A tortured trail

St. Petersburg Times

June 7, 1997

How police think Cheryl Ann Commesso wound up in muck along I-275

The remains of a young woman are found alongside Interstate 275 in Pinellas County. The bones have sunk into the marsh, her clothes ragged from years of mud and rain. Identifying her would seem impossible. But in the two years since the discovery, the investigation has gone from complex to bizarre.

It is a story of a high school dropout who made friends, and a living, in nude bars between Tampa and Orlando.

One of those ""friends,'' it turns out, was a federal fugitive name Franklin Delano Floyd, a man who has been suspected of murder, kidnapping, stalking and numerous other charges.

""Without a doubt, Franklin Floyd is one of the most evil people I've ever met in my life,'' Oklahoma prosecutor Lisa Hammond said Friday.

In the end, police say, Cheryl Ann Commesso may wind up being a bit player in a tragedy spanning several years, several states and several lives.

She may have died simply because of a friendship.

A father and "daughter'

Franklin Delano Floyd grew up in Georgia with three sisters and a brother. The children were raised in an orphanage in Hapeville when the father died and the mother ran off.

At 19, Floyd kidnapped a 4-year-old girl from a Hapeville bowling alley. He was arrested but escaped a year later. He was arrested again after robbing a bank in Macon, Ga.

He served 10 years in prison, was released on parole and disappeared in 1973, the same year investigators say they think he abducted another 4-year-old girl.

Floyd has said he did not kidnap her. The girl, he said, was abandoned by her mother, a ""drunk and drug addict'' whose name he had forgotten.

The two moved about several states but by 1984 had settled in Atlanta. Floyd was going by the name Warren Marshall. His ""daughter,'' Sharon was enrolled at Forest Park High School in Clayton County.

Teachers remember Sharon as a popular teenager who excelled in school. She ran for junior class office and had glamour shots made for her poster.

Jennifer Tanner met Sharon at a camp for student council members in the Atlanta area. She still remembers calling Sharon at home after the camp, and a man who said he was Sharon's father answered the phone. He was irate that someone had their home number.

""I just thought her Dad was just strict,'' Tanner said.

He eventually allowed their friendship to grow, even though he discouraged boyfriends.

Once, Sharon called Tanner into her bedroom and showed her lingerie that she said her father had bought her. He was obsessed with Sharon, often taking photographs and talking about her beauty.

Though Sharon had won a scholarship to Georgia Tech, she became pregnant and ran off to Alabama to be with a boyfriend. The boyfriend woke up one morning to find a note from Sharon, saying her father had taken her away.

An abandoned Corvette

By April 1988, the Marshalls had moved to the Tampa area.

Sharon gave birth to a son, Michael. To support the family, she began working in adult clubs such as the Mons Venus in Tampa.

It was there she met Cheryl Ann Commesso. They were instant friends.

Commesso had moved to Brandon with her family when she was 8. At Brandon High School, she sang in the chorus and danced. In 1987, Commesso competed in the Miss Brandon Pageant.

A videotape shows her in a white swimsuit, walking almost hesitantly down the stage and staring blankly into the audience. During her senior year, relatives say, she dropped out and began to run away.

""She was a smart child,'' said her aunt, Joyce Haughom of Tampa. ""But you know kids get into things. . . . She wanted to grow up fast.''

She worked at the World Famous Doll House in Orlando, and her father helped her get a loan to buy a red Corvette. She made enough money working nude bars between Orlando and Tampa to pay for breast implants. She no longer was the shy teenager.

She wanted to pose for Playboy and other magazines, her mother, Lois Commesso, has said.

Her parents were estranged, but Commesso came back to Tampa to live with her father. One night in April 1989, she left his house, planning to spend the night with a friend. She promised to call in the morning.

The phone never rang.

Her Corvette was found abandoned, and her family reported her missing. Her mother called the Mons Venus, only to be told that her daughter may have gone to dance in Miami. The family did not believe it. She would never leave her Corvette, they said.

Marriage, new identities

Within weeks of the disappearance, the Marshalls moved first to New Orleans, where they were married, and later to Tulsa.

He became Clarence Marcus Hughes. She was Tonya Dawn Tadlock.

Again, she worked as a dancer in adult clubs. She was always very secretive about her background, saying nothing except all of her relatives were dead.

In April 1990, she was walking to a motel outside Oklahoma City when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. Her new husband was considered a suspect, but he had an alibi:

He had been back at the motel, waiting for her.

Her co-workers were concerned because she had told them she wanted to leave the man named Clarence Hughes. She had met a new boyfriend in the club, but she was afraid.

