Franklin Floyd was sentenced to death by the State of Florida for the murder of Cheryl Ann Commeso
According to court documents Franklin Floyd would kidnap Cheryl Ann Commeso who would later be murdered. It would take six years for the authorities to find her remains
While looking into the past of Franklin Floyd investigators would learn that his wife Sharon Marshall had died after being struck by a car. It turns out that Sharon Marshall was really Suzanne Sevakis who was kidnapped as a child and raised by Floyd. Her death is believe to have been a homicide however Floyd was not charged
Floyd was also responsible for the kidnapping of Michael Anthony Hughes who would later be reported missing. To this day no one is sure what happened to Michael though Floyd would confess to his murder
Franklin Floyd would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Franklin Floyd would die on Florida death row on January 23 2023
Franklin Floyd Photos
Franklin Floyd FAQ
When Did Franklin Floyd Die
Franklin Floyd died on January 23 2023
Franklin Floyd Case
The evidence at trial showed that in the spring of 1989 appellant (Franklin Floyd) was living under an alias with his daughter Sharon and her son in Pinellas County, Florida. Shortly after St. Patrick’s Day, Floyd telephoned Diana Rife, a friend and co-worker of both Sharon and Commesso, and angrily demanded that Rife provide the name and address of Commesso’s parents, with whom Commesso was living at the time. Floyd threatened “to get” Commesso for hurting his family and stated that she “would regret” her actions. Floyd claimed that Commesso was responsible for Sharon’s loss of Medicaid coverage for Michael, his sick grandson. Not long after that date, Rife emerged from the club at which the three women worked as exotic dancers and saw appellant and Commesso, engaged in a heated argument. Frightened, Rife intervened because she had never seen Floyd so angry and she knew that he had recently caused a bruise on her friend’s face.
During the first week of April, the nineteen-year-old victim, who lived with her parents and brother, left their home with a packed bag after telling her brother she would see him the following week. That was the last time her family saw her alive. On May 15, her car was located at the St. Petersburg/Clearwater airport, where it had been parked since April 7, 1989.
In May 1989, appellant (Franklin Floyd) told a neighbor that he was going on vacation, and he asked that she mow the lawn and collect his mail. He stated that he would return on June 15. On that date, however, appellant and his daughter, using assumed names, married in New Orleans, and on June 16 their trailer in Florida burned down. Subsequently, appellant telephoned his neighbor and asked that she burn all of his mail.
Six years later, in March 1995, two evidentiary discoveries in disparate areas of the country led to appellant’s arrest for Commesso’s murder. First, landscape workers discovered Commesso’s skeletal remains in an area off Interstate 275 in Pinellas County, Florida. Other items recovered included two silicone breast implants, clothing, jewelry, artificial fingernails (including one with a jewel on it), and a clump of fibers (a hair weave). Roots growing in Commesso’s skeleton indicated her remains had been there for six or seven years.
Second, the owner of a Kansas auto repair business, beginning work on a truck he recently had purchased, discovered a large envelope, folded and stuck between the truck bed and the top of the gas tank, a space of about three inches. The package contained 97 small and irregularly cropped photos, including many pictures of a woman, beaten and bound. Floyd had stolen the truck in which the photos were discovered in Oklahoma in September 1994. The truck was found abandoned in Texas the next month, and subsequently sold at auction.
At trial, Commesso’s father, brother, two friends, and an acquaintance positively identified the victim in the pictures as Cheryl Commesso. The medical examiner determined that the cause of Commesso’s death was two bullet wounds in the back of the skull. He determined, however, that the skull’s right cheek had been fractured shortly before death, and that the injuries to Commesso’s cheek, which were visible in the pictures, were consistent with the skull fracture. In addition, the injuries were consistent with blunt force trauma, possibly caused by a closed fist.
An FBI analyst testified regarding the similarities between the items worn by Commesso in the pictures, such as articles of clothing, jewelry, and a bejeweled artificial fingernail, and the items found with her remains, and found no inconsistencies. Further, one of the pictures of the bound victim contained an image of someone else’s thumb. The FBI analyst compared it with a picture of Floyd’s thumb, pointed out approximately nine common characteristics, and concluded that he could not exclude Floyd’s thumb from the thumb in the picture of the victim.
Other testimony connected Franklin Floyd to pictures found in the envelope, which were admitted at trial. Although the court excluded several pictures from jury viewing because they depicted child pornography, the majority of the pictures were shown to the jury. The sixteen pictures of Commesso depicted her blindfolded (in some), bound, beaten, and bleeding, and several were close-up pictures of her genitalia. Floyd’s former neighbor, who had been his grandson’s babysitter, identified the sofa in the pictures of Commesso as having been destroyed in the fire that engulfed Floyd’s trailer in June 1989. She also pointed out the trailer’s window and door to Floyd’s bedroom that appeared in the picture. In addition, she identified a boat in one of the envelope’s pictures as having belonged to Floyd at that time. She had been out on boats with him while he lived in the trailer park and knew his daughter and had met the victim with Floyd on more than one occasion. She remembered Commesso’s sportscar and details about the victim, such as the gem on her fingernail.
The jury was told that Sharon, appellant’s daughter/wife, was deceased. A close, high school friend of Sharon’s, who knew her in 1985-89, testified. She identified appellant (Franklin Floyd) as Sharon’s father and identified Sharon in several pictures from the truck envelope.
Helen Hill Keller testified that she knew appellant (Franklin Floyd) in Oklahoma in 1993 and 1994. She was shown pictures from the envelope and identified her then eight-year-old daughter as their subject. In each, the child was fully clothed but in some was posed provocatively. Floyd had never shown her these pictures. She also identified pictures of her children that she had provided to the police. Floyd had taken these pictures and given them to her. In both picture sets, her child is wearing the same apparel, and the locations of the shots are Floyd’s apartment and car. She testified that all the pictures were taken in approximately the same time period. Keller also testified that after she was notified that she would be a witness in the case, Floyd sent her a threatening letter in which he instructed her not to testify.
James Davis was the principal of the elementary school in Choctaw, Oklahoma, at the time Floyd’s grandson/stepson Michael attended first grade. At that time, an Oklahoma court had severed Floyd’s visitation rights with Michael upon finding that Floyd was not Michael’s natural father. Davis testified that on September 12, 1994, he met with Floyd in his office and they went to Michael’s classroom. The three then went to Davis’s truck, and against his consent, Davis drove to a “secluded wooded area,” where Floyd instructed him to park adjacent several bales of hay. Davis observed an unzipped, fully open sleeping bag on the ground with several bulges underneath it. After telling Michael they were leaving him to search for Michael’s dog, Floyd directed Davis into the woods where he handcuffed him to a tree. Floyd returned twice for directions regarding the operation of the truck. Davis subsequently heard Floyd loading things into the camper and the truck engine start. Davis called out for help and was rescued about four hours later. When rescued, he noted that the items he previously observed when he parked the truck were no longer there. He also disclaimed knowledge and ownership of the packet of pictures recovered from the truck in March 1995. The jury was told that Floyd’s own truck was found abandoned near the elementary school on the afternoon of the incident. Finally, Davis testified that Floyd also sent him a letter prior to trial warning him not to testify; Davis read the letter to the jury.
The jury found appellant guilty of first-degree murder.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/fl-supreme-court/1298501.html
