Where is Franklin Delano Floyd now?
This article contains descriptions of crimes which may be distressing.
New Netflix documentary The Girl in the Picture has shined a light on the case of Franklin Delano Floyd.
The true crime film, which has been terrifying viewers since its release last week, is based on Matt Birkbeck’s works A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon.
The Girl in the Picture follows the case of Tonya Hughes, a woman who was found nearly dead by the side of the road in Oklahoma City in 1990, having seemingly fallen victim to a hit and run.
A man who called himself Clarence, claiming to be her husband, showed up and identified her before she died.
However, it was soon discovered that Tonya and Clarence were not their real names. Clarence was really Franklin Delano Floyd, a criminal with a history of robbery, kidnapping, battery, paedophilia, and sexual assault.
Tonya was in fact Suzanne Marie Sevakis, a girl who had been kidnapped by Floyd as a young child in the 1970s.
Floyd kidnapped Sevakis after her mother, to whom he was briefly married, was sent to prison. He also kidnapped her siblings, two of whom were eventually found in the care of a social services group.
Sevakis’s other sibling, Phillip, ended up in the adoption system, and was only identified following a DNA test in 2020.
Floyd pretended to raise Sevakis as his daughter, during which time he devised for her a number of aliases, including Sharon Marshall. When she reached adulthood, Floyd married her.
Sevakis completed high school and gave birth to a son named Michael. Floyd alleged to be Michael’s father, a claim that was later disproved. After Servakis’s death in 1990, Michael was taken out of Floyd’s care and put in a foster home.
In 1994, Floyd kidnapped Michael Hughes from first grade class. He was arrested after attempting to procure a lisence using an old alias, but Michael was nowhere to be found.
With Floyd in custody, authorities were able to link him to the murder of a Jane Doe that took place in 1989. The victim was found to be Cheryl Commesso, a friend of Servakis.
He was convicted of Commesso’s murder, and of the kidnapping of Michael Hughes, whom he later admitted to have killed.
What happened to Floyd afterwards? Where is he now?
In 2013, Floyd revealed to FBI agents that he had shot Michael Hughes the same day he had kidnapped him. The body was never recovered.
Floyd is currently alive and awaiting execution at the Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida.
At 79 years old, he is one of roughly 300 prisoners currently on death row in Florida. No date has been set for his execution.
The Girl in the Picture is available to stream on Netflix now.
