Franklin Delano Floyd (June 17, 1943 – January 23, 2023)[2] was an American murderer, rapist, and death row inmate.

He was convicted of the 1989 murder of Cheryl Ann Commesso, as well as the kidnapping of 6-year-old Michael Anthony Hughes,[3] who he claimed was his son, from his elementary school in Choctaw, Oklahoma.

Floyd was also considered a person of interest in the 1990 hit-and-run death of his second wife and kidnapping victim Sharon Marshall, mother of Michael Anthony Hughes.

Marshall's true identity remained a mystery until 2014 when she was positively identified as Suzanne Marie Sevakis, the daughter of a woman to whom Floyd was briefly married.

Sevakis' brother remained missing until 2019 when a man came forward believing he was Phillip; DNA tests confirmed his identity in 2020.

Shortly after Floyd's first birthday in 1944, his father, a cotton mill worker and alcoholic, died from kidney and liver failure at age 32.

Over the next year caring for the large family became too difficult for Floyd's grandparents, and by 1946 they asked Della and her children to leave.

[7] Floyd and his siblings were put into the care of Georgia Baptist Children's Home in Hapeville at the advice of the Lamar County child welfare agency.

There, Floyd was allegedly bullied by other children for being "feminine" and later reported to have been routinely sexually assaulted by other boys in the home.

In 1959, having been at the Children's Home two years after his youngest sister left, Floyd ran away and broke into a nearby house to steal food.

[7] After being kicked out of his sister's home, Floyd traveled to Indianapolis to search for his mother, Della, only to learn that she had become a prostitute.

Floyd had Della help him forge legal documents allowing him to go to California to enlist in the United States Army.

On February 19, 1960, at age 16, Floyd broke into a Sears department store in Inglewood, California, to steal a gun.

Floyd was convicted of kidnapping and child molestation and was sentenced to serve ten to twenty years at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.

[7] While being taken out for a medical errand in 1963, Floyd escaped and fled to Macon, where he robbed over $6,000 from a branch of the Citizens & Southern National Bank.

After being sent to the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, Floyd was sent back to the Georgia State Prison in 1968 and befriended a fellow inmate named David Dial.

On January 27, 1973, a week after he was released from the halfway house, he approached a woman at a gas station and forced her into her car, where he attempted to grope and sexually assault her.

Brandenburg eventually found her two middle daughters, Allison and Amy, in the care of a local church-operated social services group.

[citation needed] As she was found with groceries scattered around her, police surmised she had been struck from behind in a hit-and-run while walking from a convenience store to a nearby Motel 6.

When Floyd arrived at the hospital the following day, he claimed he had fallen asleep at the Motel 6 after Sevakis had departed to collect the groceries.

At the time of Sevakis' death, she and Floyd were suspects in the 1989 disappearance of 18-year-old Cheryl Ann Commesso, her fellow exotic dancer at the same strip club.

[13] Michael's foster parents told authorities the boy had limited muscle control, was non-verbal, and often experienced hysterical behavior when he first arrived at their home, but he had made remarkable progress.

[18] In a 2014 interview with the FBI, Floyd finally admitted to killing Michael on the same September 1994 day of the kidnapping, shooting him twice in the back of the head.

[11][22] Floyd and Sevakis fled to Oklahoma shortly after Commesso disappeared, and their trailer was burned to the ground in what was ruled intentional arson.

It brought the story of Franklin Floyd and Sharon Marshall, whose real identity was still unknown, to light and led to the discovery of the daughter placed for adoption in 1989.

Worldwide interest in finding Sharon's true identity generated by the book eventually led the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and FBI to revive the case in 2011.

In 2014, two FBI agents interviewed Franklin Floyd, who confessed to killing Michael Hughes and divulged Sharon's true identity, Suzanne Sevakis.

It is directed by Skye Borgman and based on the books A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon by Matt Birkbeck, who is also the executive producer.