Speaker 1: Hey, their listeners. In the past ten episodes, we've told
Speaker 1: you the story of Steve Patterson and how Franklin Floyd's
Speaker 1: impact on his family continues to echo today. As you
Speaker 1: know from this series, there are several people in law
Speaker 1: enforcement who tried to bring Floyd to justice, who worked
Speaker 1: hard to unravel as trail of lies. This was the
Speaker 1: work of many Some you met, like Agent Scott lab
Speaker 1: many you didn't. In this bonus episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: hear more from Mark Ynsey, who prosecuted Franklin Floyd and
Speaker 1: the kidnapping case of Michael Hughes and his principal, James Davis.
Speaker 1: He has some pretty incredible memories about what went down
Speaker 1: at Floyd's trial in Oklahoma City. He'll tell us about
Speaker 1: what it was like when Floyd finally faced consequences, how
Speaker 1: law enforcement finally caught Floyd for Ceryl Comesso's murder, and
Speaker 1: what the memorial was like when they changed the name
Speaker 1: on Susi Sevega's headstone.
Speaker 2: To reflect her real name.
Speaker 1: I recommend listening to episodes one through ten before diving
Speaker 1: into this one. He talks a lot about Franklin Floyd
Speaker 1: and his many crime I should also give a warning
Speaker 1: some of the things Mark taught about our graphic and
Speaker 1: discussed both murder and sexial abuse. My producer, Kate Michigan
Speaker 1: spoke with Mark Yancey.
Speaker 3: This is chapter thirteen, Mark Yancey on Floyd's trial. I
Speaker 3: want to start with your time at the US Attorney's Office.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me what attracted you to that work.
Speaker 2: When I got out of law school in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 2: I actually immediately joined the FBI as an FBI Special
Speaker 2: Agent and they sent me to Oklahoma, and I was
Speaker 2: an FBI Special Agent and legal advisor for about four
Speaker 2: and a half years, and I presented cases to the
Speaker 2: US Attorney's Office for prosecution. Worked very closely with the prosecutors,
Speaker 2: and I liked being in court. I liked seeing what
Speaker 2: the prosecutors are doing. I want to do that.
Speaker 3: And what year was this when you started with the
Speaker 3: US Attorney's Office.
Speaker 2: I started with the US Attorney's Office in nineteen ninety one, Okay.
Speaker 3: Three years later. I kind of want to take us
Speaker 3: back to that point. At this point in our story,
Speaker 3: SUSU se Vegas had been killing the hit and run
Speaker 3: Michael's put into the care of Merle and earnest being
Speaker 3: and then in September of that year, Franklin Floyd kidnapped
Speaker 3: both Michael and Principal James Davis from the elementary school
Speaker 3: and left with Jess Michael, what was your first touch
Speaker 3: point with the story?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this case got legs from early on,
Speaker 2: and there's just so many twists and turns and unsolved
Speaker 2: issues that it just is. Yeah, it was an honor
Speaker 2: or work on something like this, notwithstanding the fact that
Speaker 2: there's so many tragedies involved. My first touch point was
Speaker 2: with one of my former colleagues at the FBI, Joe Fitzpatrick.
Speaker 2: We had worked together as agents and he had been
Speaker 2: assigned this case that afternoon and he called me at
Speaker 2: home that evening. I had not heard about the kidnapping,
Speaker 2: and he explained the situation to me, and to me,
Speaker 2: initially what he was describing is it sounded a little
Speaker 2: bit like more of a domestic type kidnapping. So I
Speaker 2: was hopeful that, you know, Michael was safe. And he
Speaker 2: explained the situation to me and wanted to know what
Speaker 2: we could do if we happened to find Franklin Floyd
Speaker 2: for it to be a federal kidnapping and a federal offense,
Speaker 2: the victim would have to be taken across state lines
Speaker 2: in interstate commerce. So I did not think we had
Speaker 2: a viable federal kidnapping charge at that point. However, Agent
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick explained to me that Franklin Floyd had a long
Speaker 2: criminal history and that he had taken Michael in the
Speaker 2: principle at the endpoint that day. But the next day,
Speaker 2: as we started to delve into Franklin Floyd's background, that
Speaker 2: is when I really became concerned about Michael in his
Speaker 2: well being, because this just didn't look like a case
Speaker 2: where some he really wanted the child. I concluded pretty
Speaker 2: quickly based on Franklin Floyd's background, He's probably a sociopath,
Speaker 2: lacked empathy, incapable of love. So I knew he's not
Speaker 2: doing this out of love for the child. This is
Speaker 2: just another possession for him, and people can discard possessions
Speaker 2: pretty easily sometimes.