Investigators, still looking at the new husband as a suspect in the hit-and-run, discovered through fingerprint analysis that he actually was named Floyd - and had been a federal fugitive for 17 years.

Not long after Sharon's death, Floyd was placed back on parole from 1973 federal charges. He gave Sharon's young son, Michael, to state welfare officials. Blood tests later showed that Floyd was not the biological father.

Floyd began working as a maintenance man at an apartment complex. A woman who lived there returned home to find Floyd in the bushes. He emerged with a knife, cutting her as she tried to defend herself.

He was arrested. But a week before he was scheduled to appear in court for attacking the woman, Floyd had more important matters on his mind. One Monday afternoon in September 1994, he went to an elementary school in Choctaw, Okla., where young Michael was in first grade.

Pieces to strange puzzle

Wearing a rumpled suit, Floyd walked into the office of principal James Davis and announced he needed help getting his son.

""I think I'd better tell you I've got a gun in my pocket, and I'd better show it to you. . . . I'm ready to die, and if you don't help me, you won't live.''

Floyd left the school with the boy and the principal. He drove the principal's pickup to woods, then cuffed the principal to a tree, not far from where Michael lived with his new foster parents.

In the nationwide search for Michael, investigators pieced together details of the strange life between Floyd and the boy's mother. The FBI traced him to Texas and to Kansas, where the principal's pickup broke down.

The mechanic repairing the truck later found a package taped to the gas tank. Inside were more than three dozen photos of a scantily clad girls. Several other photos showed a different young woman, who had been beaten, with parts of her body exposed.

Investigators were puzzled.

In November, Floyd got a job as a used car salesman in Louisville, Ky. For weeks, he lived in a Victorian house. Neighbors noticed he always seemed to wear clothes from thrift stores. He could be heard walking in his apartment all night long.

He never mentioned a son. Instead, he talked incessantly about a daughter, who he said was a prostitute. He showed photos of her. Neighbor Terry Evans said he befriended Floyd until one night when Floyd wanted to stay in Evans' apartment to watch a movie and refused to leave.

""He wanted to watch The Fugitive on TV,'' Evans said. ""It turns out he was a fugitive.''

He finally was arrested at the used car lot for kidnapping young Michael and his principal. The boy never has been found.

The next spring, in March 1995, Floyd had been returned to Oklahoma to stand trial.

Several thousands miles away in Florida, a landscaper was taking a break from clearing brush near Interstate 275 when he saw a skul near the fence, close to the Gandy Boulevard exit.

Sculpting a face

A team of detectives and forensic experts spent four days digging in thick roots and muck before finding 90 percent of a skeleton. They also found clothing, jewelry and a breast implant.

Detectives reviewed five years of missing person reports but found no leads. A forensic sculptor from Oklahoma used the skull to create a likeness of the victim. Nobody recognized her.

Then in 1996, the FBI had determined Floyd had been in the Tampa Bay area. They also realized the significance of the photos of the beaten woman. Investigators in St. Petersburg searched back yet another year and found Commesso had been reported missing. She had been a dancer.

Dental records confirmed the remains were Commesso's.

Detectives went to Oklahoma to question Floyd, where he was sentenced to 52 yeas in federal prison on kidnapping charges, but still awaits trial on state charges. Floyd has denied being involved in the Commesso slaying.

Detectives aren't so sure: Her bones were found at the freeway's exit to Pinellas Park. She had been shot, and Floyd was known to use guns. Floyd likely was the last to see Commesso alive.

Commesso's remains were returned late last year to her family in New York. Relatives in Tampa had a quiet memorial service.

""The family has put this to rest,'' said her uncle, John Haughom. ""We have closure.''

- Information for this story comes from court files, police interviews and articles published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and the Courier-Journal in Kentucky.

WHO WAS SHE?

In March 1995, a team of detectives and forensic experts spent four days digging amid thick cypress roots and sifting mucky soil beside Interstate 275 in St. Petersburg before finding 90 percent of a woman's skeleton. A forensic sculptor later attached erasers and clay to the skull to recreate the likeness at left of the slain woman. A tip more than a year later help police finally identify the dead woman as Cheryl Ann Commesso.

CHERYL ANN COMMESSO, had been missing for six years when her skeleton was found. She had lived in Brandon and was 18 when she became friends with Sharon Marshall. They worked together at an adult club in Tampa. She disappeared in April 1989.

