Man, did all this bring back memories long hidden from consciousness. Im so glad to have had a reason to recall all of the 80s in my world. Thank God Frank Gable made it back to the world. 30 years, brother. Hope he is doing well, living his best life and happy.
I've never been comfortable with the "make it look like a suicide" angle. It may have started that way, but something about Francke's computer changed that, maybe at the last minute. I say that because, if the computer had to be stolen, which it obviously disappeared into the ether apparently, then it couldn't look like suicide, could it?
In fact, though, they never acknowledged that the computer was taken. They've never even acknowledged that there was one to be taken. Why would it have been any different if the suicide had been carried out?
We know there was a computer. The state rep who rode home with him from eastern Oregon saw it and Francke told him everything was on it that would "blow the top off" his investigation. That would motivate "them" (assuming they are the corrupt prison officials including state cops) to want the computer so that info wouldn't get out. Wouldn't it? If they made it look like a suicide, the missing computer would raise questions that it WASNT a suicide, because the info on the computer provides the motive for murder. But since he was obviously murdered, the computer being missing doesn't seem important. I'm saying it is important. They didn't mention it because it raises questions. And it IS missing, and did/does have all the incriminating info Michael Francke had.
Why do you assume that the people behind the murder didn't end up with the computer anyway? This is obviously just speculation, but don't you think they would have arranged to get it either way?
Your questions got me wondering why I was stuck on the computer (aside from the state reps statements about it in the car ride), so I went back and re-read some old stories and recalled more about the computer (putting the making it look like a suicide issue aside). When the FBI was involved for a little bit an agent Art Barger said if there was a briefcase involved, that was important. But then the FBI left the case and the briefcase wasn't considered important. But in the Willamette Week article about Greg Johnson's claims that he dropped off and picked up Natividad from the scene, he also said Tim had a briefcase with him when he returned with bloody clothes after the murder. Johnson said when he got out of the car, the briefcase was still there with Tim. Then your report about Kevin's conversations with the psychic also included specific reference to there being a briefcase, and something inside of it (I checked and the NEC computer was designed to fit into a standard briefcase). She said she saw a hand removing something like tapes (those old square floppy disks were used in the NEC then). What's also interesting is that Johnson said he later took Tim to get paid by Hoyt Cupp, but he did not say Tim turned over the briefcase. So that tells me he gave the briefcase to someone else involved before he could get paid. I think it might be the Mexican mafia (maybe in cahoots with the Aryan mafia) - the prison mafias. The psychic also said three people did the killing, but five or six were involved. Crouse said he chased some Mexican guys after the murder but couldn't keep up. Liz said Tim was a mess when he got back that night, and he told her he'd gotten into it with some Mexicans downtown. Point being that the prison chief Cupp paid the bill for the hit, but the hit was performed by some prison mafia guys, set up by McAlister on the outside, all of it to cover up not only the drug trade in the prison, but the human trafficking of teen prostitutes (all involved in framing Gable had been teen prostitutes), is my belief. Interesting that if Michael Francke had gotten to deliver his message and show his statistics and plans to SHIFT FROM PUNISHMENT TO EDUCATION, ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG UNWED MOTHERS (all the info on his computer disks), and his bill would have passed to do it, he would have been able to implement his changes. Prisons are big money and putting that money to education would have made a huge difference and charted a whole new course. For that alone there should be a state official Michael Francke day of mourning. I don't know how to take down a prison mafia that goes to and from all directions across the country, but Michael Francke had a way to at least give a chance for young people to change their lives through education. And it was more than just greedy bureaucrats who objected.
And what about Buck Burgess' involvement in the New Mexico prison riots AND basically running an ex-con halfway house? This is bigger than first thought. Way bigger I think.
Another thing is that four months after Gable was convicted in June 1991, Wayne Holm was killed in Portland in a reverse sting drug transaction. Holm had worked for the Gable defense team, a paralegal type expert at doing independent calculations of parole and probation dates, based on Oregon’s complex matrix sentencing system. Just before the case ended he was removed after getting arrested as a fugitive while driving his boss's car on the coast (isn't that the same charge they picked up Gable on - fugitive?). Then Holm gets shot dead running away from a Multnomah County undercover deputy sheriff in a kilo of cocaine deal gone awry. The deputy who shot Holm was Brian Martinek. (Recall Randy Martinek interviewed Johnny Crouse extensively and believed he was involved in the murder, which he no doubt was). Brian Martinek's son Taylor Martinek was born the year Brian shot Holm, but the kid, a popular Jesuit football player and later Portland State for a couple years, tragically overdosed and died from taking a fake oxycodone pill in 2017. That's in the "can't make this shit up" category. Ugh.
