Was she wrongly sentenced to death ? The case of Francis Elaine Newton

On 7 April 1987, a frantic 911 call was made from an apartment in Harris County, Texas. Two cousins, Frances Newton and Sondra Nelms, had arrived at Frances apartment to find her husband Adrian dead, alongside the couple's seven-year-old son Elton and 20-month-old daughter, Fera. All three had been shot at close range, execution style. Harris County Sheriff's Deputy R. W. Ricks was dispatched to the scene. But who could have done this and why? Evidence quickly mounts and an arrest is made, which led to a conviction, and the perpetrator was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

But were they guilty? Or was an innocent woman executed? This is the case of Francis Elaine Newton. Hello everyone and welcome back to Unthinkable, a true crime podcast. Thank you for joining me. Now this is the start of season two. Now, if you've been listening to season one, at the end, I did say I was going to try and do a lighter episode for the first episode of season two after the Finlay Bowden story, which was just horrible. And I was going to look at like a ghost story. But then I came across this one, and it happens often with me.

I find something and I become hooked, and I need to know everything about it, and I need to find all the information I can. And this one I'd never actually heard of before, and I like coming across cases that I don't know. So today I'm going to talk about Frances Newton, and she was executed, but there are still questions today over her guilt. So Frances Elaine Newton, she was born on April 21st, 1965, in Harris County, Texas. Now there isn't information, much information about her family background.

I couldn't really find anything. Just that she meets her husband Adrian at a very, very young age. So in 1979, the couple had their first child, Elton. Frances is just 14 years old when Elton is born. And Adrian, he's just 15. Can you imagine? They're children, aren't they? 14 and 15-year-olds having children. Adrian and Frances they marry in 1984. Frances is 19 and Adrian is 20, and a year after they welcome their second child, a daughter, called Farah. The couple lived in an apartment on West Mount Houston Road in Harris County.

Now, in December 1985, Frances is fired from her job in accounting for stealing money. She was actually convicted of fraud and sentenced to three years of probation. Now, this put a huge financial strain on the family. Frances was the main breadwinner, and now she'd lost her job. According to reports, this was quite a volatile relationship anyway. Not violent, but it was not a happy marriage. The financial strain the couple now faced added to the tensions, and infidelity played a major part in their marriage problems.

So Adrian was said to have had multiple affairs, and he even had a girlfriend named Ramona Bell. And Frances said that Adrian was unfaithful so often that Frances decided that she was going to be unfaithful too. And she started a relationship with a man called Jeffrey Freeloe. So effectively, this is now an open marriage. Frances, she also claimed that Adrian had developed quite a severe drug habit. She claimed that he was using cocaine and that he owed a substantial amount of money to a drug dealer known as Charlie, and that Charlie had been making threats towards the family.

I will point out here that there is no evidence whatsoever that Adrian was involved in drugs in any way, and his family fiercely deny that he was involved in drugs, was taking drugs, or that he was a drug dealer. They said it's just not true. Now, on March the 18th, 1987, Frances takes out life insurance policies on Adrian and on her 21-month-old daughter. Her son Elton already has life insurance. Now, Frances, she takes out these insurance policies in secret and she names herself as the sole beneficiary.

She also forges Adrian's signature on the application documents, so he's completely unaware that this has happened, and the life insurance is worth$100,000. Now, despite both Frances and Adrian seeing other people, the couple remain living as a family in their apartment. And Adrian's brother Sterling, he was actually staying with the couple. This was the beginning of April, and he remembers, Sterling, he remembers on the 7th of April, he arrived at the couple's apartment around 5:30, 6 o'clock in the evening.

And Francis asked Sterling if he would mind going back out for a bit so that she and Adrian could have some time alone together to discuss their marital problems. Sterling agrees and he leaves he leaves shortly after. Now, somewhere between 7 and 7:30, Frances drove to her cousin, Sondra Nelm's house. Now, San Sondra, she lived next door to Frances' parents' house, but tragically a fire had broken out at the parents' house, killing three of her cousins. They were staying with the parents, but thankfully the parents might like they were unharmed and they made it out.

But the three cousins all perished in the fire. The structure was left burned and it was completely abandoned. So Frances she drives to Sandra's house. She's going to pick her up and bring her back to her apartment so Sandra can visit the children, spend some time with them. When Frances arrives, Sandra witnesses Francis remove a blue bag from the boot of her car and she watches her carry the bag to the abandoned building and she places it inside. Now Sandra thinks this is strange, but she doesn't question it.