SHARON MARSHALL likely was kidnapped as a young girl. She lived with Franklin Delano Floyd in Tampa Bay, working as an exotic dancer when she was a teenager. She later married Floyd, but was killed mysteriously by a hit-and-run driver in Oklahoma.

Key events

+ 1973: After his release from prison, Franklin Floyd kidnapped a young girl, police believe. They don't know where she was taken from or who she is.

+ 1975: Two years later, Floyd enrolled the girl in elementary school in Oklahoma, saying she was his daughter. He was using the name Trenton B. Davis. She was called Suzanne.

+ 1984: Nine years later, he went by the name Warren Marshall when enrolling her as his daughter, Sharon, at Forest Park High School in Clayton County, Ga. The girl went on to graduate with honors. But she became pregnant - and she and her father soon disappeared.

+ 1988: In Hillsborough County, they lived in a mobile home park on 28th Street near Cockroach Bay and at the Town & Country park in Valrico. She gave birth to a boy named Michael on April 21, 1988.

+ 1989: They all were living at the Golden Lantern trailer park at 7950 Park Blvd. near Pinellas Park. Sharon worked as an exotic dancer at Mons Venus in Tampa and met a teenager named Cheryl Ann Commesso. The two became friends. Commesso disappeared in April 1989.

+ Two months later, Sharon and her ""father'' were married in New Orleans. He used the name Clarence Marcus Hughes. She was Tonya Dawn Tadlock.

+ 1990: In April, the woman known as Tonya Dawn, still working as a dancer, was walking along a busy Oklahoma highway when she was struck by a hit-and-run driver. Her son, Michael, was placed in foster care.

+ 1994: Floyd tried to get legal custody of the boy but failed. In September 1994, Floyd kidnapped Michael and his school principal. The principal was found, alive, in a woods in Oklahoma. The boy is still missing.

+ Floyd was arrested in November 1994 in Louisville, Ky. He since has been convicted on kidnapping charges. Jailed in Oklahoma, he remains a suspect in the hit-and-run death. Police also consider him a possible suspect in the death of Cheryl Ann Commesso.

+ 1995: Skeletal remains were found along Interestate 275 in March. Police identify the remains as Commesso in summer 1996.

Franklin Floyd Timeline

Officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com

June 17th, 1943 *** Franklin Delano Floyd is born in Barnsville, Georgia. His father is Thomas H. Floyd, his mother Della Jewel Floyd(maiden name was Fowler.) Siblings Dorothy, Billy, Shirley , and sister Tommye

June 1944/ Floyd's father dies.

January 21, 1946/ Floyd children placed in Georgia Baptist Children's home in Hapeville Georgia by their mother. Later Dorothy is moved to an orphanage in Pinewood, GA

1948/ Della Floyd is married in Broward County, Florida.

1952 / Della divorces her husband.

May 15, 1952, Della marries yet another man in West Palm Beach, Florida. They divorce eventually, he re-marries another woman in 1960 in Minneapolis, Indiana.

October 30, 1955/ Della's fourth husband was working at a service station in Chicago at 264 N. Western Ave. There is a robbery (doesn't involve Franklin) on that date and it made the papers.

1957 Dorothy living for the first time in Sumpter, SC, her mother comes to visit. Dorothy tries to send her mother home by bus, an unpleasant incident occurs and Della is arrested for drunk and disorderly and is jailed in Sumpter for several months in 1956.

June 11, 1959/Franklin runs away from children's home.

July 11, 1959/ Franklin enlists in the U.S. Army under a fictitious age. Serves in Missouri and Oklahoma.

December 1959/ Franklin is kicked out of the army because he is too young and forged his papers. Franklin is sent by bus to his sister Dorothy's house in Gainesville, GA. Her husband sends him away.

February 19, 1960 Franklin breaks into a sears store in Inglewood, California, he exchanges fire with police on top of the roof of the store and is subsequently shot in the back by officer Jack O. MacGregor shortly after 4 a.m. He was sent to Centinela hospital and then transferred to the General Hospital prison ward.

August 1961/Franklin violates his parole by going on a camping trip with a fellow parolee to either Alaska or Canada.

November 1, 1961/ franklin is taken into custody for parole violation and is returned into the Preston Youth Facility.

January 1962/ Franklin is released from the Preston Youth facility.

1962/ Franklin is at Dorothy's home in Gainesville Georgia.

1962/ Floyd is working at the Atlanta airport.

May 1962 / Franklin returns to Hapeville, Georgia and lives near the Georgia Baptist Children's Home. He is jailed for obtaining a liscense under false pretenses.