Speaker 3: And so where was Floyd arrested? Where they find him?
Speaker 2: Well, he was arrested, you know, months later. So this
Speaker 2: happened in September, arrested around Halloween. I think it was Louisville, Kentucky,
Speaker 2: and Joe Fitzpatrick fought that Franklin Floyd may try to
Speaker 2: use one of those old aliases to get some type
Speaker 2: of state credential like a driver's license. And that's exactly
Speaker 2: how we found him. He had slipped up by trying
Speaker 2: to get an ID under one of his old aliases.
Speaker 3: And how were you able to inject him on kidnapping charges?
Speaker 3: How to line up for that to work?
Speaker 2: Well, a lot had to line up the other charges
Speaker 2: that I think we had charged five federal crimes at
Speaker 2: the time. One was kidnapping, one was using a firm
Speaker 2: during a relation to the kidnapping. Of course, the carjacking
Speaker 2: statute was applied because he had taken James Davis's truck
Speaker 2: at gunpoint, and we also charged a interstate transportation of
Speaker 2: stolen property, that being the truck because we had found
Speaker 2: the truck later and it Texas in the parking lot
Speaker 2: of a Wonderbread bakery. All the charges were very straightforward
Speaker 2: with the exception of the kidnapping. And the kidnapping was
Speaker 2: a little more problematic because one we didn't find Michael.
Speaker 2: Since we didn't have Michael, we had to prove that
Speaker 2: element of the crime circumstantially, so you could draw some
Speaker 2: reasonable inferences that if he left the next day on
Speaker 2: a bus from Dallas to Atlanta, Georgia, that it makes
Speaker 2: since that he probably took Michael very quickly, knowing that
Speaker 2: police would be in Oklahoma would be swarming looking for
Speaker 2: that vehicle, probably left the state very quickly and drove
Speaker 2: straight to Dallas, Texas, which is only about three and
Speaker 2: a half hours from Oklahoma City, abandoned the truck there,
Speaker 2: and then of course took the Greyhound bus to Atlanta.
Speaker 2: So that was the theory of our case and how
Speaker 2: we established circumstantially that he had taken Michael in interstate commerce.
Speaker 3: I wonder if you can take him back to the
Speaker 3: trial and set the state here, like, where's it being held,
Speaker 3: who's representing him, who shows up to the courthouse every day,
Speaker 3: what's this all like.
Speaker 2: The trial actually started in April of nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: ten days before the Oklahoma City bombing, which actually occurred
Speaker 2: right across the street from the courthouse where we tried
Speaker 2: Franklin Floyd. We had a very senior judge assigned to
Speaker 2: the case, Judge Wayne Alley, very experienced, and the trial
Speaker 2: became a little interesting because Franklin Floyd decided to waive
Speaker 2: his right to a jury trial, and we don't know why,
Speaker 2: but I can speculate his thinking was, since this case
Speaker 2: involves a child, that a jury may not give me
Speaker 2: a fair shape. Because it involves a minor victim, people
Speaker 2: may be automatically biased, especially when we hadn't found Michael yet.
Speaker 2: There was another interesting twist to the case. He really
Speaker 2: wanted to represent himself. He very much wanted to be
Speaker 2: able to question witnesses and make arguments to the court.
Speaker 2: You typically can't have a lawyer and argue the case yourself.
Speaker 2: It's one or the other. Judge ally allowed some form
Speaker 2: of hybrid representation to placate Franklin Floyd. I don't know
Speaker 2: why he did that. I can speculate that he thought
Speaker 2: that we might have bursts in court. He was represented
Speaker 2: by Susan Otto, who was the public defender in Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City at the time. I believe she still is the public.
Speaker 3: Defender, and Floyd himself in the courtroom. I read that
Speaker 3: he I think he tried to marry a witness. I
Speaker 3: understand that he was belligerent. What do you remember about
Speaker 3: all that?
