skillful dissection.

The murderer was probably--

OSCAR FRALEY: Eliot had made a profile that he figured

the killer might be, and he determined

that it had to be somebody, from the way

these bodies were cut up, with a certain amount

of medical knowledge.

Plus the fact, it had to be a very strong man

to carry these bodies all over and dump them where he did.

So he had this profile.

It has to be a big man, strong, an expert with a scalpel.

ROBERT STACK: Ness had reached an impasse.

He was determined to search every dwelling in Kingsbury Run

but had no legal grounds to square out search warrants.

The solution was vintage Eliot Ness.

Afternoon, ma'am.

We're with the Cleveland Fire Department.

We're conducting fire safety inspections.

ROBERT STACK: He cleverly skirted the need for warrants

by pairing detectives with fire officials

and ordering widespread safety inspections.

Move along.

Yes?

STEVEN NICKEL: There was a thought among Ness

and other police officers that they were going

to find this laboratory that was going

to have blood-splattered walls and have arms and legs lying

over in a corner and maybe a cache

of heads in another corner.

That's what they were looking for,

and Ness' men spent almost a full week searching almost

every place, almost every apartment, every dwelling they

could find in that area, and they weren't

able to turn up a thing.

ROBERT STACK: Ness next pinpointed

every doctor and hospital worker in Cleveland.

There he is. Let's go.

ROBERT STACK: Even the county coroner

was not above suspicion.

Hey, buddy.

Hold it right there.

ROBERT STACK: Hundreds of people were put under surveillance,

questioned, and detained.

I-- I fell asleep, caught a few hours.

Where were you at today?

What are you doing in Cleveland?

I'm in town on business.

What business?

I'm a salesman.

I-- I sell surgical supplies--

ROBERT STACK: The investigations still led nowhere.

I come up two to three times a month.

ROBERT STACK: The killer remained at large.

What were you doing in Kingsbury Run Wednesday night?

ROBERT STACK: And the case began to consume Eliot Ness.

I usually go out and hit a couple of bars, have a drink.

ROBERT STACK: In August of 1938, victims number 11 and 12

were found, the last scattered in a rubbish heap

just 200 yards from Eliot Ness' office.

STEVEN NICKEL: It was evident after the last two bodies were

found that the killer was now becoming more

daring by where he left the bodies, right, really,

under Eliot Ness' window.

And it was almost like it was a cat

and mouse game and sort of "catch me if you can"

type thing.

They were bragging Cleveland was now one of the safest

cities in the United States except for the killer,

who was still chopping off heads and cutting up bodies

and all this kind of stuff.

And he knew he had to do something desperate

because the people were clamoring.

All the people in town were insane about this insanity

that was going on.

And they were frightened.

They were scared to death.

ROBERT STACK: The storm of public criticism

drove Ness to take drastic measures.

Less than 48 hours after the discovery of victims number

11 and 12, the police descended upon Kingsbury Run's hobo

jungles.

He rounded up more than 60 transients,

hoping that the killer might be among them.

STEVEN NICKEL: This was his old Untouchables style of raid,

where you know where the bad guy is and you go in and get him.

He really thought that this might work.

And at the very least, he could remove some of the people

that the killer was preying on.

But it completely backfired for him.

There was a great wave of public opinion

that this was the act of a desperate man

and that his tactics had been brutal,

and they didn't really solve anything.

ROBERT STACK: In a final, radical attempt

to stop the slaughter, Ness ordered the shantytown

burned to the ground.

Of those arrested that night, none

turned out to be the killer.

After the shantytown was destroyed,

the murders in Cleveland mysteriously stopped,

but the case was not over for Eliot Ness.

He remained bitter and dissatisfied.

According to some experts, he was all the more

frustrated by the fact he believed he knew the killer's

identity but could never come up with enough evidence

to make an arrest.

Ness' suspect belonged to a prominent Cleveland family.

In 1938, the man had himself committed

to a state mental institution.

OSCAR FRALEY: Ness believed that he had caught the killer

primarily because after this man committed

himself to a mental hospital, the killings stopped.

