Boyfriend charged in Nailah Franklin's death

(Originally Posted 12-11-07)

Reginald Potts, 30, has been charged with the murder and disapperance of his ex-girlfriend, 28 year old Nailah Franklin.

A "deeply flawed" alibi has led to the arrest of a Chicago man in the September slaying of Nailah Franklin, authorities said during a news conference today.Police said Reginald Potts Jr., who briefly dated Franklin, is charged with murder after FBI officials placed his cell phone and Franklin's cell phone in the same location at a time he said he was not with Franklin.Franklin's sisters reported her missing Sept. 19 and her nude body was discovered in dense woods in Calumet City eight days later. Police say Franklin was killed Sept. 18. A law-enforcement source has said she was not shot or stabbed. [If she wasn't shot or stabbed, that leaves only one choice - strangulation.] An autopsy in September failed to determine the cause of the death and the Cook County medical examiner's office said Saturday results are still pending.

Police sources said Potts, 30, had been a suspect since Franklin was reported missing. The two had a heated e-mail exchange the week before she disappeared. Witness statements to police also raised questions about his whereabouts, authorities said. Potts, who also is charged with robbery and the theft of Franklin's vehicle, is in the County Jail serving a 100-day sentence after pleading guilty to violating an order of protection involving another woman, according to John Gorman, a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office. Potts also was charged with aggravated battery for striking a sheriff's deputy and ordered held without bail.

Potts' criminal history includes more that 20 arrests and 8 convictions. Some of these are detailed below.

Potts' most serious conviction came in 2002 for threatening to kill a Highland Park police detective and his family, court documents showed. The detective had been investigating Potts' possible involvement in a car-theft ring.Potts had pleaded guilty in 1997 to possession of stolen cars and was sentenced to 7 years in prison.

By 1999, he was out of prison and got arrested on minor charges in Carbondale, where he briefly attended Southern Illinois University.While in custody on the Highland Park threat charge in June 2001, Potts was brought to the Dirksen Federal Building, handcuffed to a bench. The handcuffs were loose and Potts escaped. Two weeks later, the FBI tracked him down on the South Side and took him to the Lake County Jail.

Potts was sentenced to 3 years in prison for intimidation and sent to Big Muddy Correctional Center in Downstate Ina, where in 2003, he was charged and later pleaded guilty to hitting a corrections officer in the eye. While in custody in 2004, he was accused of calling his ex-girlfriend's family in Aurora from jail numerous times using three-way calling and threatened them, according to a police report filed by the woman's brother-in-law."I know where you live," he told the man, who didn't want to press charges, but said he wanted police to record the information "in case something more serious happened," according to the report.

Potts was formally denied bail by Circuit Judge Donald Panarese in the killing of September 18th killing of Nailah Franklin, which is now alleged to have occured on September 18th.

The Chicago Tribune's coverage of the bail hearing is below:

The ex-boyfriend accused of killing Nailah Franklin left a voice-mail message threatening to have her "erased" shortly before her murder, prosecutors alleged Monday. Prosecutors said that surveillance cameras in Franklin's building captured her and Reginald Potts Jr. together on the day of her murder, though Potts denied to police that he was with her that day.Later that day, Potts' friends picked him up about a block from where Franklin's car was later recovered in Hammond, prosecutors said.

Milan said that Franklin and Potts were in an on-and-off relationship for several months before her murder, believed to have occurred on Sept. 18. But by early September, the two were no longer on good terms, and Franklin sent an e-mail to several friends detailing Potts' criminal history, the prosecutor said. Potts found out about the e-mail and began making threatening phone calls to Franklin, Milan said. Two of Franklin's friends, both of whom knew Potts, heard a threatening voice-mail message he left for Franklin, the prosecutor said.

Days before the murder, Franklin told friends that she was afraid of Poots. Prosecutors also described how Potts' alibi was picked apart.]

Potts told police that he was with friends at a South Loop store in the early evening on Sept. 18 and didn't see Franklin that day. But video surveillance cameras from Franklin's building show the two together inside a hallway that day, Milan said.Cell phone records also put Potts and Franklin together on Sept. 18 in Calumet City, where Franklin's naked body was later found, Milan said.After he dumped Franklin's car in Hammond, Milan said, Potts called friends for a ride.

The friends picked Potts up one block away from where Franklin's car was later recovered, the prosecutor said said. "In an attempt to make it look as though the victim was still alive and in the South Loop area, the defendant made three 911 calls from the victim's cell phone while the defendant was traveling north on the Dan Ryan near I-55 with his friends," Milan said. "The 911 calls lasted a second or two and nothing was said."Takisha Walters, a friend who attended the bond hearing, called the charges "bittersweet.Sweet because he is off the streets and won't prey on anyone else," she said. "Bitter because she is not here with us."

Update (1-5-08) Reginald Potts has been charged with 16 counts of 1st degree murder, a count of vehicular hijacking and robbery, and four counts of aggravated kidnapping. Potts is still being held without bail for Nailah Franklin's disapperance, then murder. His next scheduled court apperance will be January 10.

Update (1-13-08) Potts formally pleads not guilty to Franklin's death. He is on 23 hour lockdown at the Cook County Jail, and Judge Nicholas Ford has ordered that Potts be allowed out of his cell so he can search for a private lawyer. He fired his public defender, and is now representing himself. Ford has scheduled a January 22 hearing where Potts must have an attorney who'll appear on his behalf.

References:

Chicago man charged in woman's slaying

Suspect left many threats, court told

Suspect in Nailah Franklin slaying indicted on 16 counts

Ex-boyfriend pleads not guilty