Homicide Watch D.C.

Prosecutors today presented their case against Rodney McIntyre—accused of killing his daughter, Ebony Franklin, last November—in the following timeline:

On Friday, November 26, 2010, the decedent, Ebony Franklin, age 16, was to meet her father, Mr. Mc Intyre, in the Columbia Heights area of the District of Columbia to pick up her Christmas gifts, and then was to meet up with W-2 to return home.

The decedent met with Rodney Mc Intyre.

During that meeting, there was vaginal sexual contact between the decedent and her biological father, Rodney Mc Intyre.

Although the decedent was supposed to meet W-2 in the 3500 block of Georgia Avenue, N.W., to return home to Prince George’s County, Maryland, the decedent did not do so.

No further communications were received that can be conclusively identified as having come from the decedent after 12:04 p.m. on November 26, 2010.
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Rodney McIntyre was held without bond for first-degree murder in connection with the stabbing death of his teenage daughter, Ebony Franklin.

Emotions ran high in today’s arraignment as the prosecution laid out details of the girl’s death and argued that there was probable cause to detain McIntyre until a preliminary hearing, set for July 7.

The evidence included phone records and a DNA test that showed a sexual relationship between McIntyre and Franklin, who is his biological daughter. The prosecution also said that McIntyre was the last known person to have contact with Franklin before her body was found several days later—stabbed 15 times—in a Columbia Heights dumpster.

Several individuals in the courtroom became upset and left the room after the DNA evidence was mentioned.

Police Chief Cathy Lanier said Saturday that McIntyre had been a person of interest in the case from the beginning, but charging documents released today show him to have become increasingly paranoid as MPD investigated his daughter’s death. Under questioning from authorities, the explanations that he offered for evidence grew increasingly bizarre.

According to prosecutors, when confronted with evidence that McIntyre’s sperm was found in Franklin’s body during the autopsy, he initially said that she was trying to become pregnant and that he had provided her with a bottle of his semen, which she was inserting into herself with a turkey baster.

Later he said that he had had sex with her, but that the semen found in the autopsy was not his because “he knew that sperm did not stay inside of a woman’s body for more than 3 days, such that it would be impossible for his DNA to be present because their last sexual contact was on Tuesday, November 23, 2010,” charging documents said.

In charging documents presented to McIntyre today, government prosecutors relied on the autopsy, sex kit evidence and cell phone records that show Franklin and McIntyre in the same part of Columbia Heights at the same time the day she was reported missing.

Prosecutors also cite two text messages sent from Franklin’s phone after she was reported missing: one sent on Saturday, Nov. 27, asking if her mother was upset that she hadn’t come home. Another, sent to her mother the following day reads: “Remember.the.bitch.told.on.my.man.now.yoo.get.her.out.the.trash.”

The recipient of the first message said that they had never before received a text message from Franklin.

Read charging documents from the case and other coverage after the jump.
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This comment of the day comes from Sadly_Missing_U, who wrote about Don Diego Jones.

On June 8, 2011 will mark the one year anniversary of my co-worker, friend, father, husband, brother, son, Don Diego Jones. Don was a multi talented opera singer and a well loved young man. He was my co-worker, and always made us laugh. Don sang for Coretta King’s funeral. His voice was golden pure and natural. On June 8, 2010 someone stole and rob so many of us of our Don. Don’s body was found in Fort DuPont Park. A homicide victim found shot in Southeast Washington last week was identified Tuesday as a 43-year-old classical singer from Temple Hills who frequently performed in the chorus of the Washington National Opera. Don Diego Jones, of the 2100 block of Anvil Lane, was found dead in Fort Dupont Park about 4:30 p.m. on June 8, D.C. police said, adding that his body was on the ground near his parked car. The slaying remains under investigation. His case is still open. Someone knows something!!!! Read more

Rodney McIntyre, accused of killing his teenage daughter, Ebony Franklin, in November, has an extensive prior record and spent time in and out of prison from the early ‘90s through the mid-naughts, according to court documents.

His arrest record dates back to 1983 and includes convictions in a string of misdemeanors and felonies including attempted robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and drug charges.

Most recently, in 2005 he was convicted for threatening to injure a person. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for that charge.