And he said, I am certain this is the man that

fits the profile and I'm sure that this is the bird who

was doing all these killings.

It's pretty clear that if Ness had accused this man, whose

family was socially prominent, he could have been libelous

and been sued, and he was a very cautious guy as far as covering

the letter of the law.

ROBERT STACK: Incredibly, more than 10 years later, Eliot Ness

received a number of postcards from a patient

in a mental institution, taunting him with references

to the brutal slayings.

OSCAR FRALEY: The man who was sending in these postcards

might have just been another kook,

but he was convinced that he had found the guy.

ROBERT STACK: Eliot Ness never fully

recovered from his disappointment

in being unable to close the case.

He resigned as public safety director in 1942.

Five years later, he ran for mayor of Cleveland.

When questioned about the Torso Slayings during the campaign,

Ness enigmatically replied, that case has been solved.

Eliot Ness lost the election by a landslide and left Cleveland.

He never returned to law enforcement.

Next, a young mother convicted of murder

wins her final appeal.

[music playing]

July 9, 1989, St. Louis, Missouri.

A young mother rushed her critically ill son

to Cardinal Glennon Hospital.

The baby was 3-month-old Ryan Stallings

from nearby Jefferson County.

Since birth, he had suffered from chronic gastric distress.

How long has your baby been breathing like this?

Stay here.

We're gonna take the baby--

ROBERT STACK: On the day Ryan was brought to the emergency

room, his breathing had become extremely labored

and he was vomiting uncontrollably.

Ryan was immediately placed in the pediatric intensive care

unit.

He was hooked up to a respirator

and all kinds of tubes going in and out of him.

And it was awful.

It was just a shock to see a little baby

incapacitated the way he was.

It was to a point where they said they don't know

how long he's going to be here.

We don't know what's wrong with him

yet, so you might as well just go to the waiting room

and stay out there until we can tell you what's wrong.

Hi, Mr. Stallings?

Yes, sir.

I'm Dr. Bailey, chief of pediatrics.

I'm happy to see you.

This is Mrs. Jurgensen, a family surgeon--

ROBERT STACK: David and Patty Stallings

rented a room with the hospital to be near their son.

After three agonizing days, the Stallings learned

that Ryan would recover.

Ryan's fine.

There are no problems there.

ROBERT STACK: The diagnosis, however, was stunning.

Ryan had apparently been poisoned.

When the lab tests came back, we

found a couple of substances.

Those substances were ethyl glycol and acetone.

Ethyl glycol is the substance that you'll find in radiator

antifreeze, and acetone is in fingernail polish remover,

for example.

DAVID STALLINGS: He goes, do you have any in the house?

I said, yeah, Patty uses it on her fingernails to remove

her old fingernail polish.

He goes, well, that's got acetone in it.

I said, OK.

He said, do you have antifreeze?

I said, yes, I have antifreeze.

I just rebuilt a radiator on my vehicle

and I had a partial gallon left in the basement.

He says, well, that's what we're saying he may have gotten.

Do you happen to know how he could have gotten it?

They were very polite, yet suspicious.

They would not allow us to see Ryan alone.

There would have to be at least two nurses or a doctor present.

We were never allowed to be on his bedside alone.

That bothered me, but I still didn't

understand because I wasn't looking at it

the way they were, I guess.

Just have to ask you a few questions, if you

could come in for a moment?

Sure.

David, you have a seat.

I'll come get you in a minute.

ROBERT STACK: That same day, the police

were brought in to investigate.

PATRICIA STALLINGS: We were split

up and talked to by detectives.

And then that's when I knew because they

immediately started asking me, well,

is there a problem at home?

Are you and David fighting?

They were saying that they knew that that baby had

been poisoned by either me or my husband.

It infuriated me.

And I was just--

I was devastated.

I was blown away.

I just could not believe that they could even think--

I mean, Ryan was my world.

He was so beautiful.

He was perfect.

ROBERT STACK: Ryan's condition improved.