Speaker 2: He was more constrained than I thought he would be,
Speaker 2: And I think the only reason he was more constrained
Speaker 2: is because the judge allowed him to sort of blow
Speaker 2: off steam. I think that diffused the situation.
Speaker 3: Did he ever take the stand?
Speaker 2: He did not take the stand. He presented his defense
Speaker 2: generally through cross examination or arguments to the court.
Speaker 3: Who did the prosecution called as witnesses.
Speaker 2: Ed Camiga was my trial partner. He was lead counsel ed,
Speaker 2: and I called a number of witnesses as you can imagine.
Speaker 2: We started with the deputy sheriff that actually responded to
Speaker 2: the kidnapping and found James Davis had been handcuffed to
Speaker 2: a tree in the woods behind the elementary school in Chalkhaw, Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: in a wooded area. One of the defenses to federal
Speaker 2: kidnapping is that a parent cannot be guilty of kidnapping
Speaker 2: their child, and it's very clear in the statute, and
Speaker 2: of course that was one of Franklin Floyd's key defenses
Speaker 2: is I can't be guilty. I am the father of
Speaker 2: Michael Hughes. So we put on DNA evidence to disprove
Speaker 2: that he was the biological father of Michael Hughes. And
Speaker 2: of course he countered by suggesting that he was sort
Speaker 2: of the de facto father or grandfather.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would think you'd pick one.
Speaker 2: A father is actually the tact he took, which we
Speaker 2: thought was an odd tack to take, because obviously he
Speaker 2: always claimed he was Sharon Marshall's father and Michael was
Speaker 2: Sharon's child, so how could you be the father of both.
Speaker 2: We had the Beans testify, obbo, so they had to
Speaker 2: identify photographs of Michael and be able to talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, dropping him off at the elementary school that morning,
Speaker 2: and of course that they had been the foster parents
Speaker 2: and that he had been in their care.
Speaker 3: What's your recollection of their emotional state?
Speaker 2: Very distraught and troubled. I think they had genuinely grown
Speaker 2: to really love Michael. He had become part of the family.
Speaker 2: Michael had really started to thrive under their care, and
Speaker 2: he had, you know, step siblings who were much older,
Speaker 2: and they had grown to like him and love him
Speaker 2: as well. So I think it was very traumatic for
Speaker 2: them as well.
Speaker 3: It seems hard to talk about everything he's done without
Speaker 3: talking about Susie Sebacas. Susie Serbakas, whose alias was of
Speaker 3: course Sharon Marshall. Did anyone talk about her in the
Speaker 3: court room or to what extent was she brought up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about her a lot because to refute
Speaker 2: the fact act that he was Michael's father, we had
Speaker 2: to talk a lot about Lloyd's relationship with Sharon and
Speaker 2: how he basically held himself out as her father those years.
Speaker 2: So we called one of her best friends from high
Speaker 2: school talk about that relationship. We knew he wasn't the
Speaker 2: biological father. If anything, he was Sharon's de facto's stepfather.
Speaker 2: Therefore he could not be Michael ste facto stepfather. So
Speaker 2: all of that was done to try to negate this
Speaker 2: defense that he was somehow Michael's parent. We called a
Speaker 2: number of other witnesses. Greg Higgs, who was actually Michael's
Speaker 2: biological father, we called him to the stand. Obviously we
Speaker 2: had his DNA to confirm that he was Michael's biological father.
Speaker 3: What was he like?
Speaker 2: Very normal, married and had his own children and knew
Speaker 2: nothing about Michael. He did not know that he was
Speaker 2: Michael's father, and had noted to us that if he
Speaker 2: would have known that there was this whole custody dispute
Speaker 2: and that Sharon had died, he would have gladly adopted
Speaker 2: Michael as his own son. Wow.
Speaker 3: I know that his mental health issues that he struggled
Speaker 3: with came up a lot in his Florida case, and
Speaker 3: that's the reason why he's never apparently put to death.
Speaker 3: Did this come up at all in this case.
