RESEARCHER
SNIPER VICTIMS: Kenneth Bridges and Linda Franklin
Wed Nov 19 02:00:49 2003
64.140.158.20

Kenneth Bridges and Linda Franklin did not appear to be typical American
citizens. Bridges was a political activist, an apparent admirer of Louis
Farrakhan. Franklin was a cancer patient, possibly preparing to meet her maker
by atoning for any sins she may have committed or known about while working for
the FBI’s domestic terrorism division. Bridges and Franklin both had strong
potentials for being declared enemies of the state. ª
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Linda+Gail+Franklin,&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=20021019193414.15145.00012985%40mb-fy.news.cs.com&rnum=3

Linda Gail Franklin
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=Linda+Gail+Franklin&btnG=Search+News
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Defense has challenge in averting death row
Mental health testimony earlier ruled inadmissable By Gail Gibson
Sun Staff
Originally published November 18, 2003
http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.penalty18nov18,0,4137153.story?coll=bal-news-nation

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - As they try to persuade a jury to spare their client's life, attorneys for convicted sniper killer John Allen Muhammad must do so without what typically is the centerpiece of a death penalty defense: evidence of the defendant's troubled mental state.

Muhammad, 42, met with psychiatric experts hired by his attorneys for more than 60 hours over the spring and summer, but a judge ruled that none of the information gleaned from those sessions can be used because he refused to meet with a forensic psychiatrist for the government.

That decision, legal experts say, left Muhammad's court-appointed lawyers with a greatly reduced hand as they entered the penalty phase of his trial. Jurors convicted him yesterday on two counts of capital murder and must consider whether to recommend a sentence of death or life in prison.

"I would think the kind of mitigating evidence might be a little like [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh - he was basically a good person who because of his experiences in the Army or losing his kids or whatever, he might have gone a little haywire," said Welsh S. White, a law professor and death penalty expert at the University of Pittsburgh. "But if you don't have a psychiatric witness, that is going to be very hard to do."

Opening the penalty phase yesterday, defense attorney Jonathan Shapiro played down the absence of mental health testimony. He told jurors that "there won't be any psychiatrist here to put this together for you. I don't think you need one."

Instead, Shapiro said, defense attorneys would present friends, neighbors and other acquaintances of Muhammad's who would testify that he is a good person who deserves to live. Defense attorneys also have said they plan to present evidence of "abuse and neglect" in Muhammad's childhood in Louisiana and said they might call a psychiatric expert, though only to offer statistical testimony about the likelihood of a prisoner serving a life sentence to commit another violent crime.

Shapiro told jurors yesterday: "Your decision will put John Muhammad in a box of one kind or the other - one is made of concrete, and one is made of pine."

In Virginia, jurors weighing a death sentence are instructed to consider a defendant's future dangerousness as well as the "vileness" of the crime at issue.

Michael A. Millemann, law professor at the University of Maryland, said the defense can make strong use of nonexpert witnesses to complete the picture of Muhammad's life before the shootings - an important factor in building a case for mitigating circumstances that could offset aspects of the crime that call for a death sentence.

The work of lawyers to prepare such mitigating evidence has been under increasing scrutiny. Ruling in the case of former Maryland death row inmate Kevin Wiggins this year, the U.S. Supreme Court said defense attorneys in that case had not done an adequate job of conducting and presenting background research that might have helped spare his life. The court ordered a new sentencing for Wiggins.

"I think you've got to rely on calling witnesses, lay witnesses, who can testify to acts, things that he did or said that were patently crazy," Millemann said. "I think he's a tough client, obviously. ... [But] juries are extremely skeptical of psychological testimony, even under the best circumstances."

Attorneys for Muhammad did get one key break yesterday. While prosecutors had a number of victims prepared to testify, Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to introduce so-called "victim impact testimony" only from the family of Dean H. Myers, who was killed by a shot to the head Oct. 9 last year at a gas station near Manassas.

Millette also ruled that prosecutors could not present evidence about anti-American remarks alleged to have been made by Muhammad. Prosecutors can, however, present evidence about anti-Semitic remarks Muhammad is alleged to have made and a shooting at a Washington state synagogue that investigators link to the Army veteran.

Muhammad was on trial here in the shooting of Myers, although prosecutors presented detailed evidence of 16 shootings as they sought to secure a conviction under Virginia law that makes it a capital offense to kill more than one person in a three-year period.

The prosecution's case included testimony from witnesses such as the daughter of slain FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was shot as she loaded packages in a car outside a Fairfax County Home Depot store.