Holm's matrix explained the craziness of what Keri Rothschild experienced at her mom's house with these guys who were getting out of jail for weekend passes to kill people, pimp and otherwise traffic teens and maybe younger kids, and just go crazy for a weekend from the sounds of it. Her mom was a trafficker herself! And it was "pay to play" for the prisoners, like you wrote at some point (I think it was you). Who was paying? The prisoners don't have money - it was the prison mafias I think, and the prisoners who got out were doing work for them while outside, the mafias paying them and laundering their profits at the same time. Probably the same people who set up that guy who was involved whose purported statement about his involvement disappeared) in a nice house and spread on some acreage around Salem. Bureaucrats can't afford to do that, but human and drug (weapons probably too) traffickers can.
I think that's why the police are so cocky and the bureaucrats you've written too are silent. Cops didn't create the cover up and framing, they just followed McAlister's orders. And let us not forget McAlister's undeniable involvement in child sex trafficking - he used movies of kids having sex (obviously trafficked) to recruit her into getting involved herself. He's always been protected by traffickers I believe. He managed the probation and parole that Holm put to paper as a matrix. And those are the people Goldschmidt feared too, the traffickers. I think the Hoyt Cupp group were being paid by the prison mafias too, with money needing to be laundered from their illicit businesses, for them to look away.
One last thing - the psychic said there was a meeting that night, and Michael trusted someone he shouldn't have. Who could that be and what meeting? She was right about everything it seems.
Ok, sorry to be such a nudge and going on and on, but after putting this aside for a couple months, and coming back to it, I've been obsessed again. Pure speculation of course.
Jennifer, I think you’re on the mark about the briefcase and the computer. Also the staff member the psychic said shouldn’t be trusted. Kevin thinks that was Robert Kennicott, the prison system’s security manager, who had an office across the hallway from Francke and sat in on most of his interviews with guards and others about corruption.
I think Michael knew how important his computer was and kept it close. And he was practicing shooting his gun copiously his brother said, so he was being threatened and probably knew who it was. I just think of the computer didn't matter it would have been located. The people who had the most to lose by its contents being exposed, probably had it. I'm saying what was on the computer was just as harmful to them as Michael himself, maybe more.
Sorry I wasn't clear -- I'm saying they DID take the computer, and that what was on it was the motive. And a murder staged to look like suicide, resulting also in a missing computer with incrimating info on it, suddenly doesn't look like suicide.
It was crooked from the start. The investigation was a cover-up and the trial was a farce.
Can't wait to read the book.
The plot continues to thicken like congealing blood.
Good stuff Phil! Thanks.
Your letter to Greg West transported me back in time renewing vivid memories and feelings about this case.
Corruption, cops, courts, cocaine, call girls…….. Once the book is published will movie option phone calls be close behind?
Man, did all this bring back memories long hidden from consciousness. Im so glad to have had a reason to recall all of the 80s in my world. Thank God Frank Gable made it back to the world. 30 years, brother. Hope he is doing well, living his best life and happy.
David, please send me an email at psptown@gmail.com. I’m always looking for information on this and would like to ask you a question of two.
Great job, Phil! Thank you.
Sometimes a movie is the kiss of death to the truth. IMO. A TRUE documentary would be nice though.
I've never been comfortable with the "make it look like a suicide" angle. It may have started that way, but something about Francke's computer changed that, maybe at the last minute. I say that because, if the computer had to be stolen, which it obviously disappeared into the ether apparently, then it couldn't look like suicide, could it?
In fact, though, they never acknowledged that the computer was taken. They've never even acknowledged that there was one to be taken. Why would it have been any different if the suicide had been carried out?
We know there was a computer. The state rep who rode home with him from eastern Oregon saw it and Francke told him everything was on it that would "blow the top off" his investigation. That would motivate "them" (assuming they are the corrupt prison officials including state cops) to want the computer so that info wouldn't get out. Wouldn't it? If they made it look like a suicide, the missing computer would raise questions that it WASNT a suicide, because the info on the computer provides the motive for murder. But since he was obviously murdered, the computer being missing doesn't seem important. I'm saying it is important. They didn't mention it because it raises questions. And it IS missing, and did/does have all the incriminating info Michael Francke had.
Why do you assume that the people behind the murder didn't end up with the computer anyway? This is obviously just speculation, but don't you think they would have arranged to get it either way?
