Lyon College professor researches mysterious Stone County “murder”

Connie Franklin’s story is a lengthy and odd one that to this day has the people of Stone County perplexed.

The drifter turned up in St. James, a small town near Mountain View, in 1929 only to be killed a few months later. Five men were charged with Franklin’s murder, but a week and a half before the trial was to begin Franklin showed up in Batesville alive and well. The only problem was it wasn’t Connie Franklin.

It is that twist that has Lyon College Assistant Professor of History Dr. Brooks Blevins researching Franklin, known as “The Arkansas Ghost.”

“I came across this topic while working on my current book manuscript, “Arkansas, My Arkansaw,” Blevins said. “The St. James community, where the alleged murder had taken place, split between those who said this man was the real Connie Franklin and those who claimed he was an imposter. And it only got stranger from there.”

Blevins recently presented a lecture on the Lyon College campus about the sensational story and trial. He said the murder mystery captured the attention of people from all over the South and reporters in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Tennessee.

“It’s an interesting story with many twists and turns,” he said.

Franklin was to be married to his 16-year-old girlfriend at the time of his supposed death. The two came upon a group of five men who allegedly beat Franklin and burned his lifeless body on a brush pile. Sheriff’s deputies intercepted a letter implicating the men and arrested them, charging the five with murder.

However, the men had a different story. They said Franklin was alive. The five had the support of several other people who reported seeing the drifter in different parts of the state.

With a little more than a week before the trial, a man claiming to be Franklin came forward. The man seemed to know things that only Franklin would know, but he appeared to be different from the Franklin everyone in Stone County knew. Some believed the man was truly Franklin; others said he was an imposter.

It was eventually discovered that the man was Marion Rogers, who had been treated in a state mental hospital. The jury’s acquittal of the suspects indicated they believed Rogers and Franklin were the same person, Blevins said.

Rogers cashed in on his 15-mintues of fame. He and two other players in the Franklin case later toured the country talking about the Stone County trial of the century, Blevins said. Rogers even played a couple of songs on a harmonica.

It also was rumored that Rogers wrote a book of poetry. Blevins said he has yet to find the book.

In 1932, a newspaper reported that Rogers took ill and died. But the story was far from over.

In the 1960s or 1970s, a second man claimed to be Connie Franklin. The man was largely ignored and died in the 1980s. He is buried at a Sulphur Rock cemetery.

Blevins said it is amazing that 78 years later, residents still talk about the mystery that put their little town on the national map for a while.

“This still lives among the people of St. James,” he said. “The generation that grew up in the 30s and 40s knows about (the case). At some point it will go away, but people are still taking sides on (the story). There are so many different theories on what happened.”