Posted on 10/16/2002 7:05:42 AM PDT by ItisaReligionofPeace
Victim from Gainesville, attended UF
By TIM LOCKETTE Sun staff writer
Linda Franklin was killed Oct. 14 outside a Home Depot store by a serial sniper in Virginia. The victim, formly Linda Moore, was a 1973 graduate of Buchholz High School in Gainesville and a graduate of the University of Florida.
Even at the age of 47 - after a battle with cancer and a tense year of post-terrorist life in the nation's capital - Linda Franklin seemed to be blessed with eternal youth.
Whenever she came home to visit family in Gainesville, she would round up nephews, nieces and young cousins for camping trips to Camp Blanding, bringing along plenty of supplies for shaving-cream and water-balloon fights. On vacations in colder climes, she would often zoom down the ski slopes in an inner tube. And wherever she went, she was likely to be mistaken for a woman in her 20s.
"At 47, Linda was still getting carded in bars," said her mother, MaryAnn Moore, holding a framed wedding photo of her daughter during a Tuesday morning interview at her northwest Gainesville home. "She always looked young."
Franklin, an Arlington, Va., resident who came of age in Gainesville, was shot and killed in the parking lot of a Home Depot store near her home Monday night - the ninth person killed by the sniper who has terrorized the Washington area. Family members say she was in the prime of her life.
"She wasn't a daredevil, but she wasn't afraid of anything," said Charles Moore, Franklin's father. "Not a thing. Anything she wanted to do, she'd just go and do it."
Family members say it was Franklin's can-do spirit that led the former Gainesville resident to a job with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Growing up Franklin was 15 in 1970, when her family moved to Gainesville. Her father worked at Vital Industries, a video production equipment company that had just moved its headquarters here.
Dorothy McCawley, a close friend of Franklin's during her days at Buchholz High School, remembers her as a gregarious young woman who loved being involved in school plays such as "Hello Dolly" and "My Fair Lady." She seemed like an "adventurous person," McCawley said - but she did have a cautious side.
"When we first learned to drive, we'd all make fun of her because she drove 5 miles an hour under the speed limit all the time," she said.
She graduated from the University of Florida in 1986 with a degree in education, but instead of settling down to work in a local school, she took a job with the Department of Defense, teaching at schools on bases in Belgium, Germany and Okinawa.
By the mid-1990s, she had moved to Virginia with her third husband, Ted Franklin, a computer programmer for a defense contractor. Linda Franklin's father said she worked briefly in the Prince William County school system in Virginia - but soon applied for a job with the FBI.
"I think she was a little burned out," Charles Moore said. "She wanted to try something new."
A 'fine work ethic' Franklin had two children from her first marriage. Her son, Tom Belvin, 25, recently graduated from the University of West Florida with a law enforcement degree. Her daughter, Katie Hannum, 23, lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her husband, a scuba instructor.
Reports in the Associated Press say Franklin was an analyst for the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center. But family members say they never really knew much about what she was doing for the FBI. She wouldn't say a word about the details of the job, even to her father, a former Air Force radar instructor who had held a high-level security clearance.
"She had a fine work ethic," her father said. "If there was a chance that she would reveal something classified, she wouldn't say anything at all."
But she did tell her parents that she expected to be transferred to the nation's new homeland security agency - and that she wasn't sure whether the transfer would take her to a new city. The chance of a transfer to a new location led Linda and Ted Franklin to sell their home and move into a rental property, Franklin's family members said.
They were at Home Depot buying supplies for the move when she was shot.
Escaped one threat The Moores said the attacks were particularly shocking because their daughter had already escaped one threat to her life: Franklin was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2001, and was in recovery after a double mastectomy. They said they worried about their daughter's safety in the Washington area after the sniper attacks began. But family members said Franklin didn't let the sniper scare her - though she knew police would have a hard time finding the shooter.
"I was just talking to her the other day as she was cleaning out her apartment," MaryAnn Moore said. "She said 'there's three white vans parked outside right now.' She said there were more white vans in DC than any other kind of car."
The Moores first heard about the shooting at 2 a.m. Tuesday morning when a group of FBI agents and Gainesville police officers came to their house to break the news. By early Tuesday morning, Charles Moore said he was still in shock.
"I haven't digested it yet," he said. "It still seems unreal. I haven't been able to get to the grief stage, or the anger stage yet."
Shock to anger But the anger is coming. Particularly when he thinks of the choices the "random" sniper has made - particularly his decision to shoot a woman standing next to her husband.
"What's amazing to me is that Ted is a big guy, and she is a small woman," he said. "So he passed up an easier target to hit a 5-foot-2 woman. Of course you don't want anyone to get shot, but this person intentionally picked a woman instead of a guy. And he shot a 13-year-old boy. This has got to be one sick person."
Family members say Franklin's funeral service will be held in Washington, though they are planning to hold another memorial service at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Gainesville.
Tim Lockette can be reached at 374-5088 or lockett@gvillesun. com.
"She had a fine work ethic," her father said. "If there was a chance that she would reveal something classified, she wouldn't say anything at all."
But she did tell her parents that she expected to be transferred to the nation's new homeland security agency - and that she wasn't sure whether the transfer would take her to a new city. The chance of a transfer to a new location led Linda and Ted Franklin to sell their home and move into a rental property, Franklin's family members said.
Classified work for the FBI, expected to be transferred to homeland security. I think we can guess what she was working on as an intelligence analyst at the FBI.
It almost sounds as if she was targeted. I've been of the opinion all along that she was another unfortunate random victim; now I'm not so sure.
Stay focused.
Her husband may have been out of the line of sight, or putting bags in the back seat (Linda waiting for him to finish so she could enter the passenger door), or any one of a number of things that made her the more preferable target.
There are no "targets", no links to "Michael's", no ethnic selection, and I'm not sure I even believe the tarot thing.
These are random jihadist terror murders, plain and simple.
How very sad this is. Such provides perspective on the fragility and transcience of our earthly sojourn. I count those of us who believe in a hereafter with our departed family, friends (and pets) and a loving Heavenly Father as fortunate indeed. And we Christians also are blessed to prepare for and anticipate our reunion with His Son as well.....
But she was with NIPC, doing cybercrimes, yes? I thought that might be Nigerian bank frauds and similar stuff.
BTW, the term "Nigerian bank frauds" is redundant.... 8~)
Death, Death, Death!!! Death to America!!! Reminds you of the Anthrax letters, doesn't it!! Certainly the same frame of mind!!!!
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