Joseph Paul Franklin

Joseph Paul Franklin (born James Clayton Vaughn Jr.; April 13, 1950 – November 20, 2013) was an American serial killer, white supremacist, and alleged bank robber who murdered sixteen people between 1978 and 1980.

In his youth, Franklin became attached to white supremacism, which he later claimed was due to suffering child abuse. He joined the National Socialist White People's Party and the Ku Klux Klan, and became acquainted with famous white supremacist David Duke.

Franklin either admitted to, or was convicted of, shooting 22 people across ten states, which he drifted between while likely supporting himself with money from bank robberies. He also firebombed a synagogue in Tennessee, which did not cause any injuries. Franklin's victims were generally black men, their white girlfriends, and Jews. In 1978, he shot a white man, Larry Flynt, permanently paralyzing his lower body; Flynt was the head of pornographic magazine Hustler, which angered Franklin by having recently depicted interracial sex. In 1980, Franklin shot black civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, who also survived.

Franklin was arrested in October 1980. He was convicted of several murders, receiving seven life sentences and one death sentence. He admitted to many other murders while in prison, but was not convicted for all of them. In 1997, Franklin admitted to two murders that a man named Jacob Beard had been imprisoned for since 1993; Beard was released in 1999. Franklin was on death row in Missouri for 15 years over the 1977 murder of Gerald Gordon. In November 2013, Franklin renounced his former racism. He was executed by lethal injection later that month.