Closing arguments delivered in Franco murder trial, jury to deliberate Monday
Closing arguments have been delivered in the trial of Michael John Franco, the man accused of murdering Jill Grant in 2013. Jurors are now deliberating on Franco’s fate with plans to return to the courthouse on Monday. Grant was a popular math teacher at Palm Desert High School. The future of the murder suspect is now in the hands of the jury, which is expected to deliberate soon.
Grant was a popular math teacher at Palm Desert High School.Grant was a popular math teacher at Palm Desert High School. KESQ News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2’s Zak Dahlheimer was at the Larson Justice Center in Indio to deliver up-to-the-minute details as proceedings continued throughout the day.
Information from Jason Kurosu – City News Service
Franco should be convicted of first-degree murder for slashing his girlfriend’s throat and letting the Palm Desert High School teacher bleed for five hours before running her over with her car, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.
A defense attorney argued in his closing argument that Franco was guilty of involuntary manslaughter, not murder, because he was high on methamphetamine at the time of the attack.
Jurors began deliberating Thursday afternoon. Franco, 46, faces life in prison without parole if convicted of murdering Grant. He’s accused of cutting her throat with a box cutter, then running the 41-year-old teacher over with her Toyota Prius after the initial attack failed to kill her.
Grant’s body was found at the Golf Club at Terra Lago by golf course employees in the early morning hours of Dec. 23, 2013. Franco testified last week that he has no memory of killing Grant because he was high on methamphetamine. The defendant said his memory is “fuzzy” for a period of nearly 24 hours starting from the night of Dec. 22, 2013, until the following evening.
“It’s almost impossible for me to put it together,” he testified. “I wrack my brain over it all the time.”
But Deputy District Attorney Kristi Kirk told jurors that Franco’s actions that night showed his awareness of the consequences, despite the “ridiculous” and “unacceptable” defense theory that he blacked out due to
his meth use.
Kirk said in her closing argument that after cutting Grant’s throat at their home in the 84-400 block of Onda Drive, Franco did not call for medical help despite Grant’s pleas. Those pleas were heard on an inadvertent “butt dial” call to Franco’s friend, who told police that he received a recorded message on his phone from
the defendant’s phone at 12:26 a.m. Dec. 23 and heard what sounded like “a female begging for her life” on the call.
In the recording, Grant appears to be telling Franco that they should call police and report that she was attacked by someone else. He allegedly responded that he would take her to the hospital and call 911, at which point Grant responds by saying, “Wait until I can think of another idea. What if I drive the car someplace and call myself and say I was attacked? Would that work (inaudible).”
“She would do anything, make up any story, just to get medical attention,” Kirk told jurors.
Franco testified he did not remember making those statements, but admitted it was his and Grant’s voices on the recording. After five hours, he drove her out of the Terra Lago gated community under the pretense of getting her medical attention, but actually intended to dump her in a canal near the golf course, the prosecutor alleged.
After noticing that Franco was driving in the opposite direction of the hospital, Grant ran from the car, leading him to run her over with the Prius, Kirk said. Franco testified that an argument began between him and Grant that night after he received a text message from a friend, asking for his drug dealer’s phone number. He said it angered Grant because they had an agreement for him to only use meth in the house, due to his history of addiction.
Kirk told the jury that no such arrangement existed and that his continued drug use was a strain on their relationship, with Grant pushing Franco to attend rehab and regularly drug-testing him at their home. Kirk said that despite letting him stay at her home, Franco repeatedly stole money from
her and verbally abused her.
“She supported the defendant. She provided for the defendant. She only wanted the best for him,” Kirk said. “She did nothing but encourage the defendant to be a better person.”
But the text Franco received from his friend was “the final straw,” Kirk said, leading her to kick him out of the house.
Franco claimed he only remembered bits and pieces of the next 24 hours, and had no memory of cutting her throat, cleaning blood and brush off the Prius later that night at an Indio gas station or making recorded statements to police upon his arrest, which included “You’re going to have to (expletive) shoot me,” that he had drained his bank accounts and that he was poised to flee to Mexico.
Franco was arrested Dec. 24, 2013, at a home in Palm Desert. Kirk said he was Tasered after he reached for a gun inside Grant’s Prius.
Prosecutors allege that days after the killing, Franco confessed to the crime to a fellow cellmate at the Indio county jail, stating, “The human body is resilient” and “It is difficult for someone to actually die.” Franco denied making the statements, and defense attorney Dante Gomez claimed that the inmate fabricated the exchange with Franco for a plea deal to avoid prison time on a vehicle theft charge.
In his closing argument, Gomez told jurors the cellmate was “a liar” and that much of the prosecution’s case relied on the false, uncorroborated narrative he presented them, including the theory that Grant ran from Franco prior to being run over.
Gomez also maintained that prosecutors had not at all discounted that Franco could have been unconscious during the course of the night due to his meth use.
“I am asking you to base your decision based on evidence, based on facts, not on speculation,” Gomez said.
Kirk countered that everything Franco allegedly did that night, from cleaning blood at the house to withdrawing cash from Grant’s ATM card, pointed to recognition of his situation.
“It is completely unreasonable to believe that the defendant was unconscious,” Kirk said, stating that his activities that night were done to “benefit him in escaping from his crime.”
Grant grew up in the Santa Rosa Mountains above Palm Springs and attended Palm Desert Middle School and Palm Desert High School, graduating in 1990. She attended College of the Desert, then transferred to Cal State San Bernardino, where she majored in mathematics.
She taught math at Palm Springs High School for three years, starting in 1995, then began teaching at her alma mater in 1998.
Continue to watch KESQ and CBS Local 2 on air and online as we get the newest information from court.
Closing arguments have begun in the trial of #MichaelJohnFranco. Stay tuned to @KESQ and @LocalTwo both on-air and online pic.twitter.com/bPrPqHyE9Q
— Zak Dahlheimer KESQ (@ZakDahlheimer) April 13, 2017