I would. Wouldn't you? I'd be like, what's in that bag? I wouldn't necessarily think it was anything criminal, but I would still want to know what's going on, it's mysterious. But she doesn't question it. Now around 8 pm, Francis and Sondra they arrive back at the apartment. The apartment's on the second floor, so the pair take the stairs. Now when they arrive at the door, they notice that the door is slightly ajar. On entering, they find Adrian. He's laying on the couch with a fatal gunshot wound to the head.

Now Frances, she runs to her children's room and she's calling out their names, but sadly she finds seven-year-old Elton dead. He was laying on the bed with a gunshot wound to his chest. Frantically, she goes to 21-month-old Farah's room, and little Farah's tiny body was laying in her cot with a gunshot wound also to her chest. Now all three were shot at close range, execution style. Now Frances starts hysterically screaming. She calls 911. Sondra later said that Frances was so overcome with grief.

She described her as being in such deep shock and horror, and it was difficult to calm her down enough to get the correct address. She was sobbing so much it was hard to know what she would say. But emergency dispatchers they managed to obtain the address and they immediately dispatch emergency services as well as deputies from Harris County Sheriff's Department. So paramedics arrive at 8:27 pm. They evaluate victims, but sadly, all three are pronounced dead at the scene. Tragically, there's nothing they can do.

Deputy R.W. Ricks, he enters the apartment and he quickly secures the scene. He directs Francis and Sandra outside, where the pair are met with homicide detectives. Detectives noticed how visibly distressed Francis was. They began to interview them at the scene to try and determine a timeline of events. But Francis she goes and sits on the curb. And when she does this, Sandra, well she tells the homicide detectives about the bag, the bag she'd seen Francis take out of the car and place in the abandoned house.

Following this conversation, detectives took Sandra to locate the bag whilst the other officers stayed at the scene with Francis. Now, once they arrive at the property, Sandra shows the detectives the location and they recover the blue bag. Inside it, they find a 25 calibre pistol. Back at the apartment, Deputy Rick is evaluating the scene and he's immediately suspicious. Firstly, there's no signs of forced entry. There was no damage to the locks, the windows, or the doors, indicating that the perpetrator either had a key or had been let in.

So Adrian, he appeared to have been laying on the sofa before the attack as he was led crawled up on the sofa with a blanket on him. So this seems unlikely that someone knocked on the door and he let them in because he wouldn't go back to the sofa and curl up after he'd let someone into the house, especially if it was an attacker. So that's very unlikely. And also the apartment itself showed no signs of a struggle. Nothing was out of place, and what's more, nothing appeared to have been taken. No drawers had been rummaged through, no valuables were taken, so it wasn't a burglary gone wrong.

Investigators started to shift their focus away from a routine burglary and towards someone familiar to the family. Police actually began focusing on Francis pretty much straight away. First of all, they have the gun, the bag that the gun was in. The bag actually belonged to Francis' son Elton. They have the lack of force entry, they have no signs of a robbery, and this rules out a random intruder. Detectives soon find out about the life insurance policies that Francis had taken out three weeks earlier.

And remember, she named herself as a sole beneficiary. The next day, on the 8th of April, state ballistic experts examined the gun, and it turned out that the gun matched the bullets that were recovered from the victims. So this confirmed that the gun was the murder weapon. Detectives took France's clothes when she was wearing on the night of the shoot-in away to be forensically tested, and they identified gunpowder residue on her skirt, and this indicated that the gun would have been fired low down.

Adrian was asleep on the sofa, so he was low down, and the children were in bed, also low down, so it matches with the position of the gun and the residue that's on her skirt. Frances is arrested on the 22nd of April 1987, two weeks after the shooting. She was held in custody without bail at Harris County Jail until the trial, which began on the 24th of October 1988. The prosecution said that Frances killed her husband and children for life insurance money. They put it that Frances and Adrian had an unhappy marriage and that Frances would use the life insurance money to start a new life with her partner, Jeffrey Freeloe.

They presented the evidence that she had forged her husband's signature, and the gun found linked her directly to the crime scene. And of course, there was the forensic evidence, the gunpowder found on her skirt. Now the defence argued Frances had removed the gun from the house and hidden it because Adrian was involved with drug dealers and she feared that Adrian would either hurt someone or be hurt, so she had hid the gun to actually protect him. They stated that she had taken out life insurance on her family, but they said this was due to her cousins dying in the house fire.

