LAKE CITY, Fla. – A jury has recommended the death penalty for an inmate convicted last week of first-degree murder in the March 2012 killing of 24-year-old corrections officer.
After a one-week trial, it took the jury just over three hours to find Richard Franklin guilty in the killing of Sgt. Ruben Thomas at Columbia Correctional Institution near Lake City.
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Thomas was stabbed in the neck with a handmade weapon while conducting a cell check. A second guard was treated and released from a hospital after being injured in the attack.
Franklin has been in prison since 1995 serving a life sentence for murder.
Thomas left behind a fiancee, a daughter and a baby boy on the way. His name was just added to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial during ceremonies in Washington D.C. last month.
Franklin was convicted of murdering 25-year-old Bethune-Cookman University student Gregory Roper in 1994. He also received life for robbing an elderly man and 30 years for shooting the victim, who survived.