Your questions got me wondering why I was stuck on the computer (aside from the state reps statements about it in the car ride), so I went back and re-read some old stories and recalled more about the computer (putting the making it look like a suicide issue aside). When the FBI was involved for a little bit an agent Art Barger said if there was a briefcase involved, that was important. But then the FBI left the case and the briefcase wasn't considered important. But in the Willamette Week article about Greg Johnson's claims that he dropped off and picked up Natividad from the scene, he also said Tim had a briefcase with him when he returned with bloody clothes after the murder. Johnson said when he got out of the car, the briefcase was still there with Tim. Then your report about Kevin's conversations with the psychic also included specific reference to there being a briefcase, and something inside of it (I checked and the NEC computer was designed to fit into a standard briefcase). She said she saw a hand removing something like tapes (those old square floppy disks were used in the NEC then). What's also interesting is that Johnson said he later took Tim to get paid by Hoyt Cupp, but he did not say Tim turned over the briefcase. So that tells me he gave the briefcase to someone else involved before he could get paid. I think it might be the Mexican mafia (maybe in cahoots with the Aryan mafia) - the prison mafias. The psychic also said three people did the killing, but five or six were involved. Crouse said he chased some Mexican guys after the murder but couldn't keep up. Liz said Tim was a mess when he got back that night, and he told her he'd gotten into it with some Mexicans downtown. Point being that the prison chief Cupp paid the bill for the hit, but the hit was performed by some prison mafia guys, set up by McAlister on the outside, all of it to cover up not only the drug trade in the prison, but the human trafficking of teen prostitutes (all involved in framing Gable had been teen prostitutes), is my belief. Interesting that if Michael Francke had gotten to deliver his message and show his statistics and plans to SHIFT FROM PUNISHMENT TO EDUCATION, ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG UNWED MOTHERS (all the info on his computer disks), and his bill would have passed to do it, he would have been able to implement his changes. Prisons are big money and putting that money to education would have made a huge difference and charted a whole new course. For that alone there should be a state official Michael Francke day of mourning. I don't know how to take down a prison mafia that goes to and from all directions across the country, but Michael Francke had a way to at least give a chance for young people to change their lives through education. And it was more than just greedy bureaucrats who objected.
And what about Buck Burgess' involvement in the New Mexico prison riots AND basically running an ex-con halfway house? This is bigger than first thought. Way bigger I think.
Another thing is that four months after Gable was convicted in June 1991, Wayne Holm was killed in Portland in a reverse sting drug transaction. Holm had worked for the Gable defense team, a paralegal type expert at doing independent calculations of parole and probation dates, based on Oregon’s complex matrix sentencing system. Just before the case ended he was removed after getting arrested as a fugitive while driving his boss's car on the coast (isn't that the same charge they picked up Gable on - fugitive?). Then Holm gets shot dead running away from a Multnomah County undercover deputy sheriff in a kilo of cocaine deal gone awry. The deputy who shot Holm was Brian Martinek. (Recall Randy Martinek interviewed Johnny Crouse extensively and believed he was involved in the murder, which he no doubt was). Brian Martinek's son Taylor Martinek was born the year Brian shot Holm, but the kid, a popular Jesuit football player and later Portland State for a couple years, tragically overdosed and died from taking a fake oxycodone pill in 2017. That's in the "can't make this shit up" category. Ugh.
Holm's matrix explained the craziness of what Keri Rothschild experienced at her mom's house with these guys who were getting out of jail for weekend passes to kill people, pimp and otherwise traffic teens and maybe younger kids, and just go crazy for a weekend from the sounds of it. Her mom was a trafficker herself! And it was "pay to play" for the prisoners, like you wrote at some point (I think it was you). Who was paying? The prisoners don't have money - it was the prison mafias I think, and the prisoners who got out were doing work for them while outside, the mafias paying them and laundering their profits at the same time. Probably the same people who set up that guy who was involved whose purported statement about his involvement disappeared) in a nice house and spread on some acreage around Salem. Bureaucrats can't afford to do that, but human and drug (weapons probably too) traffickers can.
I think that's why the police are so cocky and the bureaucrats you've written too are silent. Cops didn't create the cover up and framing, they just followed McAlister's orders. And let us not forget McAlister's undeniable involvement in child sex trafficking - he used movies of kids having sex (obviously trafficked) to recruit her into getting involved herself. He's always been protected by traffickers I believe. He managed the probation and parole that Holm put to paper as a matrix. And those are the people Goldschmidt feared too, the traffickers. I think the Hoyt Cupp group were being paid by the prison mafias too, with money needing to be laundered from their illicit businesses, for them to look away.
One last thing - the psychic said there was a meeting that night, and Michael trusted someone he shouldn't have. Who could that be and what meeting? She was right about everything it seems.
Ok, sorry to be such a nudge and going on and on, but after putting this aside for a couple months, and coming back to it, I've been obsessed again. Pure speculation of course.
Jennifer, I think you’re on the mark about the briefcase and the computer. Also the staff member the psychic said shouldn’t be trusted. Kevin thinks that was Robert Kennicott, the prison system’s security manager, who had an office across the hallway from Francke and sat in on most of his interviews with guards and others about corruption.
Obviously I'm speculating.
I think Michael knew how important his computer was and kept it close. And he was practicing shooting his gun copiously his brother said, so he was being threatened and probably knew who it was. I just think of the computer didn't matter it would have been located. The people who had the most to lose by its contents being exposed, probably had it. I'm saying what was on the computer was just as harmful to them as Michael himself, maybe more.
Sorry I wasn't clear -- I'm saying they DID take the computer, and that what was on it was the motive. And a murder staged to look like suicide, resulting also in a missing computer with incrimating info on it, suddenly doesn't look like suicide.