May 20 1962 / Franklin abducts a 4-year-old girl from a Hapeville,Georgia bowling alley and rapes her.

July 31, 1962/ Franklin is convicted of "child molestation" and is sentenced to 20 years. He was incarcerated at Reidsville Prison in Atlanta, Georgia.

November 1, 1962/ Franklin was hospitalized at Milledgeville State Hospital for psychiatric testing.

March 14th, 1963/ Franklin escapes from Milledgeville Hospital, stole a car in Milledgeville, and bought a pellet pistol.

March 15, 1963/ Franklin robbed The Citezens and Southern bank of $6,810.28 in Macon, Georgia. He is arrested the same day.He is held in Atlanta from April 4th to June 28th, 1963.

March 26, 1963/ Franklin confesses to the bank robbery, but says he did it to get money to appeal his child molestation conviction.

July 12, 1963/ Franklin pleaded guilty to the bank robbery in Macon.

July 12, 1963/ Franklin was sentenced to 15 years in Chillicothe Federal reformatory in Chillicothe, Ohio for bank robbery.He serves a sentence there from July 24, 1963- October 26, 1963.

September 27, 1963/ Franklin attempts to escape from Chillicothe by hotwiring a prison fire-truck and smashing through a fence. He is apprehended and transferred to Lewisburg, PA.He serves a sentence there from October 26, 1963- June 5, 1964.

June 1964/ Franklin is transferred to Springfield Missouri Medical Hospital of Federal Prisoners for evaluation. He is there from June 5th, 1964 to February 6, 1965.

February 1965/ Franklin is transferred to Federal prison in Marion, Illinois. He recieves his G.E.D.He is at Marion from February 6, 1965 to February 15, 1968.

February 1968/Franklin is Transferred to Reidsville prison in Georgia to finish molestation sentence/ Meets David Dial. He is there from Febuary 15, 1968 until he is remanded over to Federal Prison in Atlanta.

July 2 1968/ Della Jewel dies, she is buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago.

November 1971/ Franklin is transferred to Federal Prison in Atlanta, Georgia for the escape attempt in Chillicothe. This is the birthplace of The Church Of The New Song.

November 1972/ Franklin is released to a halfway house.

January 19, 1973 Franklin is paroled.

January 27th, 1973/Franklin attempts to kidnap a young woman in Atlanta, Georgia. His court appearance is scheduled for June 11, 1973.

February 2, 1973/ Franklin is taken into custody for attack on woman in Atlanta, Georgia. Franklin calls David Dial and he posts 3,000 dollar bail.

Late February, 1973/ Floyd vanishes. It is later learned that he is staying with his friend David, David's address at this time was 48 Franklin rd. in Newnan Georgia.

1973/ Floyd is seen at the Weston, Connecticut residence of his sister Tommye. Her house is burglarized later that night.

1974/ Floyd was seen in Fairfax, Virginia. His sister believes he was living with his brother Billy and wife Betty.

1974/ Floyd has said in this time, he helped to paint a large intricate mural on the ceiling of the Salt Lake City Utah Mormon Tabernacle.

1974/ Franklin shows up at Dorothy's residence in Sumpter, SC. Brother Billy is with him.

1974/ Sister has said that a friend of Franklin's told her that he seen Franklin, with Sharon in Texas in late 1974.

Late 1975/ Tommye is divorced.

1973-1975 / Franklin may have sent a postcard in this time period from somewhere named Freedom Village.

1973-1975/ Franklin obtains a little girl (who is now known as Sharon Marshall) from somewhere. Nobody to this day knows when he got her, where he got her, or from whom.

1975/ Franklin begins to work in the Oklahoma school system under the alias Trenton Davis and later in August 1975 enrolls Sharon as his daughter "Suzanne Davis " at Wilson Elementary school.

1976/ Tommye's Weston Connecticut house is sold and she moves into a Stamford, Connectut townhouse.

1978 Trenton and Suzanne flee Oklahoma under allegations of child molestation by the babysitter. She told police Franklin was molesting his daughter.

1978/ Franklin and Sharon are in Arizona where she is enrolled in a school called Sevilla or Sevalia.

1979-1981/ The pair are in Louisville Kentucky

????/Sharon is enrolled in Northside High School

May 1983/ Sharon is enrolled in Baldwin High School

September 1983/ Sharon is enrolled in Riverdale High School

November 1983/ Sharon is enrolled in Forrest Park High School in Georgia

Sunday, July 15, 1984/ Sharon meets Jennifer Fisher at a summer leadership workshop in Rome, Georgia.