After 12 days, he was released from the hospital

but not to the custody of his parents.

DAVID STALLINGS: A social worker came up to us

and told us that they were taking custody of Ryan from us.

And at that point, I became very angry.

Why are you doing this to us, is what I told her.

And she said, well, this is policy.

When there's a suspected poisoning,

we take children from the parents

and put them in foster care.

That's a boy.

ROBERT STACK: Patty and David's contact with Ryan

was severely restricted.

They were allowed only a one-hour visit

each week on Thursdays.

DAVID STALLINGS: Ryan knew, when we met him the first time,

he was so happy to see both of us again.

He just smiled the biggest smile you could ever

possibly see in a baby's face.

And we were just totally in love with our child.

We were so glad that we finally were able to see him again.

I just could not wait till Thursday.

My whole week I would tell everybody

over and over and over how last Thursday went,

and that was my life.

Thursday.

Thursday morning.

ROBERT STACK: For five weeks, the parental visits continued.

During the sixth visit, Patty was left alone

with Ryan for a short time.

Three days later, Ryan would suffer another severe attack

of vomiting.

Once again, he would be rushed to the hospital.

Once again, the diagnosis would be poisoning.

I have a warrant for your arrest.

A what?

I've got to take her in now.

PATRICIA STALLINGS: We were getting out of the car

and they said, stop right there.

I turned around and I was like, well, come on into the house,

and they said, no, you're not allowed to go into the house.

They immediately slapped handcuffs on me and said,

you're under arrest for assault.

Can't you just wait for a minute?

Watch your step, please.

Come on! Wait!

Give me five minutes! Come on!

You gotta!

At the station.

We don't have five.

ROBERT STACK: Patty Stallings was booked on charges

of poisoning her infant son.

PATRICIA STALLINGS: I knew it wasn't true.

I didn't care what they thought.

I just thought, you know, I'll be home in a couple hours.

This will be over with.

I'll get to go be with Ryan.

And then the day turned into a night,

and then it got really serious.

I got really scared.

ROBERT STACK: While Patty languished in jail,

her son was dying.

Ryan was placed on life support systems.

David Stallings found himself trapped in a private hell.

DAVID STALLINGS: The doctors come up to me

and tell me that they have a feeling that Ryan's not going

to make it and that maybe I should

get in contact with a minister and have him baptized and that.

I tried to get Patty up there, and all I got from the judge

was no, absolutely not.

I'm not going to let a baby killer up there.

And I said, this lady did not kill this baby.

And when they finally come back to me

and told me that we need to know if we can turn him off,

I told them, all right, go ahead and shut the machine down,

but I wanted to be in there with him.

So for three hours, I sat there with him in my arms,

knowing that Patty couldn't be there,

watching this meter on this machine

go down each time his heart would beat.

It was hard.

It's something I would never ask anybody ever to do.

Approximately about 6:30, the doctor came in

and she shut the machine down so I could not

see any more of his heart rate.

She took him from me and said, it's over with.

He's gone.

They call me back about 9 o'clock that night

and I went up to the phone and it was David's voice,

and he told me he died.

And I started begging that he could come up and see me

and the deputy on duty said he could.

So--

ROBERT STACK: Ryan Stallings died on September 7, 1989.

He was not yet six months old.

His mother Patty was now charged with first-degree murder

and held without bail.

She was not allowed to attend Ryan's funeral.

A few weeks later, Patty Stallings discovered

she was pregnant again.

For six months, she remained incarcerated,

subject to a battery of mental fitness tests.

On February 27, 1990, David Stallings,

Jr. was born at a Madison County hospital.

Even though David Stallings, Sr. was not a suspect

and had been charged with no crime at all,

he is not allowed to take David, Jr. home with him.

The baby became a ward of the state

and was placed in foster care.

Ironically, this devastating blow would turn out

to be a stroke of good fortune.

Without it, Patty and David Stallings

might have been accused of poisoning their second son.

When David Stallings, Jr. was two weeks old,

he began to exhibit symptoms identical to the ones that

had plagued his brother Ryan.

