A person couldn’t make this up if they tried! Great writing. Question…if I buy a subscription for someone, do they have all the episodes, including the past episodes, available to them?
I really like what you are doing with Oregon Confidential...as a former newswoman I automatically proofread and correct mistakes along the way. FYI Gary Gortmaker was the disgraced former Marion County DA, not Dale Gortmaker. Perhaps confusion over Dale Penn and Gary Gortmaker. I know, Nit-picky me.
Thanks very much. Someone already caught the Gary Gortmaker mistake and so it should be changed by now. I usually make at least one of those per episode.
If Frank Gable files suit for damages against the state et al, it might be an opportunity to get to the truth of the matter, even if it’s not totally solved. At that point the investigators, cops, prison officials, and other officials involved, become witnesses and can be deposed (under oath) as defendants themselves. That could be a powerful weapon towards at least getting enough out there to prove at least it was official misconduct, a conspiracy of corruption, and maybe more, to vindicate Michael Francke’s reputation as a man who had the courage to stand up to pure evil power, and paid the ultimate price.
The flurry of activity in Michael’s life in the several days before he was slain, is interesting. The ride home from Pendleton with Rep. Burton may have been a fool’s errand on the Friday before, where a higher up from the prison reform committee asked him to find out if Michael was keeping confidential material on his private computer and compromising law enforcement security, and so Burton reported what Michael told him, going along with the potential breach of security problem, when the real goal was to know for sure whether or not he had his investigation stored on it. It fit in his briefcase but people working with him probably knew he had it but weren’t sure what it was for. Also during that same four or five day period, Scott McAlister and Navidad and Liz had the “chance” meeting at Fred Meyer. Was that perhaps to change the plan, to make sure the briefcase and computer were taken too? Is that what messed up the “make it look like a suicide” scenario? It’s hard to claim suicide when a briefcase and computer go missing at the time of the death. Then you have Bingta leaving Michael on the day of the night they took him out! That was at the end of those several days. Was she warned about something going to happen to Michael potentially at their home? Then you have the photo of Bingta and Burton at some type of service for Michael, with Burton holding Bingta’s hand on her lap, and he looks very sad, almost guilty. When I saw the photo at the time I remember thinking that Michael and Bingta must have been very close to Burton, but Burton made it sound like they barely knew each other until the ride from Pendleton - why was Burton so close to Bingta at that moment in time? And if he was so close to Bingta and Michael, did Burton also reach out to Kevin and/or Pat, to say he supported their position and had heard the same from Michael just days before it happened? It seems to me he should have. The idea that he would think to hold a press conference about it was bizarre to me. Or it might be that after Michael was killed he was scared shitless and decided to keep it secret. I listened to some of Murder in Oregon again, and realized that Jane Doe the psychic said the same thing as what Michael said in Kevin’s dream, that he trusted someone he shouldn’t have.
It was one person it sounds like, if you buy into the psychic and the dream.
What would the cover up have looked like if Liz had not shot Tim? I bet they would have gotten away with it clean. They could have pinned the whole thing on Tim, and claimed he had motive because Francke was ruining his new prison drug sales enterprise, and that Tim set it up himself. Maybe that’s why Tim freaked out afterwards - he knew he was going to take the fall, so he got all those powerful weapons and became super paranoid. It seemed like he’d been involved in enough violence that he had ice in his veins, but not in the instance of the evening of January 17, 1989. I think the MIPSS was always a card the DA was going to play to smoke Tim out and as soon as Tim heard about it only a few days after the killing, he knew he was being set up and started going crazy. But Liz’s actions changed all that, and it’s kind of breathtaking because it gave at least a chance for the truth to come out about who was really behind it. The conspirators got desperate and found a patsy in Gable, as Phil, Kevin and Pat and many others figured out. Prosecuting Frank Gable depended on making the Francke brothers look like kooks, and Phil look like some kind of traitor to his employer and the Oregon establishment class. It’s sad Burton held his tongue for more than 30 years while Frank was in prison, and Phil and Michael’s brothers could have used his support during that period as well.
And Liz unwittingly threw a monkey wrench in that plan. Like the local cops laughingly told her when she and her sister told them the photo looked just like Tim Natividad - you can't indict a dead man. Big problem for the state and now 30 years later the rusty wheels of justice slowly grind away such that now something could blow this case wide open. But what?
A person couldn’t make this up if they tried! Great writing. Question…if I buy a subscription for someone, do they have all the episodes, including the past episodes, available to them?
Sure. All they have to do is go to philstanford.substack.com.