Speaker 2: Not really. We had a psychiatric exam conducted by a
Speaker 2: local psychiatrist, doctor Donica. He was a sociopath. Doctor Donaga
Speaker 2: just told his point blank that he doubted very seriously
Speaker 2: whether Michael was alive, which we already knew. We didn't
Speaker 2: have a body, but we knew when Franklin Floyd was
Speaker 2: arrested in Louisville, Kentucky, and Michael was not there, and
Speaker 2: Floyd gave a number of different excuses, crazy excuses as
Speaker 2: to what hypened to Michael in conflicting statements. We knew
Speaker 2: that he was dead.
Speaker 3: When was he sentenced and what was that sentence?
Speaker 2: It was months later. Essentially got fifty two year sentence
Speaker 2: because we have federal sentencing guidelines, so he got the
Speaker 2: maximum he could get into the federal sentencing guidelines. And
Speaker 2: I think at the time he was fifty six, and
Speaker 2: there's no parole in the federal system. So when you
Speaker 2: get a fifty year plus sentence. It's effectively life without parole.
Speaker 3: Something that just continues to stand out to me in
Speaker 3: this case is just how he got away with so
Speaker 3: much for so long. I mean, to not even be
Speaker 3: charged in that homicide. I understand why not. He's just
Speaker 3: a fugitive for so long. How do we explain this?
Speaker 2: Good luck for him and bad luck for law enforcement?
Speaker 2: He was smart enough to move frequently and change names frequently,
Speaker 2: rather than just you know, going to one area, assuming
Speaker 2: one alias and keeping it for decades. He just seemed
Speaker 2: to always stay one step ahead of the law, picked
Speaker 2: the right time to just move and flee.
Speaker 3: So Floyd stole the principal's pickup truck in nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: four during the kidnapping, and incredibly, it was only discovered
Speaker 3: years later in the parking lot of the Wonderbread Baking factory.
Speaker 3: At what point was that found in Dallas?
Speaker 2: That was found quite a bit later, But it was
Speaker 2: obvious that it had been parked for a long time
Speaker 2: because of how dirty it was and how there was
Speaker 2: you know, debris underneath the truck as well. So the
Speaker 2: truck was found and interior of it I think was
Speaker 2: searched months and months after the truck had been repurchased
Speaker 2: by someone. The gentleman who bought it took it in
Speaker 2: for some repairs. They put it up on a lift,
Speaker 2: and that's when it was just governed that there were
Speaker 2: a number of photographs taped to the gas tank of
Speaker 2: that truck.
Speaker 3: Can you kind of walk me through what happened after that?
Speaker 2: Obviously law enforcement was notified. There was some very disturbing
Speaker 2: photos that they found taped to the gas tank. We
Speaker 2: eventually were able to take custios and look through them,
Speaker 2: and it was pretty obvious to me and all of
Speaker 2: us when we saw those photos that these were sort
Speaker 2: of Franklin Floyd's trophies, because there was a lot of
Speaker 2: incriminating photographs, including photographs of Sharon Marshall was a little
Speaker 2: girl inappropriate type poses. Essentially it was child pornography, which
Speaker 2: confirmed our suspicion that he was a pedophile, and this
Speaker 2: confirmed that he had essentially been probably sexually abusing Shurant
Speaker 2: Marshall since shortly after he came into possession of her.
Speaker 2: There were photographs of her dressed and clothes as a teenager,
Speaker 2: but and for a provocative type of clothing. There was
Speaker 2: also some pretty disturbing photos of a woman who was
Speaker 2: bound and gagged, and it looked to us like we
Speaker 2: had some type of victim of a climb there, which
Speaker 2: was again consistent with what we knew of him, and
Speaker 2: obviously we were very concern that we had salt victim,
Speaker 2: maybe a homicide victim, and we needed to find out
Speaker 2: who that was.
Speaker 3: This was Cheryl Comeasso.
Speaker 2: There were also another photo or two of women that
Speaker 2: we never identified. They did not appear to be in
Speaker 2: any type of distress, but we had concerns that these
Speaker 2: were sort of his trophies. These trophies are precious to
Speaker 2: these type of offenders and predators. I mean, these are keepsakes.
Speaker 2: I assume he was hoping he could maybe somehow get
Speaker 2: to those later. Yeah, these were polaroids and he was
Speaker 2: very clear not to show himself in any of them,
Speaker 2: although there was one good thumb photo in one of
Speaker 2: the photographs that the police in Florida used to their
Speaker 2: advantage to try to identify him.
