The Girl in the Picture – what happened to Baby Michael?
Note: The following article contains a discussion of upsetting themes including domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault and kidnapping which some readers may find upsetting.
The harrowing story of The Girl in the Picture is an absolutely brutal watch, even by Netflix's true crime standards.
In a sickening retelling of a relentless cycle of abuse, a decades-old secret finally starts coming to the fore following the kidnap of young Michael Hughes, whose mother had been killed years previously.
But what happened to the youngster and is there a chance he could still be alive? Here's everything we currently know about Baby Michael and what happened to him.
What happened to Michael Hughes?
Michael Hughes was born to a woman known at the time as Tonya Hughes in 1988. Her real name was Suzanna Sevakis, and she had been kidnapped by Franklin Delano Floyd when she was just five years old.
Floyd raised Sevakis as his daughter, and then as she got older his wife, with both having numerous aliases as he evaded police across the United States.
During her time with Floyd, Sevakis was subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse, and he forced her to work as a stripper and a sex worker.
When born, it was assumed Michael was Floyd's child and was raised as such. During the early years of his life, Floyd went by the name Clarence Hughes.
In April 1990, Sevakis was found on the side of the road in an apparent hit and run, and she died in intensive care days later. The hospital immediately suspected foul play.
A day after Savakis's death, on May 1st 1990, a now two-year-old Michael was placed into foster care with Earnest and Merle Bean in Choctaw, Oklahoma.
In 1991, Floyd was arrested and convicted of possession of a firearm after his former felony conviction.
In The Girl in the Picture, Earnest and Merle describe Michael as being stroppy when he didn't get his way, with a habit of banging his head off the floor when he was told "no", but still a "good kid".
They were instructed to only give him Pepsi to drink, but they decided against it and instead gave him milk. Soon he began to settle with them and seemed calmer.
Michael was with the couple for the next four years, during which time Floyd had made several attempts to get him back. Eventually, they decided to adopt him.
As part of the tests involved in the adoption process, they discovered via DNA testing Floyd was not Michael's biological father, thereby stripping him of any potential claim he had on the child.
Floyd would soon stalk the Bean household, but when alerted, the authorities claimed Merle was being "paranoid" after witnessing a truck several times drive slowly by her house.
On September 12, 1994, four years after Suzanne's suspicious death, Floyd kidnapped Michael from his school grounds.
Marching into the school, he held principal James Davis at gunpoint before taking him into the classroom, stealing the now six-year-old and fleeing with them both in the educator's truck.
In a news interview after the incident, Davis explained: "He told me he was willing to die, and if I didn't help him, I wasn't going to live."
The principal was later found handcuffed and duct-taped to a tree down a dirt road.
Michael has never been seen again.
Could Michael Hughes still be alive?
Given the numerous amount of twists this story has encountered, there is still a chance, albeit a slim one, Michael could still be alive somewhere.
Previous children Floyd had kidnapped, including Suzanna's younger brother Philip, were believed to be dead after he snatched them. However, in a massive turn of events, DNA testing in 2019 confirmed a man who had been adopted as a baby was in fact the missing Philip.
However, tragically this is looking unlikely.
In 2015, while on death row after being convicted of the murder of Suzanna's co-worker Cheryl Commesso back in 1989, Floyd claimed he had shot the boy in the back of the head and buried him shortly after kidnapping him.
He gave the FBI a location of the burial site, but after three days of searching it came up with no body.
Despite being presumed dead, with the assumption wild animals may have found, taken and eaten the body, the case technically remains unsolved.
Prior to his murder conviction, Floyd was given a 52-year sentence for Michael's kidnapping but has never been convicted of his murder, or the murder of Suzanne Sevakis, whose death is still deemed suspicious.
The Girl In The Picture is available now on Netflix.
Readers who are affected by the issues raised in this story are encouraged to contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000 (www.nspcc.org.uk). Readers in the US are encouraged to contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline on (1-800-422-4453) or the American SPCC (www.americanspcc.org).
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