Joseph Paul Franklin was a complicated guy. He was smart enough to escape from an interrogation

room after being arrested for a double murder in Utah. Smart enough to continually avoid

capture or even identification for up to 21 murders committed across 11 states over three years

he continually changed identities carefully planned numerous attacks and once even

escaped from authorities at the courthouse while he was on trial by quickly

MacGyvering his way into a locked elevator.

And yet, he was also dumb and delusional enough to think he could single-handedly spark a

race war, similar to the apocalyptic and insane helter-skelter scenario envisioned

by Charles Manson.

Franklin was an American serial killer, convicted of murdering eight people in five different

states during a three-year murder spree that took place

between 1977 and 1980. Franklin targeted Jewish people, black people, interracial

couples, and young white women who he found out had previously dated black men.

Yeah, he was that racist. He also shot a black civil rights leader for being

publicly seen with white women, a white porn mag publisher who dared to publish a sexual pictorial of a black man

and a white woman together and two black children who were just walking to the

store to buy some candy. Joseph Franklin typically killed his victims in

sniper style shootings hiding out in a concealed spot,

shooting victims from a distance where they could not see their deaths coming.

He was inspired by terrible people like Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson,

and deplorable hate groups like the K K K and the American

Nazi Party. He became interested in white supremacist ideologies when he was a

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