The St. Louis Children's Hospital

diagnosed David's illness as a rare genetic disorder,

methylmalonic acidemia, or MMA, in which the body produces

chemical byproducts that may be remarkably

similar to the ethylene glycol found in antifreeze.

"Unsolved Mysteries" contacted an independent medical expert

about MMA.

STEPHEN CEDERBAUM: It would be very simple to confuse

the diagnosis of MMA with multiple poisonings

because the symptoms are very similar.

But more importantly than that, MMA and other similar disorders

are very rare, and the majority of doctors

either will never have seen a case,

or if they have seen a case, didn't know that they saw

it and actually confused it.

ROBERT STACK: While prosecutors re-evaluated

the medical evidence, Patty Stallings

was released from jail.

Pending the outcome of the investigation,

Patty was denied visitation rights with David, Jr.

I thought it was over as far as the nightmare of being

accused of hurting Ryan.

I was positive that it was.

Even my lawyer said it was over.

There was no way that they could not see the truth

right in front of their eyes.

ROBERT STACK: Jefferson County officials

continued to pursue the case.

The prosecution's position was that Ryan Stallings

had not died from MMA.

In the judge's chambers, they cited four expert witnesses.

But Your Honor, I did.

ROBERT STACK: Patty's his lawyer presented no expert opinions.

The judge agreed with the prosecution.

Neither David Stallings, Jr. nor the symptoms

he shared with Ryan were allowed to be presented

as evidence at Patty's trial.

We were concerned that if it came out

that David, Jr., or Ryan for that matter,

had this methylmalonic acidosis, unless it could be shown

that he actually died of that or it was

some kind of a contributing factor to his death,

we believe that that would not be relevant,

and in fact might cause the jury to go off on a wild goose chase

and make a decision based on something

that's really not relevant.

First cases in the family are often missed,

and it's only when it reoccurs again

that the medical practitioners are tipped off to the fact

that this may well be a genetic disorder

and maybe the first child had that, as well.

ROBERT STACK: Without the medical testimony,

the case against Patty Stallings seemed virtually airtight.

The prosecution focused on the events

of Thursday, August 31, 1989, Patty and David's

sixth parental visit with Ryan.

DAVID STALLINGS: On the sixth visit,

my parents were invited for the first time.

And then about 20 minutes into the visit,

my mom and dad decided they were gonna

go ahead and leave and let Patty and I have

the rest of the time with him.

We'll be right back, Patty.

OK.

DAVID STALLINGS: So I escorted my mom and dad out of the room,

walked down to the hall.

I was out of the room no more than 45 seconds at the most.

GEORGE MCELROY: On one visit, Patricia

was left alone with the child anywhere from about three

minutes to about eight minutes and, during that time,

did actually feed the child a bottle.

The child, again, got the same symptoms

he had before, came back into to the hospital,

was diagnosed with ethylene glycol poisoning.

At that time, a number of bottles

were also examined for possible traces.

And while there were negative effects in all the bottles

but one, one bottle, which was identified as the bottle she

had fed the baby with, actually contained

traces of ethylene glycol.

That bottle had actually been prepared by the foster mother

and retrieved from the baby bag during a visit,

but the state believes, and certainly

circumstantial evidence suggests, that she slipped

ethylene glycol or antifreeze into the bottle

during that feeding.

What they were trying to say was

she started feeding him before anybody got in there,

and that's wrong.

That's incorrect.

What happened was I walked back to the cubbyhole

where Patty was with Ryan.

He just started getting a little cranky

and so I reached into the bag and took the baby bottle out

and started feeding him.

I saw the bottle.

I did not smell.

I did not see any discoloration in the bottle whatsoever.

There was nothing done to that bottle, absolutely nothing.

ROBERT STACK: According to Patty's lawyers,

Ryan's symptoms did not appear until three and a half days

after the visit.

I would be amazed if something as volatile and as easily

diffusible as ethylene glycol would

require 80 hours in order to cause

symptoms in the young child.

