Meet America's cheapest discount hooker 1
Pastor killed one girl, maybe more 2
Wealthy wife hires cop to whack hubby 3
Vampire Rapist Ricky Franklin May Be Serial Killer, But Cops Can't Convict Him
Thursday, Nov. 12 2009 @ 2:04PM

Ricky-Franklin.jpg
Ricky Franklin is suspected in the murder or disappeance of at least 10 women
​UPDATE: Woman says Franklin kidnapped her in the '90s, but police never investigated. See update after the jump...

Ricky Franklin picked up a 21-year-old woman in Jackson, Mississippi Saturday and took her to a club in nearby Bolton. They later repaired to his trailer home. That's where he beat her with a bottle, tried to bite off her ear, sucked her blood, choked her, and brutally raped her, say police.

Franklin was confronted by a relative, so he ran into the woods before turning himself in the next day. But if history's any indication, he may well skate on the crime. He's a suspect in 10 murders and cases of women disappearing. Though he's been tried three times, he's never been convicted...

The weekend rape was just the latest entry on his long resume of depravity. Since 1992, he's been arrested at least 11 times for crimes ranging from public drunkenness to eight incidents of assault. In 2000, Franklin was imprisoned for beating a man with a metal object, which left the victim disabled. But he only did a year.

He's now been charged with kidnapping, sexual battery, rape and assault. But the bigger question is whether police can link him to the 10 cases of murder and missing women he may be responsible for. Those go back to 1999, but due to reluctant witnesses and insufficient evidence, detectives have never been able to pin him.

In 1999, investigators found the bodies of five women near Franklin's home. Shannon McKinny, 23, was stabbed to death. A second unknown woman was found shot to death. A third unidentified woman was found beaten and shot. Then Mabel Conic, 44, and another unknown woman were shot to death.

Franklin was only charged with Conic's murder in 2008, but that case was dumped due to lack of evidence. In 2007, he was acquitted of assaulting yet another woman. And in 2006, he again walked after being accused of stabbing still another woman. Prosecutors say the didn't have the evidence to convict him.

All told, he's been acquitted once, had two cases end in mistrials, and spent just three years total in jail.

Though detectives seem to have a firmer case against him in this latest rape, prosecutors sound skeptical that they'll ever nail him for the 1999 rampage. "If (investigators) come up with new developments in the cold cases, we'll take another look at them, but based upon our best information, those avenues have been exhausted years ago," Hinds District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

If he's convicted in the weekend rape, however, he could still face life in prison.

UPDATE: A woman says Franklin kidnapped her back in the 1990s, but she managed to escape. Police blew off the investigation, she claims.

The case against Ricky Franklin is beginning to resemble the case against another suspected serial killer, Anthony Sowell. In both cases, it seems police blew off victims considered undesirables, allowing body counts to bloom.

So says a former prostitute and drug addict, who claims she was kidnapped at gunpoint by Franklin in the late '90s. "He pulled a 9 millimeter gun on me," she told WLBT-TV. Held it to my face and forced me to get in. Somehow, thanks to God... that I got the door open and I jumped."

But police apparently weren't too interested in a crime against a hooker. She identified Franklin from a photo book, and also identified his car. But Cops seemingly did no investigation -- even though bodies were beginning to pile up near Franklin's home.

"Whoever the detective was he never followed up on the case," she says. "They told me the car was registered back to Edwards or Bolton, Mississippi. They never did anything about it. I guess because it was a woman on the street, prostitute, and was using drugs."

The women again recognized Franklin when she saw his photo after his latest arrest. Police now believe he's responsible for the murder and disappearance of 10 or more women since 1996.

Meanwhile, we now have a clearer picture of the rape that led to Franklin's arrest last weekend. According to a sister of the 21-year-old victim, Franklin picked her up at her home Saturday night and took her to Dick's Place, a bar in Bolton. The apparently knew each other because Franklin was trying to date the woman's roommate.

On their way home, Franklin said he had to make a quick stop at his house before dropping her off. That's when he immediately started punching her and beating her with a bottle.

""Her nose was bleeding, and she said he was over her licking the blood from her nose saying, 'I'm a beat you...I ain't going to kill you, but I'm a beat you," the sister told WJTV in Jackson.

Franklin knocked her out and raped her before being confronted by a relative and fleeing. The woman woke up in the hospital with a broken nose and jaw, a swollen eye and bruising.