I really like what you are doing with Oregon Confidential...as a former newswoman I automatically proofread and correct mistakes along the way. FYI Gary Gortmaker was the disgraced former Marion County DA, not Dale Gortmaker. Perhaps confusion over Dale Penn and Gary Gortmaker. I know, Nit-picky me.
Thanks very much. Someone already caught the Gary Gortmaker mistake and so it should be changed by now. I usually make at least one of those per episode.
Easy mistake, Phil. I plead guilty to my share of them.
Wow. A lot of new details I had not known about until this post, thank you. Thanks also for posting new photos. Lots to think about.
FWIW my thoughts:
If Frank Gable files suit for damages against the state et al, it might be an opportunity to get to the truth of the matter, even if it’s not totally solved. At that point the investigators, cops, prison officials, and other officials involved, become witnesses and can be deposed (under oath) as defendants themselves. That could be a powerful weapon towards at least getting enough out there to prove at least it was official misconduct, a conspiracy of corruption, and maybe more, to vindicate Michael Francke’s reputation as a man who had the courage to stand up to pure evil power, and paid the ultimate price.
The flurry of activity in Michael’s life in the several days before he was slain, is interesting. The ride home from Pendleton with Rep. Burton may have been a fool’s errand on the Friday before, where a higher up from the prison reform committee asked him to find out if Michael was keeping confidential material on his private computer and compromising law enforcement security, and so Burton reported what Michael told him, going along with the potential breach of security problem, when the real goal was to know for sure whether or not he had his investigation stored on it. It fit in his briefcase but people working with him probably knew he had it but weren’t sure what it was for. Also during that same four or five day period, Scott McAlister and Navidad and Liz had the “chance” meeting at Fred Meyer. Was that perhaps to change the plan, to make sure the briefcase and computer were taken too? Is that what messed up the “make it look like a suicide” scenario? It’s hard to claim suicide when a briefcase and computer go missing at the time of the death. Then you have Bingta leaving Michael on the day of the night they took him out! That was at the end of those several days. Was she warned about something going to happen to Michael potentially at their home? Then you have the photo of Bingta and Burton at some type of service for Michael, with Burton holding Bingta’s hand on her lap, and he looks very sad, almost guilty. When I saw the photo at the time I remember thinking that Michael and Bingta must have been very close to Burton, but Burton made it sound like they barely knew each other until the ride from Pendleton - why was Burton so close to Bingta at that moment in time? And if he was so close to Bingta and Michael, did Burton also reach out to Kevin and/or Pat, to say he supported their position and had heard the same from Michael just days before it happened? It seems to me he should have. The idea that he would think to hold a press conference about it was bizarre to me. Or it might be that after Michael was killed he was scared shitless and decided to keep it secret. I listened to some of Murder in Oregon again, and realized that Jane Doe the psychic said the same thing as what Michael said in Kevin’s dream, that he trusted someone he shouldn’t have.
It was one person it sounds like, if you buy into the psychic and the dream.
What would the cover up have looked like if Liz had not shot Tim? I bet they would have gotten away with it clean. They could have pinned the whole thing on Tim, and claimed he had motive because Francke was ruining his new prison drug sales enterprise, and that Tim set it up himself. Maybe that’s why Tim freaked out afterwards - he knew he was going to take the fall, so he got all those powerful weapons and became super paranoid. It seemed like he’d been involved in enough violence that he had ice in his veins, but not in the instance of the evening of January 17, 1989. I think the MIPSS was always a card the DA was going to play to smoke Tim out and as soon as Tim heard about it only a few days after the killing, he knew he was being set up and started going crazy. But Liz’s actions changed all that, and it’s kind of breathtaking because it gave at least a chance for the truth to come out about who was really behind it. The conspirators got desperate and found a patsy in Gable, as Phil, Kevin and Pat and many others figured out. Prosecuting Frank Gable depended on making the Francke brothers look like kooks, and Phil look like some kind of traitor to his employer and the Oregon establishment class. It’s sad Burton held his tongue for more than 30 years while Frank was in prison, and Phil and Michael’s brothers could have used his support during that period as well.
I think you're right about why Tim became so paranoid. He knew they would probably try to kill him and make him a lone nut.
And Liz unwittingly threw a monkey wrench in that plan. Like the local cops laughingly told her when she and her sister told them the photo looked just like Tim Natividad - you can't indict a dead man. Big problem for the state and now 30 years later the rusty wheels of justice slowly grind away such that now something could blow this case wide open. But what?