I believe it would have to happen a lot faster than that.

And therefore, it seems much less probable

that this was a poisoning.

Ryan was taken from the visit by the DFS worker

to the foster parents' home, but later that day--

actually, early the next morning,

was taken to what we call respite home,

temporary foster parents who kept him just for the weekend.

The second set of foster parents,

not knowing what the child was like,

may well have overlooked symptoms that the first set

would have seen.

Defendant will rise and face the court.

On count one, assault with a deadly weapon, the court

finds you guilty as charged.

On count two, murder in the first degree, the court

finds you guilty as charged.

ROBERT STACK: On March 4, 1991, Patty Stallings

was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility

of parole.

Her son David, Jr. is now one year old.

Patty has seen him only three times--

twice just after his birth, a third time

when he was a week old.

Each visit was limited to one hour.

David Stallings, Sr. is allowed to see his son once a week.

DAVID STALLINGS: I cannot see how they can live with

themselves knowing that they sent an innocent

woman to jail the rest of her life for something

that she didn't do.

If Ryan would have been correctly diagnosed with MMA,

none of this would have happened.

None of these series of events in the last two years

would have happened.

It all depended on whether he was correctly

diagnosed, which he was not.

I truly do believe in the system,

and I think that when 12 people heard the evidence

and they returned a verdict that they did,

that it's the right verdict.

If it's not the right verdict, they've

already started the ball rolling in the appellate procedures.

And if there is a problem or if new evidence does come up which

could link Ryan's death to MMA, well,

certainly it will, and should be, retried.

But in the meantime, I'm comfortable with it.

I've lost one child to MMA.

My second child is stricken with MMA and may not live.

He's a year old now and they're still

not sure how to treat him.

I lost my freedom.

I've lost everything.

On the night this story aired, calls from physicians

familiar with MMA poured into our telecenter.

Patty Stallings' new attorneys petitioned the court

to grant her another trial based on the fact

that she had previously received ineffectual counsel.

On July 30, 1991, Patty Stallings

was granted a new trial and released from prison.

PATRICIA STALLINGS: After the "Unsolved Mysteries" aired,

people were writing and calling and just wanted

to know, how can we help?

And I can't thank those people enough because through all

of that, wheels started turning and everything just started

pushing forward really fast.

Along with Ryan's remaining serum--

ROBERT STACK: On September 20, 1991,

a press conference was held in St. Louis.

Dr. Piero Rinaldo of Yale University

revealed that independent serum tests showed Ryan Stallings

had definitely died of MMA.

Consequently, the prosecuting attorney dropped all charges

against Patty Stallings.

Unfortunately, we can't undo the suffering

that the Stallings have endured during this entire ordeal,

and I apologize to them both personally

and for the state of Missouri.

ROBERT STACK: During the press conference,

Patty and David heard for the first time

that custody of their son, DJ, had been returned to them.

In October of 1991, just over two

years after his brother's death, DJ

came home for the first time.

I just want to make up for the year and a half

that we didn't have him.

It's hard to make up that much time,

but I'm doing the best I can.

Beep, beep.

PATRICIA STALLINGS: His condition is very scary,

but we've tackled so many hard things

that we've just kind of said, well, we'll beat this, too.

And with that attitude, I know that DJ will do all right

and that we'll do OK.

He is a miracle child and we're lucky to have DJ.

And we have our whole life back.

It's like we're starting over.

It's indescribably wonderful.

ROBERT STACK: When we return, a prison reformer

is murdered outside his office in Salem, Oregon.

His family believes he may have been

assassinated to keep him quiet.

[music playing]

In February, 1980, the New Mexico

State Penitentiary in Santa Fe was

rocked by a violent uprising.

By the time order was restored, 33 prisoners had died

at the hands of fellow inmates.

New Mexico's scandal-plagued penal system became

front-page news across America.

State Deputy Attorney General Michael Francke

was brought in to investigate the riots

and revamp the prison system.