Kate Hannum recalled for jurors the middle-of-the-night phone call from her stepfather, William Franklin, telling her that her mother was dead: "I remember screaming and throwing myself on the bed. That's all I could do, was scream."

Shapiro had asked Millette to limit the victim statements, trying to prevent an emotional overload as jurors weigh the death penalty.

"If the court were to allow victim impact testimony of other crimes, then the potential range of victims and victim impact testimony is endless," he said.

Prosecutor Richard A. Conway told jurors yesterday that everything they heard during the guilt phase was fair game for consideration now. He said that "even if you didn't hear another soul testify for the commonwealth," they had enough evidence to vote for the death penalty.

Sun staff writer Stephen Kiehl contributed to this article.
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Searched news for Linda Gail Franklin. Results 1 - 10 of about 13

sniper
... Let’s look at his latest victim: Linda Gail Franklin, a 47-year-old analyst at
FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, shot dead in the parking lot of Seven ...
http://www.jfkmontreal.com/sniper.htm

Profile of Washington, DC Sniper similar to FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi



by Salvador Astucia, October 13, 2002



Who is the Washington, DC sniper? Whoever he is and whatever his motive, there is no question that this anonymous person(s) on a shooting spree in Washington, DC suburbs is someone of top-notch FBI sniper caliber. The phantom shooter can hit moving targets from hundreds of feet away. And he has no problems murdering women and children. This description fits the profile of FBI agent Lon Horiuchi, the sniper who shot and killed Vicki Weaver (wife of Randy Weaver) from 200 yards while she held her infant daughter in her arms on August 22, 1992 during the siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.



Horiuchi is of Japanese heritage and was raised in Hawaii.



Of course Horiuchi is but one of many top-notch hit men employed by the FBI. The "phantom" Washington, DC sniper might in fact be a small army of Horiuchi zombies.



Who Benefits from the Washington Sniper Murders?



Does Sadam Hussein benefit?



Hardly. The Horiuchi-style murders are whipping Americans into war fever against Iraq. Unless Hussein is an idiot, he would not want to launch such an attack against American citizens, most of whom oppose an American invasion on Iraq. For Hussein to sponsor such an assault would only play into his enemies hands.



Does Osama Bin Laden benefit?



Unless Bin Laden’s new goal is to goad America into a war with Iraq, then I doubt that he would benefit from the Horiuchi-style murders either.



Does Yasser Arafat benefit?



Not on your life. The Horiuchi-style murders only feed the War on Terrorism rhetoric which is a euphemism for War on Islam. This does not benefit Arafat’s Palestinian cause at all.



Does Israel benefit?



You bet! Israel is behind the looming war against Iraq, and President Bush apparently does not have the guts, or the intellect, to stand up to Israel or its supporters in America. The Horiuchi-style murders only intensify the American public’s collective feeling that terrorism has come to the nation’s capital again in the wake of 9-11. The Horiuchi-style murders are a "win-win" scenario for the Bush/Israeli regime in Washington. It supports the argument that we must fight terrorism by any means necessary, including attacking Iraq.



What can we do?



The United States Government has driven regimes from power in other governments and has dealt with guerrilla warfare similar to the recent Horiuchi-style sniper murders in Washington, DC. Our intelligence forces often fight this sort of warfare by launching counter-assaults against commanding officers for the opposing army. For example, if a sniper shoots at a CIA worker in a foreign country, the CIA sometimes responds by setting off grenades in the front lawns of commanding officers of the opposing army.



This was precisely the approach used during the Eisenhower Administration when the CIA drove Vietnamese prime minister Bay Vien from power in the mid-1950s. Bay Vien was a common thief, a puppet for the French government who openly used Bay Vien to smuggle opium. Working under the auspices of the Eisenhower Administration, then Colonel Edward Lansdale personally deposed Bay Vien, took control of Saigon, and drove the French-Corsican drug dealers and French intelligence from Vietnam. Bay Vien was replaced by Prime Minister/President Ngo Dinh Diem.



In retaliation, the Corsicans launched a vendetta against the entire American community in Vietnam. Lansdale responded by going directly to the source. Whenever an American was killed, or when an attempt was made on Landsdale’s life, Lansdale would launch grenades in front of the houses of the French officers he felt were responsible.



Lansdale’s strategy was to focus on the ones giving the orders, not to chase down snipers. This proved to be an effective and successful strategy in that situation.



