Daughter Points a Finger at Father in 1969 Murder

Twenty years ago today, a groundskeeper making his rounds discovered the horror: the body of 8-year-old Susan Nason dumped in a litter-strewn ravine.

Now, long after detectives had shelved the investigation as unsolvable, George T. Franklin Sr., 50, a father of five, is in jail. San Mateo County sheriff’s detectives arrested him on Wednesday after one of his daughters came forward and named him as the killer of Susan, her childhood playmate.

The daughter, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker, 29, of Canoga Park, told authorities that she had witnessed the crime. She said Susan was killed by a blow to the head from a rock, but that until recently she had repressed what she saw.

“We always felt the person would be found,” said Donald Nason, 54, the victim’s father. “That’s the way it’s supposed to work.”

George Franklin, a former San Mateo city firefighter who retired on a disability in 1981, was arrested at his apartment in the Sacramento suburb of Carmichael, where he worked as a real estate salesman.

Franklin, who is expected to plead not guilty, is being held without bail in San Mateo County Jail in Redwood City. He faces a maximum term of life in prison.

His lawyer, Douglas Horngrad, obtained a gag order preventing participants from talking about the case. Municipal Judge James Browning said the order will remain in effect at least until Franklin’s arraignment next Wednesday.

On Friday, however, details began to emerge.

The Nasons live in the same home in Foster City as they did 20 years ago. The Franklins had lived a few doors away. Their children attended Foster City Elementary School, a block away.

Donald Nason doesn’t remember the Franklins, he said, explaining that at the time he was busy “working, trying to make a buck,” to support his wife and two daughters in the suburb between San Francisco and San Jose.

The killing occurred on Sept. 22, 1969, according to the charge filed on Thursday. After school on that day, Susan, a freckle-faced third-grader, disappeared.

Foster City police, the FBI, people who lived in the area, even military divers, joined in the search for the girl. But it wasn’t until Dec. 2, 1969, that her remains were found in a ravine where trash was often dumped in the coastal mountains about 20 miles south of San Francisco.

The years passed with no solution to the crime, detectives who worked on the case retired, and police went on to focus on other crimes.

All that changed about two weeks ago. San Mateo sheriff’s detectives called the Nasons before they arrested Franklin to say that they were reopening the case. As detectives told it, one of Franklin’s daughters had called to reveal the secret she had kept bottled up since childhood.

Franklin-Lipsker declined to discuss the case with reporters.

Authorities believe that she repressed her memory of the incident and only recently recalled seeing her father deliver the blow that killed her friend. At the time, the three were in the family van, she told detectives. Detectives have said that Franklin killed the girl to cover up the fact that he had molested her.

Donald Nason said the detective’s call came as a surprise after all these years, but he said he has long since lost the ability to be shocked.

“Nothing amazes me anymore,” Nason, a general contractor, said of Franklin-Lipsker’s decision to come forth. “I’m just glad she did.”

He speculated that perhaps she did not come forward out of “guilt,” or maybe because of “fear of her father.”

Susan’s father recalled that, like most 8-year-olds, the girl was very trusting. After talking to someone for a few minutes, she would be fast friends. But as Nason worked to make sense of it all, he took some solace in the fact that his daughter had not been abducted by a stranger.

“We tried to teach our kids to be aware of strangers,” he said. “If it was a stranger, then we didn’t do our job properly. . . . How do you guard against someone who you know?”

Franklin, meanwhile, had lived an unremarkable life in the years since Susan Nason’s murder.

“He was just an average guy, nothing outstanding one way or another,” said Assistant Fire Chief Barry Johnson of San Mateo.

He was granted disability in 1981 after 20 years with the Fire Department, and continues to collect disability pay. He hurt himself falling out of a chair and claimed the fall aggravated an existing back injury, Johnson said.

Franklin married in 1957. In less than six years, the couple had five children. He separated from his wife, Leah, in 1974. Court records of the Franklins’ divorce reflect a bitter separation.

In 1976, Leah Franklin sought more child support and was granted an increase from $200 monthly to $500. In a statement to the divorce judge, she charged that Franklin was living with a woman and “two bastard children.”

Franklin fought to keep the support payments at a minimum. “There are,” he said at the time, “very few firemen that don’t have a second job. I’m one of them, your honor. That was one of the reasons for my divorce. I was tired of being a slave.”

Morain reported from Foster City. Gillam reported from Carmichael.