--you develop a calcified resistance

to change among your--

ROBERT STACK: Francke, a former college

football star and ex-Navy commander,

achieved dramatic results.

In New Mexico, he was a man of the hour,

and his reforms gained national recognition.

PATRICK FRANCKE: Mike was very much

his own man, not a follower in any sense of the word.

He loved making decisions.

He liked tackling difficult problems.

He had a very quick mind.

ROBERT STACK: Michael Francke's growing reputation soon

brought him a new challenge.

In 1987, the governor of Oregon asked

Francke to take over his state's troubled prison system.

JIM HILL: Michael Francke was the best

selection that the governor made in all of his new appointments.

And I think we all felt that there

was going to be some very, very good things

happening and corrections.

We were all excited about him, and I really

can't tell you just how much of a shock

it was when he was murdered.

ROBERT STACK: Tragically, on January 17, 1989,

Michael Francke's distinguished career

came to an abrupt, violent end.

He was found stabbed to death just outside his office

building in Salem, Oregon.

Before he died, Michael Francke told his family

that he was in the midst of a top secret investigation that

would detail corruption in the Oregon prison system,

particularly drug trafficking.

He apparently planned to name names

and implicate several highly-placed government

officials.

The district attorney believes Michael Francke fell

victim to a robbery gone wrong.

But Francke family is convinced he was assassinated.

They think someone wanted Michael Francke silenced

and his findings on the Oregon prison

system suppressed forever.

BOB MERCHANT: The three main criminal activities

that I observed working in corrections

was the introduction of drugs into the institution,

falsifying of records, and thefts of state property.

Basically, anything that was not nailed down

was subject to be stolen.

There was a constant flow of drugs being

brought into the institutions.

One of the most common ways was staff bringing them

in in their own lunch buckets because there

was no searches being conducted on staff as they

entered or left the facility.

I was told by my superiors to keep

my mouth shut and mind my own business

or I'd be looking for a job.

When Mike came in, he's got a "good old boy"

system to contend with.

A lot of these guys have been here for 20 or 30 years.

The system has run the way they want it to run for that.

So here comes some guy from out of state

who has all these high-minded ideas about what

he's going to do, and it just rubbed a lot of them

the wrong way.

ROBERT STACK: Michael Francke gathered what some believed

was concrete evidence, confirming that the state

prison system contained corrupt elements reaching

all the way to the top.

By the end of 1988, he was conducting an

intense personal investigation.

Michael Francke knew he was juggling

political dynamite that could blow

up in his face at any moment.

KEVIN FRANCKE: He had uncovered a lot of organized crime.

And I said, do you mean like the mafia?

And he said, no, an organized criminal element in the system,

and that he was going to do a thorough house cleaning

immediately after the first of the year

and that his quote was, a lot of heads were going to roll.

And he said it may cost him his job.

[phone ringing]

Hello.

WOMAN (ON PHONE): Hi, Mike.

Who's this? WOMAN (ON PHONE): This is Katie.

How are you?

Katie!

How you doing?

KATIE FRANCKE: On January 13, I called Michael

and he said that he was going to go

before the legislature and clean house the following Wednesday.

Well, you did that in New Mexico.

You cleaned house before.

Yeah, I know, Katie, but this is different.

It seems I really ruffled some feathers today--

KATIE FRANCKE: He was very, very concerned.

And I think he had uncovered something far bigger

than he expected.

ROBERT STACK: Four days later, Michael Francke

was found murdered on a side porch of his office building.

Police quickly began to piece together

the last hours of his life.

At 6:50 PM, after the regular Tuesday staff meeting,

Francke spoke briefly with one of his subordinates.

30 minutes later, two other corrections employees

noticed that the light in Michael Francke's car was on

and the driver's door was standing wide open.

It was 7:20 PM.

Michael?

Well, his phone's in here.

This is kind of weird.

He never leaves his car like this, with the door open.

You're right.

ROBERT STACK: The two women could not find Francke,

nor could they reach him on his pager, which he

carried with him at all times.

They called their superiors.