Food for thought. ª



Source: The information about Colonel Lansdale’s deposing of Bay Vien in Vietnam is from Alfred W. McCoy, et al., The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, pp 92-126.



Postscript



Sixty Minutes pushes propaganda piece about DC Sniper

[more from Salvador]



October 13, 2002—CBS News Sixty Minutes aired a piece entitled, "Armed and Dangerous," a psychops story framed around the DC Sniper, but did not discuss the shootings directly. Instead, the piece (conducted and narrated by Steve Kroft) suggested that the shooter was mentally ill. The Armed and Dangerous story was built around that premise, which is likely false. Utlimately, the piece introduced another topic: Should mentally ill people be allowed to purchase firearms?



That is a reasonable topic, but it was cynically introduced by Sixty Minutes to support the obvious cover story that the DC sniper is a "deranged shooter" rather than a highly skilled FBI marksman like Lon Horiuchi.



Here is CBS News’ description of the piece from their website:



http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/10/60minutes/main525146.shtml





By the way, if you want to see pictures of Lon Horiuchi, click here:



http://www.outpost-of-freedom.com/randyweaver.htm



Does he look mentally ill? :-) ª

Shooting in Northern Virginia



by Salvador Astucia



Oct. 14, 2002—A woman was fatally shot tonight outside a Home Depot store in Fairfax County in an attack that appeared similar to those carried out by a sniper who has been linked by police to eight killings in the Washington region since Oct. 2.



The Falls Church area shooting occurred about 9:15 p.m. at the Seven Corners Shopping Center, which is bounded by major Northern Virginia traffic arteries, and it prompted police to set up checkpoints on principal roads for miles around. Traffic was jammed on many highways.



At about 11:25 p.m, Fairfax County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger gave an impromptu news conference at the shopping center. He refused to answer reporters’ questions about the description of a person reportedly seen driving a cream colored Chevy Astro Van from the crime scene.



Several reporters asked Manger to confirm reports that the person driving the van had an "almond complexion."* Manger refused to comment.



An unidentified male eye witness described the shooting to WRC-TV Channel 4 News reporter Pat Collins shortly after the shooting:



I was coming from the other side of Route 50 to the Home Depot. When I parked my van, we heard the snap of a shot. And at that moment, I put my car in Park. I left my van. And suddenly I see the people panicking… And a few seconds later we heard the cops and the sirens and the choppers. And thirty or thirty-five yards away, I saw her body facing down. She was across Route 50. She was in the parking lot of the Home Depot. She was facing down….



(Recorded from WRC-TV Channel 4 News live coverage of the shooting scene)





* Reports of that the driver of the van had an "almond complexion" were broadcast on WRC-TV Channel 4 News live coverage of the shooting scene.



Observation



The eye witness indicated that a "few seconds" after the shot was fired, he heard "cops and the sirens and the choppers."



That’s incredibly fast response time. How could the witness hear cops and sirens and choppers in just seconds? Wouldn’t it take minutes, not seconds, for the authorities to respond? Possibly this was a slip of the tongue by the witness, but maybe not. ª



DC Sniper - A Likely Scenario



by Salvador Astucia, October 18, 2002



Only a fool would believe the DC Sniper is a crazed individual seeking attention. None of the facts point to such a theory. The recent sniper shootings are the work of a professional killer.



Let’s look at his latest victim: Linda Gail Franklin, a 47-year-old analyst at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, shot dead in the parking lot of Seven Corners mall, in Arlington, Virginia, in front of a Home Depot store.



Franklin was a cancer survivor and was recovering from a double mastectomy.(1)



Franklin worked at the FBI as an intelligence operations specialist in the National Infrastructure Protection Center at bureau headquarters. She had only worked for the FBI for 3 1/12 years. Before that, she taught in Department of Defense schools in Japan and Belgium in the 1990s after earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Florida's College of Education when she was 31.(2)



Could Franklin be a random victim, or is there more to this story than we’re being told?



What really happened?



Franklin was quite possibly silenced by the FBI to prevent her from revealing criminal activity regarding the FBI’s participation in the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Franklin's employer, the National Infrastructure Protection Center at the FBI, is the bureau’s hi-tech leg for [its domestic terrorism group.*] The Center’s website describes its mission as follows:



The National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) serves as a national critical infrastructure threat assessment, warning, vulnerability, and law enforcement investigation and response entity. The NIPC provides timely warnings of international threats, comprehensive analysis and law enforcement investigation and response. The mission of the NIPC is to:
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