Does this sound familiar?

It’s yet another (probable) serial killer who managed to elude capture because no one in law enforcement can be bothered to investigate homicide cases in which the victims aren’t white college coeds.



Astonishing:

Three times Ricky Franklin of Bolton has been accused of attacks on women in Hinds County. All three times, he was not convicted.

….Hinds District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith said Franklin is suspected in the deaths or disappearances of at least five women in 1999.

Much of this is circumstantial evidence. It’s entirely possible that the serial killer speculation is the result of the Anthony Sowell media swarm–yet another example of how easily one can elude law enforcement when one preys on “undesirables.” (Sidenote: It’s really hilarious that only NOW does the media decry cases such as these, considering they’re totally complicit in the demonstrated indifference.)

I would put together a saga of a post outlining America’s inherent racism and injustice in missing persons & serial homicide investigations, but I doubt you have the inclination to read it, and I don’t have the time to write it.

So I’ll give you this. Here are some cases that make my blood boil.

Ronald Dominique, who murdered 23 men (maybe more) over what might have been a two-decade period in Houma, LA, and outlying counties. All were known drug addicts or rough trade types. Because of that, and given that these murders took place in multiple parishes/counties, law enforcement expressed a distinct lack of interest in combining forces to investigate the murders. The president of the Houma Chamber of Commerce was even quoted as saying that whoever was doing it was merely “cleaning up the trash” of Houma. Police finally announced a joint taskforce–one month before Hurricane Katrina. By the time Dominique was arrested in December 2006, more men had died (and one–his last victim, the one who led cops to him–narrowly escaped with his life). He was given 8 consecutive life sentences last year.

Currently, a serial killer is active in Jeff Davis Parish, LA, not far from Houma. No surprise: His victims were all women with drug addictions and/or who traded sex for drugs. Read more about them here.

And from a decade ago, we have Kendall Francois of Poughkeepsie, NY. Like Sowell, Dominique, and probably Franklin, he murdered prostitutes and drug addicts. Like Sowell, he was a sex offender. Like Sowell, he kept his victims’ bodies in his house. Like Sowell, neighbors complained of the smell (in fact, the neighborhood children referred to him as “Mr. Stinky”). Like Sowell, women went to the cops to report that he assaulted him. And like Sowell, the cops did nothing.

The way the TV presents missing persons cases, you’d think that everyone who goes missing is a white female. And yet according to the FBI, over one-third of missing people in 2007 were black. And slightly less than half were men.

Other items: Mitrice Richardson is still missing. (Please read this article.)

And I have no lucid way of wrapping this up, but it’s shit like this that makes me insane. Just to sum up, we have serial killers in plain sight, and the police don’t seem to care enough to investigate. We have people of color going missing in huge numbers, and yet…zilch on TV. Finally, it seems completely out of the question to investigate a sex offender with a record of beating up prostitutes and the smell of decomp emanating from his house, but not so far-fetched that a nation-wide gang of serial killers is luring frat guys away from bars and drowning them. Because there’s no other reason why a drunk guy would end up in a body of water.