Michael Francke - Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Theories

Former state treasurer Jim Hill and staff at two Portland newspapers, do not accept the official verdict, believing either that Gable is altogether innocent of the crime, or that he, or another perpetrator was a hired hit man rather than a chance car burglar. Corruption in the prison system was widely suspected, and many believe that Francke's murder was ordered by corrections officials in order to end his investigation into alleged corruption. Hill has called the case a "killing that won't go away". Adding to the discord are the physical attributes of the two individuals; Michael Francke was a SEAL-trained ex-Navy veteran, standing about 6'3", weighing in at about 200 lbs., who normally carried a sidearm for protection. Frank Gable, by contrast, had no service or other self-defense training, stood a mere 5'8", weighed in at about 150 lbs, and had no history of physical confrontations with other men.

The Francke family, led by Francke's brother Kevin Francke, have also publicly expressed doubts about the official conclusions. Kevin Francke has claimed that prior to his death, Michael Francke warned him of a threat on his life, and told him that he had discovered a network of corruption in the department.

There are several theories as to who may have been the killer or killers, and who may have ordered a "hit" on Francke. Most alternate theories of the case propose Timothy Natividad (who was killed two weeks after the Francke murder) as the person who stabbed Francke. Theories as to who may have been behind the killing focus on two men high in the corrections hierarchy. One individual who has been named is Hoyt Cupp, the former warden of the Oregon State Penitentiary; in 2007, a convicted felon gave a series of interviews to Willamette Week in which he claimed that he witnessed Cupp and another (unnamed) corrections official pay Natividad $20,000; and that Natividad later informed him it was payment for killing Francke. Cupp died of cancer in 1990.

Another individual who has been named is Scott McAlister, who had been the assistant attorney general for the state of Oregon until he resigned shortly before Franke's death. McAlister subsequently became Inspector General of the Utah corrections department. An ex-girlfriend of McAlister told the Portland Tribune that McAlister had been in possession of internal police documents concerning the murder that he no longer had had any official reason to possess, and that she had overheard McAlister describe the killing as a "botched hit that was supposed to look like a suicide".

The McAlister theory gained credence in October 1991, when one of the private investigators who had worked on the Gable defense team, H. Wayne Holm, was killed by a Multnomah County Sheriff's deputy, Brian Martinek (now an assistant chief of the Portland Police Bureau), allegedly during a "reverse sting" drug operation. Holm, who had been a former inmate in the Oregon Correction system during the early 1980s had assisted numerous other inmates with parole hearing presentations, and had known Scott McAlister, who represented the Parole and Probation Board during those hearings. Holm had offered the theory that the primary motivation for Francke's murder, was that he had discovered a plot by McAlister to "sell" paroles to inmates. Adding to the mix, was the fact that the person who had been appointed to fill Francke's office after his death in 1997, had been Fred Pierce, the longtime Sheriff of Multnomah County, and the man who had originally hired Martinek.

Much speculation has centered on a mysterious "man in the pinstriped suit", an unknown individual who was spotted by a corrections employee inside the corrections Dome Building, 90 minutes after closing time. The individual has never been identified. Another Dome Building employee, who worked as a Parole Board clerk, has stated the man in the pinstriped suit also matches the description she gave to police as the man who arrived at the Dome Building the day of the murder to repair the copy machine late in the afternoon, and was granted unprecedented access to remain in the building after hours to complete the repairs. The repairs were never completed, the machine was left in pieces, and neither the man in the pinstriped suit or Dennis Plante, the man who testified he was the copy machine repairman (but whom the Parole Board clerk states was not the man who worked on the copier), returned to complete the repairs, nor was any record of the service call found in the copier 'repair log' after the murder. Whether or not the individual has any relation to the killing is unknown, the individual does not resemble Gable.

Dale Penn, the current head of the Oregon Lottery and the former Marion County district attorney whose office oversaw the prosecution of Gable, states that he has "every confidence that Frank Gable is guilty and that this story (the Willamette Week article) is not true".