Two officials arrived at 8:30 PM and conducted, in their words,

a meticulous search of the building.

Francke was nowhere to be found.

Anything up there?

Nope.

ROBERT STACK: The two men did not call the police

and left around 9:30 PM.

At 12:45 AM, a security guard found Michael Francke's body

on the side porch of the building

that had been so thoroughly searched

just four hours earlier.

A pane of glass in the side door was shattered.

No one knows whether or not Francke

was carrying documents concerning

his prison investigation.

However, his briefcase appeared to be missing.

I found a body here.

I think it's Francke.

ROBERT STACK: Police theorize that Francke

had been murdered by someone who was trying to rob him.

They interrogated a number of known drug

dealers and street criminals.

I need to know where you were that night.

Now, you told me earlier you were there at 9:30,

and then you come back and you tell--

ROBERT STACK: One of them claimed

that he witnessed the murder and fingered an admitted

drug dealer named Frank Gable.

According to this witness, Gable was in the act of burglarizing

Michael Francke's car when Francke came out of the office

building around 7 PM.

What's going on?

Nothing's going on. Just give me your briefcase.

There's nothing in it you're going to get.

I want to know what you're doing to my car.

I'm not doing nothing to your car.

Just give me the briefcase.

OK, punk, I'm taking you inside.

ROBERT STACK: Gable allegedly stabbed

Francke, mortally wounded him.

Some believe Gable also stole Francke's

briefcase before fleeing.

Michael Francke apparently staggered up

the stairs of a side entrance to the building.

He broke the glass door in a desperate attempt

to get back to his office.

[glass breaking]

Frank Gable was charged with the murder of Michael Francke,

but for many people, the evidence simply did not add up.

Bruises, abrasions, and other wounds on Francke's body

seemed to indicate a struggle with more than one man.

KATIE FRANCKE: I think Frank Gable is a scapegoat

because I think it goes much higher

up in the Oregon government.

He's just being used to take the fall.

From the onset of the Francke investigation,

it appeared that the police put the blinders on as far

as what they were most inclined to believe.

It seems as though there has been some reluctance

to really, really just scorch the earth

to find out what happened.

ROBERT STACK: Michael Francke's family and supporters found

what they felt were other disturbing discrepancies

in the official explanation of Michael's death.

Michael had a state of the art car alarm system.

If the killer had broken into the car,

why was the alarm not set off?

And why were there no signs of forced entry?

Hey, what's going on?

Nothing's going on.

I want what's in your briefcase.

ROBERT STACK: If the killer had stabbed Michael at the car,

puncturing his heart and lungs, why was there no trace of blood

within 100 feet of the car?

And finally, if Michael Francke was killed at 7:00 PM as police

estimate, why was neither his body nor the broken glass

noticed when the building was meticulously

searched between 8:30 and 9:30 PM?

A number of people in Oregon believe that Michael Francke

was the victim of a premeditated murder carried out

by several men and possibly instigated

by high-ranking officials who feared they would be named

in Francke's investigation.

An eyewitness at the scene appeared

to corroborate this theory.

BOB MERCHANT: At 10:15, 10:20 on January 17,

a young man riding in a car looked over

at where the of the crime was and saw five to six men running

toward a Volkswagen van.

If Michael Francke had been abducted

and then brought back to the building where he was killed,

this would fit in with the abduction theory.

ROBERT STACK: The abduction theory

holds that, on the night of his death,

Michael Francke unlocked his own car, deactivating the alarm.

Simultaneously, a group of men approached him.

You're coming with us.

What's up?

All right. All right.

All right.

Just back off.

ROBERT STACK: Francke did not keep

regular office hours except for Tuesday staff meetings.

It would seem that the perpetrators were

familiar with his schedule.

BOB MERCHANT: The abduction theory

would have that Michael Francke was later brought back, perhaps

going to his office to find whatever paperwork

or computer files or these sort of things in his office.

All right. Let's go up to the office

What for?

Computer tapes.

I don't have any.

