Oregon Prison Corruption and the Murder of Michael Francke

Was Michael Francke murdered to block his efforts in exposing the crimes of state officials?

Michael Francke was the Director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, which manages prisons, inmates and parolees. On January 17, 1989, he was murdered outside his own office.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Oregon is a beautiful state with incredible natural resources and vast appeal, but underneath the skin of this place is a bleeding sore that festers. That sore is corruption and it isn't in short supply.

The corruption runs the gamut throughout all of Oregon's state agencies including the Dept of Human Services and includes a level of mutual cooperation among officials that is dark and unimaginable.

In this article we will examine the background of former prison director Michael Francke's Murder, one that underscores the serious nature of Oregon's corruption and what many describe, as the state's moral bankruptcy.

Michael Francke

Oregon, like every state and province throughout the world, is a place where corrupt prison officials make bank from illegal activities. While every prison has a degree of corruption, the questions behind Oregon's long list of dicey investigations and convictions defy explanation. This is old knowledge, and has been widely known for many decades.

In the late 1980's, former Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt, who has been exposed in more recent years as a pedophile who had an ongoing relationship with his underage babysitter, brought a man to Oregon who many believed, could eliminate or greatly reduce the corruption in the Oregon DOC (Dept of Corrections).

Michael Francke, who served as a Navy JAG officer during the war in Vietnam, was a tried and true corruption fighter. He was hired by the state of New Mexico to battle prison corruption after a prison riot in that state during the 1980's left dozens dead inside one of the state's correctional facilities.

Francke investigated and exposed the corruption that was leading to severe problems and was officially recognized for his achievements by political leaders such as former US President James Carter.

After New Mexico, Francke was brought to Oregon with the same hopes of reversing negative trends in prison corruption that included Murder, prostitution, drugs, and of all things... cattle rustling. As it turns out, Oregon prison guards in the 80's were taking inmate crews out and stealing cattle from local farms and ranches and the DOC was making money by supplying steaks to local restaurants.

It was also exposed during the 1980's, that Oregon DOC officials were enlisting the help of convicted Murderers inside the prison and rewarding them by providing weekend passes, to convicted killers! At least one of these weekend passes for a murderer led to what else, but murder.

In light of the glaring problems in the Oregon DOC, it is no wonder that Michael Francke's presence and investigation were unwanted and resented. Not only did the DOC violate every major law in the book, the Oregon State Police, Marion County Sheriff's Office and Salem Police would all play their part in Francke's Murder as well.

On 17 January 1989, Francke, the Director of the Oregon Dept of Corrections, was stabbed to death.

His body was discovered hours after a DOC employee had noticed that his car door in the parking lot of the DOC administrative building, was wide open, with Francke nowhere to be found.

Hours later, his body was found outside of the door to his own office. Without question, Francke was abducted while attempting to enter his car. Those who kidnapped him then brought him back to the DOC administrative building hours later, where they killed him.

Mr. Francke was on the verge of turning in an investigation that was going to "bring down" a number of Oregon officials. To this day, many of those Francke was investigating continue to serve in high positions in Oregon cities including Salem.

Officials would later convict a petty drug user named Frank Gable for Francke's Murder. They claimed that Gable killed Francke in a robbery, though Francke had been trained by one of the most elite elements of the US military... and towered over Gable as well as outweighing him significantly.

Francke's briefcase and laptop computer disappeared the same day. Francke, as he was being murdered, had tried to unlock the door that let to his DOC office, but the door locks had been re-keyed the same day. In his final moments of life, Francke broke a glass panel from the door attempting to get inside.

All of Francke's documents from his year-long investigation were shredded at the DOC within hours of his murder according to inside sources.

Michael Francke's brother Kevin, an architect living in Florida at the time of the Murder, came to Salem immediately after his brother was killed and still resides here today. Kevin Francke had been informed by his brother that he believed his life was under threat.

One of the first things he did was produce a movie starting Angelina Jolie called "Without Evidence" which traced local police corruption and the events leading up to his brother's Murder.

Witness tampering, the illegal use of lie detectors, and a wealth of other problems accompany the conviction of Gable. As this time, a federal public defender in Portland, Oregon is working diligently to free Gable after so many years and the word on the street is that he will ultimately be exonerated.

A recent article in the Statesman Journal newspaper, Behind bars: Officer misconduct in Oregon's prisons, shows a fresh media approach to this age old problem regarding Oregon prisons. Oregon media groups have largely avoided the Francke story and the serious legal questions in Oregon regarding corruption, but now the information is seeing some exposure, and it is about time as the state's failure to behave in a legal manner is no secret in this country.

The Oregonian newspaper in Portland even let a reporter go because he refused to accept the state's version of the DOC Director's murder. Phil Stanford worked tirelessly to expose the truth behind the Michael Francke case.

It is as if we all exist in this bizarre state of acceptance in Oregon, that Michael Francke was Murdered to block his efforts to expose the crimes of state officials, and that there isn't a damned thing we can do about it.

I have been told by a Dateline NBC producer that Oregon is the only state that refuses to have any dialog with the national TV program that is known for exposing legal corruption. The bottom line is that Oregon is a land of false convictions and its legal officers have been able to keep the problems from gaining detrimental public exposure, until now.

As the former news editor of Salem-News.com, I wrote and published many stories about Oregon prison corruption, many of which clearly stem from racist practices within the DOC. I have written extensively about those inside the DOC who attempted to expose the agency's extraordinary corruption. A central figure is former Oregon Corrections Officer William Coleman who personally witnessed a level of retaliation that nearly took his life.

For more details and background on Oregon's historic prison corruption, please read my 2011 article: Snitch Sheets, Unresolved Murder and Severe Tobacco Crimes.