How Could You? Hall of Shame-Denetta Franks case-Child Death UPDATED
This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.
From Atlanta, Georgia, a 17-year-old Foster daughter, Denetta Franks, was “found shot to death in Atlanta on Sept. 21 [2017] told police three months before she went missing that she was raped at an apartment in north Columbus.
The Ledger-Enquirer received the 13-page case report after submitting an open records request to the Columbus Police Department.
According to the report, Denetta Franks was a ward of the state who was staying at the Holiday Inn Express, located at …, until she went missing Sept. 7, never to return again. Her name was redacted out of the case report regarding the rape, but she was identified in another police report on the same incident obtained by the newspaper.
On Sept. 21, Franks’ body was found in Atlanta in the middle of Hortense Place Northwest near the intersection of Florence Place Northwest. The girl’s family recognized a facial reconstruction circulated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and then contacted police to make the identification, according to information contained in a news release. Atlanta police are still investigating the homicide case.
On Thursday, Columbus police officials said the rape case also is still under investigation, and no arrests have been made.
About four months ago, Franks was staying at the hotel under the supervision of a guardian from Cedar Tree Children and Family Services, an organization responsible for caring for juveniles awaiting placement into a home by the Department of Family and Children Services, according to the police report. On June 14, two CPD officers responded to a call from the Holiday Inn Express at about 12:45 a.m. in reference to a sick or injured person. When they arrived they met Columbus EMS personnel, who said they were called to the hotel because someone had fainted.
A night auditor at the front desk told police that a black female had approached the entrance of the Holiday Inn Express waving a key card. The auditor said he let her in and she stumbled around in the lobby, and then sat down on a nearby sofa. She told him, “Call 911, they raped me,” and then stumbled forward. The auditor said he called 911.
EMS workers said Franks told them that she had been forced to drink alcohol and have sexual intercourse with an unknown person at an apartment on Whittlesey Boulevard, according to the police report. She was transported to Midtown Medical Center for evaluation.
In later interviews with the two officers and a detective from the Special Victims Unit, Franks provided more details. She said she was upset that she was going to be placed in another home by DFCS. So, she waited until the guardian went into the bathroom in their hotel room, and then she grabbed her belongings and met a female friend in the lobby, according to the report. She left the hotel at about 9 p.m., and the guardian reported her missing, according to authorities. Police were dispatched to the hotel at 9:45 p.m. in reference to the missing person case.
Franks told police that she and her friend were supposed to be going to the friend’s sister’s house but got into a car driven by her friend’s boyfriend.
Franks said the boyfriend, who was about 21 years old, drove them to a gated apartment complex near Whittlesey Boulevard, where he used some form of ID to get in, according to the report. Another man, who was about 25, met them.
Franks said she told her friend, “I thought it was going to just be us three.”
The friend said, “No, he has a homeboy. Why didn’t you wear something nice?”
Franks told her friend that she wasn’t there to impress anyone, but her friend insisted that she change once they got to the boyfriend’s apartment, according to the report. After changing in a restroom, they all sat together in the living room.
Franks told police they started drinking and she was given cranberry raspberry drink with some clear liquor. She drank two of those drinks, and then had one shot of a dark liquor.
The room went dark, and the boyfriend began playing slow music, Franks told police. Her friend and boyfriend left the room to take a shower, she said, and the boyfriend’s friend left the room briefly and returned wearing nothing but socks.
Franks said he then forced her to give him oral sex, leaving semen at the side of her face. (According to police, she still had semen on her face when she later arrived at the hospital.) He asked her to take off her shirt, she said, and when he said no he raped her on the floor in front of the couch.
After the incident, her friend and boyfriend came back into the room and her friend fell because she was so drunk, Franks told police. The friend and her boyfriend then began having sex, she said. The boyfriend tried to get his friend to also have sex with her friend, but Franks said she stopped them.
Franks said she told them she was going to walk home, but her friend convinced her to let them take her back to the hotel. They dropped her off at the Circle K on Veterans Parkway and Northlake Parkway, the 17-year-old girl told police, and she walked about one-tenth of a mile back to the Holiday Inn Express, where she fainted in the lobby.”
Months before she was killed in Atlanta, foster girl told police she was raped in Columbus
[Ledger-Enquirer 10/12/17 by Alva James-Johnson]
REFORM Puzzle Piece
Update: “Two men accused of shooting a teenager who was in foster care and leaving her dead in an Atlanta street are in the DeKalb County jail on aggravated assault charges in a separate attempted armed robbery case.
Police believe slain 17-year-old Dennetta Franks may have been involved in the Sept. 19 armed robbery with her accused shooters, Wayne Rendell Bailey, 19, of Newnan, and Eddie Byrd, 18, of Atlanta, according to police reports obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The trio, along with two other suspects — Sharelle Pollock, 18, and Dijawan Physean Adams, 18 — shot and attempted to rob a man at gunpoint two nights before Franks was killed, police said.
Franks, 17, of Carrollton, was reported missing Sept. 7 from a Holiday Inn Express in Columbus. She was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds Sept. 21 in the 1700 block of Hortense Place. Franks was in foster care at the time of her death, the Division of Family and Children Services confirmed to The AJC.
She was identified by her father, Michael Franks Sr., after detectives released two sketches.
Two nights before Franks was killed, Atlanta police found Roque Clendinen Jr. lying in the northbound lanes of Mellrich Avenue with his gun in his hand, according to the police report. Clendinen, 43, of Snellville, told officers he was shot by two men and two women, later identified as Bailey, Byrd, Franks and Pollock.
Clendinen said he fired back, injuring a fifth suspect, Adams, as they were running away. Adams was found nearby yelling for help, police said.
Two days later, Franks was shot at close range, described by Atlanta police in the report as a “willful killing.”
Murder warrants were taken out for Bailey and Byrd on Nov. 4 after “probable cause was ascertained,” according to a police report. ”
2 accused of ‘willful killing’ of foster teen found in Atlanta street
[The Atlanta Journal Constitution 11/20/17 by Raisa Habersham]
Rip baby girl I miss you so much netta like Frfr
I miss you so much ….I wish this never happened to you …we were all Good Friends Save Me A Spot BabyGirl😔😇
My first daughter gone but not ever ever forgotten.This shit hurts everyday.