Joseph Paul Franklin

Joseph Paul Franklin, born on April 13, 1950, was an American serial killer and white supremacist whose violent actions left a grim mark on the late 1970s. He was responsible for the murders of sixteen individuals between 1978 and 1980, a period during which he drifted across ten states, often funding his criminal activities through bank robberies.

In his youth, Franklin became deeply entrenched in white supremacist ideologies, a path he later attributed to experiences of child abuse. His affiliations included the National Socialist White People's Party and the Ku Klux Klan, where he crossed paths with notorious figures like David Duke. His victims predominantly included black men, their white partners, and Jewish individuals, reflecting his extremist beliefs.

Among his notorious acts, Franklin shot Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, in 1978, leaving Flynt permanently paralyzed. In 1980, he also targeted civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, who survived the attack. Franklin's violent spree culminated in his arrest in October 1980, leading to multiple convictions for murder, resulting in seven life sentences and one death sentence.

While incarcerated, Franklin confessed to numerous other murders, although he was not convicted for all. Notably, in 1997, he admitted to two murders for which an innocent man, Jacob Beard, had been imprisoned. After spending fifteen years on death row for the murder of Gerald Gordon, Franklin's life took a turn in November 2013 when he renounced his former racist beliefs. However, he was executed by lethal injection later that month, closing a dark chapter in American criminal history.