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Plea to Crist: Help us find our son
April 7, 2007
By Carol Marbin Miller
cmarbin@miamiherald.com
FLORIDA PANHANDLE
Four years after Franklin Weekley
vanished at a state institution for disabled people, his family has
asked Gov. Charlie Crist to find out what happened. State disability
authorities insisted that Franklin Weekley, a severely disabled
teenager, needed to live in a locked-down institution for his own
protection.
They committed him, against his
family's will, to a Marianna hospital, regularly locked him in
seclusion, and used so much force to restrain him one night that he
needed stitches on his face.
Franklin vanished from the hospital
the next morning, Dec. 6, 2002.
Two years later, workers discovered
a pile of human bones in a rotted, collapsed boiler building at the
Sunland Training Center where he had lived. Underwear with
Franklin's name was found near the bones. The teeth matched
Franklin's dental records. But Florida disability leaders deny they
were Franklin's remains.
Now, the Weekleys have asked Gov.
Charlie Crist to help them bring peace to their family, which has
never stopped searching for the handsome, dark-haired youth.
Citing the governor's advocacy for
the parents of another Panhandle boy, Martin Anderson, who died at a
juvenile justice boot camp last year, the Weekleys have asked Crist
to find the truth about what happened to their son.
''It's the worst hurt you could
ever go through,'' said Eddie Weekley, 59, of Milton, near
Pensacola. ``We miss him very bad.''
''I still look for him to come
home,'' he added. ``You will always do that for somebody you love so
much.''
A spokeswoman for Crist declined to
discuss Franklin's case with a reporter.
''The letter has been received by
the general counsel's office of the governor, and they will review
and research the situation, and brief the governor on it as quickly
as they feel they have all the information,'' said Crist's deputy
press secretary, Kathy Torian.
``We have not even reviewed the
letter yet.''
Franklin, whose parents also are
disabled, was diagnosed with moderate mental retardation with an IQ
in the 50s, a seizure disorder, a severe speech impairment and a
history of difficult behavior.
Department of Children & Families
administrators said he set fires, attacked teachers and threw
tantrums. In November 2001, Panhandle prosecutors asked a judge to
order Franklin locked up at an institution for people with mental
retardation. They submitted a second petition the following May;
both were granted.
At a Nov. 11, 2002, hearing -- the
third involuntary-commitment proceeding -- Franklin, then 17,
haltingly testified. ''I want to go home,'' he said, according to a
transcript.
''I ain't satisfied with the way he
was treated,'' his father testified. ``That's where he belongs, with
us.''
But a judge ordered that Franklin
remain at Sunland. In her order, Circuit Judge Marci Levin Goodman
wrote that Franklin ''lacks basic survival and self-care skills to
such a degree that close supervision'' was necessary.
Franklin never was happy at the
institution, his family members and attorneys say. His parents,
siblings and an aunt from Wyoming complained Franklin appeared
overly medicated whenever they visited; and that he drooled and
slurred his speech. One of his attorneys, Artie Shimek of Pensacola,
says Franklin was ''taken to the mat'' -- restrained -- regularly.
HELD IN SECLUSION
On one occasion about two months
before Franklin disappeared, Shimek says, Franklin was held in
seclusion for an entire weekend.
His last day at the center, Dec. 5,
2002, was his worst ever, Shimek said. Franklin was sick with a
fever and was forcibly restrained four times. At 7:15 that morning,
as he was restrained, he suffered a ''deep laceration'' to his ear
requiring five stitches, records show.
In their letter to the governor,
the Weekleys' attorneys say Franklin's cottage was being supervised
that night by two ''human service workers.'' One was a janitor
mopping the floors. The other was doing laundry.
It was freezing outside the morning
Franklin disappeared. A police bulletin said he was wearing blue
jeans and a dark brown or black jacket. He was five-foot-eight, and
weighed 154 pounds.
Hospital notes from Dec. 6 say
staff waited almost three hours after the teen was discovered
missing before calling the Weekleys. Records show the hospital staff
refused to allow Eddie Weekley to search for his son on the hospital
grounds.
''Franklin's father cried during my
conversation with him,'' Stephanie Mercer, a Sunland worker, wrote
in her notes four days after Franklin's disappearance. ``Mr. Weekley
indicated he was worried about his son and was anxious to know his
whereabouts.''
The search was suspended Dec. 17,
2002, records show. But weeks after workers stopped looking, family
members continued to scour the Panhandle -- and ''sightings'' of the
youth still were reported, hospital records say.
RECOVERING THE BONES
The bones were found Oct. 28, 2004.
Contractors were at Sunland, which originally was part of an old Air
Force base, to tear down an old boiler room building that had been
used for storage for several years.
Weeks before, some of the
building's walls had simply fallen off.
''During the operation the work
crew discovered what appeared to be a human skull in a basement,'' a
Jackson County Sheriff's Office report said.
``The work crew recovered the skull
thinking that it might be something that had been stored in the
building.''
After two days, the sheriff's
deputies had recovered all but ``one patella, three ribs, three
teeth from the maxilla and numerous hand and foot bones.''
A sheriff's office report said
police ``were satisfied that what could be recovered had been
recovered.''
Franklin's family will not be
satisfied until they know what happened to him.
In the letter to Crist's office
last week, family attorneys Shimek and Karen A. Gievers pleaded for
the governor's help:
'Please help provide justice for
Franklin and his parents, have a full investigation that comes up
with the answers, not more shrugs and `I don't knows,' and get to
the bottom of this.''
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