BOB MERCHANT: Once there, he gets out of the car,

perhaps sees his only chance for getting away,

tries to make a break for it, perhaps receives one or more

of his wounds at that time, goes to the north porch

where he is finished off.

Unfortunately, the impression has

been given that things are being held back, that many things are

being stonewalled.

It has given the impression-- again,

not saying it's the fact, but it's

given the impression that there's

some type of a cover-up.

ROBERT STACK: On the night of the murder,

several people reported seeing a man

in a pinstripe suit lurking in the corrections

building after hours.

He was olive-complected, 5 feet 10 inches tall, and weighed

approximately 180 pounds.

A composite drawing based on witness descriptions was made,

but the DA's office did not release

the drawing for five months.

They claimed the quality was not good enough for publication,

even though the composite had been

drawn by a top police artist.

One other disturbing fact added to the speculation

about a cover-up.

No paperwork detailing Michael Francke's

investigation into the Oregon prison system

has ever been found.

BOB MERCHANT: Shortly after Michael Francke's death,

some people, some employees, some inmates

spotted approximately 23 bags of shredded papers

coming out of Michael Francke's office

and some surrounding offices.

That's something you have to wonder

about is who authorized shredding of documents

from a murder scene?

The officials investigating Mike's murder

don't want it solved because it goes much higher

in the Oregon government.

My family is dedicated to bringing this

to a successful conclusion.

We're going to find out what the hell happened.

And we're going to see that the people who were involved

receive their full punishment.

[music playing]

ROBERT STACK: Next, a mother in New England

needs your help to find her autistic son.

[music playing]

When he was eight years old, Oded Gordon

was diagnosed with a minor learning disability.

At age 12, he began to withdraw from his friends.

By the time he was 18, Oded was totally withdrawn,

unwilling to communicate with anyone.

RAIZI GOLDSTEIN: Oded was afraid of the responsibility

of growing up because he didn't have the emotional wherewithal.

He was too anxious.

He was too afraid he couldn't do things on his own.

ROBERT STACK: A year later, Oded was diagnosed as having autism,

a neurological disorder that affects

physical, social, and language skills.

There is no known cure for the affliction,

and doctors had little hope that Oded would ever return

from his dark and silent world.

Oded's mother enrolled him in a facility in Greenfield, New

Hampshire, where young people with mental and emotional

disabilities participate in work therapy and receive counseling.

Oded seemed to respond to his new environment

and even began communicating with one staff worker.

SHEILA BAY-HARVEY: When Oded came, he spoke very little,

but then we would hear him speak occasionally.

And he could say things when prompted and encouraged.

ROBERT STACK: Approximately six weeks after he arrived

at the farm, Oded and several other residents

were doing their afternoon chores.

Somehow, Oded managed to wander away from the group.

An hour later, he was nowhere to be found.

The dogs were brought in and originated

the search over by the brook area,

over toward the lower left field.

ROBERT STACK: The search dogs followed Oded's scent

for approximately three miles.

Along a stretch of Highway 31, the scent abruptly vanished.

Authorities believe that Oded may have been picked

up by a passing motorist.

CARL DRIGGERS: My feelings are that he will be found.

He's out there.

He's out there among the population, wherever it may be,

but he is out there.

ROBERT STACK: There have been several reported sightings

of Oded, the most recent last January.

Oded's mother believes her son is

still alive and hopes that wherever he is,

he will hear her appeal.

RAIZI GOLDSTEIN: Oded, I really would like to hear from you.

If you can, I hope that you'll call.

Call me or call your grandmother or your uncles.

You don't have to tell us where you are.

We just want to know that you're OK.

ROBERT STACK: Oded Gordon is 5 feet 8 inches tall,

weighs 140 pounds, and has black hair and brown eyes.

At the time of his disappearance,

Oded was 21 years old.

Authorities speculate that he may have

hitchhiked out of the area and could be

anywhere in the United States.

[music playing]

For every mystery, there is someone,

somewhere who knows the truth.

Perhaps that someone was watching.

Perhaps it's you.

[music playing]