Witnesses in child-cruelty trial regret not reporting girl's mistreatment

BUTLER, GA. -- So many knew, but did not act.

That was the testimony Friday in Diana Franklin’s child-cruelty trial, where five witnesses said they either heard or saw how Franklin was mistreating her adopted daughter between 2009 and 2012, and regret they did nothing to intervene.

One was retired Taylor sheriff’s deputy Robert Turner, who recalled Franklin enlisting his aid when the girl ran away from home.

Turner said he soon found her walking down the road, got her into his car and took her back to Franklin’s 783 Old Wire Road home outside Butler.

When prosecutor Wayne Jernigan Jr. asked about the girl’s demeanor, Turner replied: “Scared to death. I couldn’t understand why she was so upset and scared.”

When she got home, she was “drawed up in a knot,” Turner said. “She didn’t say much of anything to anyone.”

When another deputy there told her that if she didn’t behave, she would wind up in a youth detention center or YDC, she replied, “I’d rather be in YDC,” Turner said.

“We tried to explain to her that it wasn’t a place to go,” he said. They told her she could wind up being a “mistress to someone,” he testified, adding the other deputy was more explicit: “He was more blunt about it and a little bit more descriptive.”

Turner later learned why the child wanted to escape, recalling a conversation in which Franklin talked of locking the girl up and feeding her only bread and water.

“I told her, I said, ‘You can’t do that to a child. You don’t do that to an animal.”

Franklin’s reply was, “It’s my daughter. I’ll do as I see fit,” he testified.

He now realizes he should have acted on that information, he said: “I regret I didn’t start an investigation and talk to the sheriff about it.”

Franklin’s defense attorney Kevin Bradley questioned Turner’s referring to Franklin as a “religious freak” during a Georgia Bureau of Investigation interview.

Turner said he found Franklin’s beliefs extreme as compared to his Baptist upbringing: “The ones who push it to the limit are the ones I consider freaks.”

Witness Sherry O’Neil said she was shocked to learn during a visit that Franklin had been locking the girl in various outbuildings on the family’s 73 acres.

Franklin took her on a tour of the property, pointing out an outhouse and a henhouse in which the girl had been confined for misbehavior. “I think I was in shock much of that day,” O’Neil recalled.

Franklin also pointed out a padlocked, cinderblock shed she told O’Neil was the girl’s bedroom. O’Neil could see the teen wasn’t safe there, she said: “There was no way or her to get out if there was a fire or something.”

She said she told Franklin what she thought of her disciplinary methods: “I said I felt like the tactics were military tactics and would not work on a girl.”

At one point Franklin told her that when the girl was adopted at age 9 in 2007, she had never heard the word “no” before, so at first that’s how her adoptive parents answered every request she made, O’Neil said.

She recalled also that Franklin told her she once handed the girl a loaded handgun and in effect said, “If you want to kill me, kill me.”

O’Neil said she should have alerted the authorities: “My regret was that I didn’t take action myself.”

When Franklin’s attorney asked why she didn’t act, she replied, “It was confusing about what do to.”

Witness Shirley Hartley said some local women familiar with the girl’s mistreatment discussed calling the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services or DFCS, which handled the girl’s adoption. Hartley feared the child could wind up in a worse predicament.

“I talked people out of calling DFCS. That is my biggest regret,” Hartley said.

Hartley said Franklin also told her of handing the girl a gun and saying, “If you hate me this much, go ahead and shoot me.”

Carol Johnstone, who lived across the road from Franklin, recalled seeing the child forced to work in a garden all day for weeks in brutal summer heat: “I never saw her take a drink of water the entire time,” she said. “It was terribly hot.”

A fourth witness, Richard Wainwright, told of going to the Franklins to help neighbor Steve Montgomery dig a ditch for a pipe there.  A chain on a trenching machine they used needed to be tightened, and Franklin volunteered to get them a wrench, he said.

She took him to the cinderblock shed, unlocked the padlock and called out that she was bringing someone in, he said.

“I thought she was talking to a dog,” Wainwright testified. “I was cautious because I didn’t want to get dog bit.”

When he went in, he was surprised to see a girl inside: “She looked like she might have been hungry and scared.”

He added: “I knew it wasn’t right…. I knew what I seen was wrong.”

He also regrets he did not report it, he said: “I really didn’t want to get involved.”

What he really wanted to do was get away, he said.

Taking the witness stand after Wainwright, Montgomery remembered what Wainwright said when he returned with the wrench:

“He said, ‘We’ve got to hurry up and get the hell out of here,’” recalled Montgomery, who said he also regrets “not saying something” about the way the girl was treated. “I’m not sure why I didn’t,” he added.

According to earlier testimony, the girl was removed from Franklin’s custody on May 25, 2012, when DFCS workers got a tip that she was being held in the cinderblock shed.

Now 18, the teen testified Franklin sometimes would lock her up without clothing, food or water; use collars made for dog training to give her painful electric shocks; and make her lie naked on her stomach as she was beaten with either the strap or buckle of a belt.

The high school senior also said she once threatened to commit suicide, provoking Franklin to put a loaded pistol to the teen’s head and say, “I’ll do it for you.”

Franklin faces 19 counts of child cruelty, eight counts of false imprisonment and one of aggravated assault.

Authorities also arrested husband Samuel Franklin, but he has been indicted separately and is not on trial.

Diana Franklin’s trial resumes Tuesday in the Taylor County courthouse.

This story was originally published November 13, 2015 at 4:17 PM with the headline "Witnesses in child-cruelty trial regret not reporting girl's mistreatment."