Prosecutors: Mother's journal entries confirm adopted daughter's abuse

After Diana Franklin testified she never locked her adopted daughter in outbuildings on family property in Taylor County, prosecutors confronted her Friday with passages from her personal journals that seemed to contradict that.

Franklin, 48, is on trial for child cruelty and false imprisonment, based on allegations she locked the girl up and denied her food over the five years the child was in her custody, from age 10 in 2007 to 15 in 2012.

Franklin testified Thursday that her daughter chose to stay outside the two-bedroom house Franklin shared with her husband and three sons, and occasionally spent days in a henhouse, outhouse or garage. Franklin said the girl was free to come and go, and was never confined against her will.

The defendant asserted that again Friday: “It’s her choice to come out of any of those time-out places,” she said. “She never went without food.”

Prosecutors then called her attention to her journal entries, including one that read, “This morning I gave (the girl) some bread and water. That’s all she needs for now.” Another said the child was in a closet and would stay there “as long as it takes.” In a third entry she referred to an outhouse as “her new jail” that was “perfect for her.”

Franklin testified the latter reference was not to the outhouse alone but to a creekside camping area for which it was built. The secluded spot was perfect because of its solitude, she said: “You can scream and holler and get right with the Lord.”

In one journal excerpt prosecutors cited, Franklin wrote that the girl was staying in a henhouse in the summer heat and added, “If she’s good for seven days, I’ll get her a fan.” In another Franklin wrote that the child had been “let out” of solitary confinement.

When social workers took the girl from Franklin’s custody on May 25, 2012, the teen had been sleeping in a garage that Franklin kept padlocked overnight. Prosecutors Friday referenced a relevant journal passage in which Franklin wrote that she had caught the girl stealing saltine crackers, so Franklin was feeding her only three crackers a day and making her stay in the garage with no cot to sleep on and no shower for bathing.

Franklin testified the journals she kept for 23 years were her way of talking to God, and not a diary detailing her daily life, so not all the passages could be taken literally, and they were not written with any forethought. “It was just whatever was going through my mind at the time,” she said.

Franklin’s defense attorney Kevin Bradley called six witnesses who are friends with Franklin to say they never saw her mistreat the girl, and the child never complained to them that she was imprisoned or abused.

Though they testified to frequent visits with Franklin’s family, most of the defense witnesses did not live close by, and acknowledged they personally did not know how Franklin disciplined the girl when they weren’t around.

A notable exception was Martha Harrell, a neighbor who backed Franklin’s testimony that the child was out of control, refusing to do schoolwork and throwing temper tantrums during which she told Franklin she hated her.

Asked about the child’s reaction to being told to do schoolwork, Harrell said, “Oh my goodness! It was like somebody lit her on fire.” The girl erupted in rage, shouting that she hated Franklin, the neighbor said.

Harrell amused courtroom spectators when she repeatedly expressed her displeasure with authorities’ prosecuting Franklin. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like y’all,” she said, adding, “Y’all are being manipulated by that girl. She’s a very good manipulator.”

When Assistant District Attorney Wayne Jernigan asked Harrell if she felt people were lying about Franklin, Harrell said, “Well, it appears like you’ve made up a whole lot.”

Jernigan in rapid succession started asking who Harrell thought was lying, pointing to the prosecution team, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent, a Taylor sheriff’s deputy, and Jernigan’s wife, who was sitting in the audience.

Judge Bobby Peters interrupted with the quip, “Let’s take a break before you get to the judge.”

Later Jernigan asked Harrell her opinion of Franklin’s keeping the child in the garage without air conditioning in summer heat. Harrell said it wasn’t so bad. “She had it easy,” the witness said.

Asked whether she thought other neighbors were lying when they testified they either witnessed or heard from Franklin how she was disciplining the girl, she answered: “They told the truth as they saw it.”

Each side finished presenting its case this week, so closing arguments are expected when the trial resumes Monday morning in the Taylor County courthouse.

Diana Franklin faces 19 counts of child cruelty, eight counts of false imprisonment and one of aggravated assault. Her husband Samuel Franklin also has been arrested and charged, but he was indicted separately and is to be tried later.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 6:51 PM with the headline "Prosecutors: Mother's journal entries confirm adopted daughter's abuse."