1986/ Sharon graduates high school

July 1986/Sharon and Franklin move to Phoenix Arizona.

August 7, 1986/ Della's Fourth Husband dies.

End of 1987 Franklin and Sharon leave Phoenix.

1988/They are in Hillsborough County living in a mobile home park on 28th street near Cockroach Bay and later at the Town and Country Park in Valrico.

March 21, 1988 Michael Anthony Hughes, Sharon's son is born

May 16,1988/ The Mons Venus is raided, there are dozens of arrests.

1989/ Franklin, Sharon and Michael are living at the Golden Lantern Trailer park at 7950 Park blvd. near Pinnellas Park. Sharon works at a club called The Mons Venus where she meets Cheryl Commesso.

First week of April 1989/ Cheryll Commesso disappears.

April 1989/ First week of April 1989/ Franklin murders Cheryl Commesso and dumps her body along I-275

1989/ A warrant is placed on Franklin for insurance fraud, he is accused of drilling holes in the bottom of his boat to collect insurance money.

April 7th/ Cheryl Comesso' red corvette is deposited at the St. Petersburg/ Clearwater airport/

April 15, 1989/ Cheryl Commesso's corvette is found at the airport and impounded.

May 1989/ Floyd and Sharon leave Tampa.

June 15, 1989 Franklin and Sharon marry in New Orleans, under assumed aliases.

June 16, 1989 / Floyd's trailor is set on fire in Tampa.

August 1989-April 25/ Sharon is working at a club called Passions in Tulsa Oklahoma.

April 25 1990/ Sharon is struck from behind by a vehicle, she is in the hospital for 5 days and then dies from her injuries.

May 4, 1990 Sharon's funeral services are held at Ninde Chapel in Tulsa.

May 17, Michael Hughes is officially declared a ward of the state.

June 20 1990/Franklin is arrested near Augusta Georgia on a 1973 kidnapping charge. Franklin is incarcerated in a Georgia Federal prison for the kidnapping of Atlanta woman in 1973. Asks Rebecca Barr to marry him. Asks David Dial to retrieve his belongings from the trailer where he was arrested on Baron Chapel Road in Augusta, Georgia.

September 11, 1990, Billy Floyd dies a suspicious death in Barnesville, Georgia.

December 1990 ? Floyd is transferred from Georgia prison to El Reno Prison in Oklahoma.

December 14, 1990/ Tommye's ex-husband's daughter is murdered in Dallas Texas.

1991 / Convicted in Oklahoma on a federal charge of possession of a firearm after former conviction of a felony.

December 1992/ Court rules conclusively that Floyd is not Michael's biological father.

March 30, 1993/ Released from Federal Corrections Facility at El Reno after 33 months. Living in halfway house.

July 4th, 1994/ Attacks a woman at Northwest oklahoma City apartment complex where he is working as a maintenance man.

August 19, 1994/ Arrested for attack the woman mentioned above. Is released on bond.

Septmber 12, 1994/ Kidnaps Principal James Davis and Sharon's son Michael from a Choctaw, Oklahoma elementary school. Ties principal to a tree and leaves with Michael. Nobody to this day knows the whereabouts of Michael Hughes.

UNKNOWN DATE/ Commits carjacking in Atlanta and is charged with Five weapons possession charges, 2 counts of kidnapping and larceny of an automobile before he is ever even apprehended.

September 21- September 29th / Franklin Floyd is a patient at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

October 22, 1994/ Principal James Davis' truck is recovered in Love Field, Dallas by Love Field Airport, Texas at the Wonderbread Factory employee parking.

November 10, 1994/ Franklin is arrested at a Kentucky car dealership where he has been working for 2 days for the kidnapping charges.

March 29 1995/ A body (bones) found along I-275, later it is learned this is Cheryl Commesso.

March 1995/ Pictures are found concealed above the gas tank of Davis' truck that depict children (including Sharon in pornographic and sexually suggestive poses, also found are pictures of a severely beaten Cheryl comesso, some colored in with blood red to add to their eery "death effect."

September 28, 2002/ Franklin is convicted of Cheryl Comesso's murder.

2002- Present/ Franklin appealing murder conviction.

August 10, 2006/ Team LGCC vows to find answers.

January 1, 2007/ Franklin's sister Dorothy is attacked in her Florida apartment by her ex-daughter in law Lynn. Dorothy has stated that another woman was present when this attack occurred and this other woman had stated that the attack on her was for Franklin. Lynn is arrested. There is no way to verify if the other woman was present or not. The other woman was formerly "The Mystery Photo Woman."