Audio By Carbonatix
On the afternoon of September 6, Franklin Davis drove away from Hebron High School with Shania Gray, a 16-year-old student there. Davis, 30, had arranged the meeting using a fake Facebook profile featuring a picture of a teenage boy. Otherwise, Gray might not have agreed to meet.
Davis is accused of raping Gray back when she was 14 and a babysitter for his kids. She was scheduled to testify against him at his October trial. But on that Thursday afternoon in early September, she agreed, reluctantly, to get into his car. Two days later, police found Gray’s body, pierced by two bullets, floating in a Trinity River inlet.
In jailhouse interviews, Davis confessed to the murder and expressed bewilderment at his actions. He blamed demons.
Those demons must have been back in control on Tuesday night when Davis overpowered a Dallas County Sheriff’s deputy, stole the deputy’s gun, and fled on foot from Parkland Hospital, where he had been taken after complaining of chest pains.
He was on the lam for two-and-a-half hours. According to WFAA, Davis ran from the hospital at about 8:15 p.m. He was next spotted nearly an hour-and-a-half later inside a van parked in a lot at Harry Hines Boulevard off Oak Lawn Avenue, about a mile from Parkland.
Davis stayed in the van as law enforcement officers and a DPD SWAT team surrounded the vehicle. He surrendered about an hour later, leaving the gun behind in the van. Still complaining of chest pains, he was taken back to Parkland.
Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Carmen Castro said Davis will face additional charges relating to the escape, which makes the job of Philip Hayes, Davis’ defense attorney, just that much harder. He was clearly bewildered when the Morning News caught up with him last night.
“He’s certainly taking a bad situation and right now making it worse,” Hayes said. “I don’t know if it’s just fear or if there’s more to it.”
