Joseph Paul Franklin, a dedicated neo-Nazi with a deeply pathological hatred of Jews and African-Americans, was determined to “find a Jew and kill him.”  He selected Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel (BSKI) synagogue to target the crowd of worshippers on Oct. 8, 1977.  

Gerald Gordon, then 42, was among the 350 worshippers and guests who attended services that Saturday morning as 13-year-old Ricky Kalina celebrated his bar mitzvah.  Gordon was shot to death on the parking lot of BSKI, and after many delays, Franklin was eventually convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.  The Missouri Supreme Court has scheduled Franklin to be executed by lethal injection Nov. 20, barring any last-minute appeals or delays.

After Franklin was arrested and implicated in the hate crime, he told investigators that he selected BSKI from the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory because it was the St. Louis synagogue closest to a major highway, in this case, Highway 64/40.  Following the kiddush luncheon at the synagogue, Gordon and his family were walking to the parking lot adjacent to the synagogue.  Franklin had established his lair in some shrubbery directly across from the parking lot.

Another guest of the Kalina bar mitzvah, Lee Ash, then 30, of Akron, Ohio, lost his left small finger in the shooting and suffered a hip wound.  

Gordon died in an operating room at St. Louis County Hospital at about 3 p.m., about two hours after he had been shot.  A bullet had pierced his left arm and lodged in his chest.  The Richmond Heights Police Department called in the Major Case Squad to assist in the investigation. 

Richmond Heights Detective Lee Lankford was the lead investigator on the case. He remained focused on nailing down the facts about the suspect even after he officially retired from the department.

In the Oct. 12, 1977 edition of the Jewish Light the lead story was headlined, “Shooting Shocks Community.”  I interviewed then-BSKI president Irl Baris, executive director Milt Rossner and Rabbi Benson Skoff, BSKI’s spiritual leader (now emeritus).  Rossner was among the first on the scene of the shooting.  

Skoff and Baris said they were relieved that the shooting had not started earlier when more people were on the parking lot.

Witnesses at the time of the attack in 1977 said that they saw a man that morning carrying a black guitar case along Hoover Avenue and heading towards BSKI synagogue on 1107 Linden Avenue.  A long-haired “hippie-type” young man wearing a green military jacket was sought as the prime suspect in the case, and a police artist’s sketch was printed on the front page of the Jewish Light and other local newspapers.

Key, crucial evidence was left behind, according to Lankford.  He concluded that the sniper had arrived at the murder scene the day before the attack to set up his perch for the semi-automatic rifle equipped with a telescopic sight, which was found near a telephone pole, along with five spent shells.  The serial number had been scratched out.

In my interview back in 1977, Skoff said he found the entire shooting episode to be “unbelievable.”  He alluded to the many haunting similarities to the imagery of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, 14 years earlier, and 50 years ago this month:  the shots were mistaken at first for firecrackers.  People threw themselves to the ground.  The shots came from a grassy knoll.  Rossner said the similarities to the JFK murder gave the experience a “surrealistic” quality.  But he added that the bloodstains on the parking lot and driveway of BSKI were all too real.

Baris commended the Richmond Heights Police Dept. for “their excellent and professional handling of the case.” His warm praise proved to be well-placed, especially regarding Lankford, a 32-year-veteran of the department.  Even after he retired from the department and the final proof of Franklin’s involvement in Gordon’s murder had not been fully proved beyond a reasonable doubt, Lankford relentlessly pursued the truth to remove any such doubt in what could have been closed as a “cold case.”

Franklin, by 1997, had already established his record as the most lethal perpetrator of hate crimes in American history.  He was a career anti-Semite, racist and white supremacist.  Born James Clayton Vaughn, he adopted the first and middle names of Joseph Paul Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda.  He was an early and enthusiastic member of the late George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party.

He boasted to fellow inmates that he had killed Gordon after a botched bank robbery in Oklahoma. He said he traveled to St. Louis determined to find a synagogue and to “kill as many Jews as possible.”

By 1997, Franklin was already serving six consecutive life sentences for four other murders, including killing an interracial couple in Wisconsin in 1977 and two black men in Salt Lake City in 1980 while they were jogging with white women.  He had also been charged with killing two black men in 1980 in Indianapolis.

If all of the above were not enough, Franklin was indicted for the shooting of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt.  He said he wanted to punish Flynt, who was left wheelchair-bound after the shooting, for publishing photographs of interracial couples engaged in sexual activities.  He also confessed the 1980 shooting of then Urban League national president Vernon Jordan, but was acquitted in 1982.

In a surprise twist, Flynt, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the 1978 shooting, has joined an effort,  coordinated by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, to stop Franklin’s execution (the ACLU has adopted an official policy of opposing the death penalty in the state).  Barring a last-minute reprieve or pardon, the execution by lethal injection will go forward as scheduled on Nov. 20.

Lankford wanted to be sure that Franklin was not just boasting about killing Gordon to assure his place as the most lethal hate crime perpetrator in U.S. history.  Sometimes convicted prisoners will confess to crimes they did not commit in order to protect fellow criminals or simply for “braggin’ rights” as mass killers of Jews and blacks.

Lankford was able to remove any reasonable doubt when he traveled to Irving, Texas to the gun store where Franklin claimed he purchased his murder weapon.  Franklin had robbed a bank in Oklahoma.  The bank teller had placed a blue die capsule in the bag of cash, which exploded, covering the $100 bills with blue dye.  In order to reduce the blue dye stains, Franklin put two $100 bills in his sweat socks, hoping the perspiration would cause the blue ink to fade.

Lankford told the Jewish Light in 1997, “The gun shop owner recalled that Franklin had paid for the rifle with two rumpled, soggy $100 bills he took from his shoes and socks.  At his murder trial, Franklin asked Lankford to come to the stand to testify and asked me how I knew that he was Gordon’s killer, and that incident provided concrete proof.”

Franklin was found guilty and sentenced to death by a St. Louis County jury on Feb. 27, 1997, 20 years after he committed the murder.

Lankford would later tell the Jewish Light that while in prison, Franklin had called him to say that he “found religion” and wanted the Gordon family to know that he was “sorry” for having committed the murder.  

For a Jewish Light special report on hate crimes in May/June 2010, Editor Ellen Futterman conducted an interview with Franklin (who was 60 at the time) at the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Mo., about 90 miles southeast of St. Louis.

After admitting that he became attracted to white supremacy, anti-Semitism and racism as a young man, Franklin said that he no longer hates Jews or blacks, adding, “in fact, just the opposite.”  He added that meditation as well as learning about Hinduism, Buddhism and even Judaism had made him more tolerant.

Asked if he was fearful about being executed, Franklin said, “No, not really.  I just figure may the will of God be done.”