Speaker 3: So you put his thumb in the photograph, which is
Speaker 3: just a stupid okay, many people often do via accident,
Speaker 3: and this happened to be a really stupid mistake for him.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
Speaker 2: When we sat down with Agent Fitzpatrick about this, Agent
Speaker 2: Fitzpatrick was, I think the office's ViCAP representative. The acronyms
Speaker 2: VIICAP stands for the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and this
Speaker 2: was a system set up by the FBI to try
Speaker 2: to connect serial offenders who may travel from state to
Speaker 2: state commit crimes of violence. So Agent Fitzpatrick immediately put
Speaker 2: these photographs into the system, asking, you know, law enforcement
Speaker 2: nation wide if anyone recognized these photos in this particular victim,
Speaker 2: and sure enough to detectives in Saint Petersburg Police Department,
Speaker 2: Bob Shock and Mark DeSario working a Jane do homicide case,
Speaker 2: they immediately recognized the clothing that the victim was wearing.
Speaker 2: They had found a body, the skeletal remains of a
Speaker 2: woman a few years earlier in Saint Petersburg area. They
Speaker 2: were able to take the clothing and wash it. And
Speaker 2: when you look at the photos they uploaded, and you
Speaker 2: saw the pink or the purple bikini and the striped
Speaker 2: shirt and compared it with the photos that we found,
Speaker 2: you could tell us the exact same clothing, and they
Speaker 2: were able to identify the victim as Cheryl Comesso. This
Speaker 2: absolutely connected the due cases. They did not have a suspect.
Speaker 2: Then this immediately made Franklin Floyd a suspect, since he
Speaker 2: was in custody of those photos when she's wearing the
Speaker 2: same clothes, and it was probably the very night she
Speaker 2: was murdered. She was shot one or two rounds to
Speaker 2: the head.
Speaker 3: Did you follow the shehl Comeso case in Florida?
Speaker 2: I did. I almost got called as a witness because
Speaker 2: we convicted him first, and of course a lot of
Speaker 2: the evidence we had was their key evidence. We shared evidence,
Speaker 2: and we made a trip down to Florida to present
Speaker 2: what we had found in our case to them.
Speaker 3: And I know that you'd asked for life in prison.
Speaker 3: How do you react to seeing him sentenced to death?
Speaker 2: It was very satisfactory and appropriate.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to her podcast, you know if Floyd
Speaker 1: was sentenced today, but not actually put to death. He
Speaker 1: died of old age behind bars. Next up, Kate Tosty
Speaker 1: Yancy about a very special memorial service he attended for
Speaker 1: Susie Sevegas.
Speaker 3: I understand that you were at the burial service in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me how that all came to be?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know who initiated that, but we
Speaker 2: had a ceremony in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Sebakas is buried
Speaker 2: actually under the name Sharon Marshall, and you know, someone
Speaker 2: thought it would be fitting to get all the family
Speaker 2: together and have the name Suzanne Sevakas her real name
Speaker 2: on the headstone instead of some alias that she had
Speaker 2: been living under, and that's what we did. So that
Speaker 2: was the first time we got to meet mister Sebakas
Speaker 2: who came down, and different family members and you know
Speaker 2: agents that work on the case, friends of Sharon's who
Speaker 2: knew her, and Tulsa her high school friend from Georgia,
Speaker 2: her best friend from high school in Georgia. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just a way to honor her and correct history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like it would have been a very
Speaker 3: very heavy day.
Speaker 2: It was heavy, but fulfilling I think at the same
Speaker 2: time that we could again put a true name to
Speaker 2: this person, sort of show to the world who she
Speaker 2: really was and that she did have a family. It
Speaker 2: was sad, but again at the same time, I think
Speaker 2: people had a lot of the mixed emotions and we're
Speaker 2: just in some ways relieved and happy, that we're able
Speaker 2: to put finality to this unsolved mystery.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and thank you to Mark Nancy for
Speaker 1: taking the time. This is our last bonus episode. Many
Speaker 1: thanks to our listeners. Please spread the word about this
Speaker 1: show and tell all of your friends.
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Speaker 1: John Doe is and Original productions by Revelations Entertainment in
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