There is no record of McIntyre being arrested on a sex crime charge in D.C.

McIntyre is due in court tomorrow to be presented with the murder charge.

Rape. Incest. Sex.

Yesterday MPD Police Chief Cathy Lanier said there was evidence that Rodney McIntyre had had a “sexual relationship” with his 17-year-old daughter, Ebony Franklin.

That didn’t sit right with Carol, who commented on a report saying,

“Someone really needs to press lanier about calling incest, rape, and murder a “sexual relationship”. It makes it sound like this poor young woman was complicit or consenting. I hope justice will be served and she finds peace.”

A similar complaint has pinged through NBC Washington’s comments board on their story.

“Sexual ‘relationship’ with a teen and her dad? I’d call it rape…OK,” wrote Darren Hutchinson, a law professor at American University.

The words we use to discuss crime matter, and they matter most when we are talking about violent crime. Lanier likely chose the words she used carefully because McIntyre has not been charged with a sex crime in the case.

But what matters more than words is evidence and we don’t know the evidence of the case against McIntyre yet.

The big questions remaining:

• Will McIntyre be charged with a sex crime?
• What does “sexual relationship” mean in this case?
• What, if anything, did that relationship have to do with Franklin’s death?

When Ebony Franklin‘s body was found in a Columbia Heights trash can just after Thanksgiving weekend, the horror of the crime that killed her and tragedy of her loss were deeply felt through the neighborhood.

“Still no word on Ebony Franklin’s killer,” Mariah Costello shared on Facebook just days after Franklin was found.

“I still can’t bring myself to park back there and I still keep waking up in the middle of the night. No one’s trash has moved since monday, not pulled to the curb Tuesday, seems we didn’t have the will to. No kids outside. Neighbors keep looking at each other a little more uneasily. Is it one of us? Do we know them? Are they near here? I hate what this does to us.”

Some answers came, finally, on Saturday evening, nearly six months later. Franklin’s father, Rodney McIntyre, was responsible for the 17-year-old’s death, MPD Police Chief Cathy Lanier said.

At a press conference Saturday night, Lanier said there was evidence that McIntyre had had a sexual relationship with his daughter and that she had been stabbed 17 times.

McIntyre, a 45-year-old Southeast DC man, is expected to be presented with a first degree murder while armed charge Monday in DC Superior Court.

Here’s a links roundup of coverage of the arrest yesterday.

Read more at WJLA, WUSA, WTOP, the Washington Times, DCist and in the Washington Post.

MPD’s press release on Ebony Franklin‘s homicide states that her father, 45-year-old Rodney James McIntyre of Southeast DC, was arrested just after 5 p.m. tonight on suspicion of first-degree murder in the case.

McIntyre is expected in court Monday to be presented with the charge.

Read MPD’s press release after the jump.Read more

MPD will hold a press conference at 9 p.m. tonight to discuss the Ebony Franklin homicide case, according to a press release just sent by MPD. The conference will be in front of The Boys and Girls Club at 101 M Street SW.

We’ll post more as we know it.

Rodney McIntyre, the father of Ebony Franklin, has been arrested in connection with the 17-year-old’s death. Franklin’s body was found in a Columbia Heights dumpster in November.

In March, McIntyre accused police of harassing him. Police called him a person of interest in the case.

“The way my baby was found in the trash, it’s unacceptable,” said Rodney McIntyre, the father of 17-year-old Ebony Franklin who’s body was found in a District dumpster last November. “What I want to know as her father, what really took place with my child?”

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George White, a 48 year-old Southeast DC man, was found stabbed to death Friday afternoon in Congress Heights, MPD said in a press release Saturday afternoon.

MPD’s press release follows.

May 21, 2011

Homicide: 400 Block of Newcomb Street, SE

(Washington, DC)-Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a fatal stabbing which occurred in the 400 block of Newcomb Street, SE.

On Friday, May 20th, 2011 at approximately 1:44 pm, units from the Seventh District responded to the 400 block of Newcomb Street, SE. Upon their arrival they found an adult male victim who was unconscious, unresponsive and suffering from stab wounds to the body. Personnel from DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded and the victim was pronounced dead on the scene by a member of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for the District of Columbia.
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