She said that she had to do it secretly because Adrian wouldn't want to spend money on insurance when he had debt to a drug dealer. He wanted to spend all his money paying off the debts. They also argued that the killer was Adrian's drug dealer, Charlie, who targeted him over debts, arguing that the presence of the gun did not automatically prove that Francis pulled the trigger. I don't know. Francis hiding the murder weapon kind of feels like she's guilty. Doesn't it? Anyway, Adrian's family, so they strongly deny Adrian's involvement in drugs, and they say she simply made it up.

On the 25th of October 1988, the jury convicted Frances Newton of capital murder and she was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Frances remained calm throughout the trial and after the verdict. Following her conviction, Frances was taken to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice death row system. This was on the 17th of November 1988. Frances remained on death row for 17 years and 10 months. She maintained her innocence throughout. She filed numerous appeals in 1993. The US Supreme Court declined to review her case.

Partitions were filed through lower federal court, but these were also denied.

He didn't speak to her at all. He didn't interview her on the night of the murders, even though she'd heard the gunshots. There were also concerns raised by Francis' legal team about the reliability of the evidence. So evidence was poorly handled, some of it was lost, there was cross-contamination, and some evidence wasn't examined at all. The skirt that Frances had been wearing, well, it was sealed in an evidence bag, but in the same evidence bag were the victim's bloody clothes. So now the skirt, it couldn't be further tested due to cross- uh contamination.

Now one of the strongest arguments of Frances' innocence is that despite the victims being shot at close range, no blood or blood residue was found on her hands. There was none found on her shoes, inside her car, or on her skirt. And it was later emerged that the gum powder residue that was found on her skirt, the nitrates found in gun residue can also be found in garden fertilizer. So it could have been garden fertilizer on her skirt. The defence had highlighted that on the day of the murders, Frances has visited a relative with a large garden which could explain the residue found on her skirt.

So in 2004, her legal team tried to re-examine the skirt again to determine if it was actually gunpowder from the gun or from fertilizer, but because of the cross-contamination, they couldn't do it. So why wasn't there blood splatter or residue found on Frances? Well, prosecutors they say that she had enough time between the shootings and contacting the police to wash her hands and get rid of any protective items such as gloves, aprons, and face coverings. There was also talk of a second gun, but there's no evidence of this at all.

There's no evidence that there was a second gun, it was just talk. The bullets from the victims, well, these get retested in 2005, and it confirms again that the bullets did come from the gun that Francis was hiding. Now, Francis Newton's execution date was set for the 14th of September 2005, and as the execution date drew closer, public reaction outside where Francis was being held escalated. There were large protests and media attention, protesters claiming Francis' case has potential for wrongful conviction.

Human rights and anti-death penalty organizations also got involved. They launched public petition drives and urged supporters to write letters and send faxes to the Texas governor, Rick Perry, and the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Even Adrian's parents, Tom and Virginia, they didn't want the execution to go ahead. They do maintain that they believed Francis was responsible for the murders, but they didn't believe in the death penalty and they didn't want to suffer the loss of another family member.

Now, despite all the public outcry and the poor handling of evidence and the poor representation, Texas Governor Rick Perry stated he found no compelling proof of innocence to override the conviction. So on the day of her execution, Francis's legal team submitted an emergency request for a stay to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. Now a stay means a temporarily delayed execution, so it's given them a bit more time. But the request was denied, so the execution was to go ahead that evening. Early afternoon on the 14th of September, Frances was transferred from the Women's Death Row facility to the Huntsville unit where Texas executions were carried out.

It was said that she was calm and quiet during the drive. During the final hours, Frances was described as strong, saying that her composure was due to her deep faith in God. Frances declined her final meal and she spent her final hours praying. At 6 pm, Frances was led to the execution chamber. Now witnesses are in a separate viewing room, so Frances's parents and her sister are in a designated family viewing area. I had to look this up to why would you want to witness an execution of your loved one?

And it's thought that families of the inmates they often attend to provide support and comfort in their loved ones' final moments. Adrian's family are there as well. There are state officials, prison staff, and five media representatives. Now, Frances, she's strapped to the gurney. The warden, Charles O'Reilly, he asks if she wants to make a final formal statement. Frances shook her head and quietly said no. Eyewitnesses said she now looked nervous. She was looking up at the ceiling. At 6.09 pm, a trained execution team member administered the lethal injection through an IV.

Frances turned her head to make eye contact with her family. She attempted to mouth something to them, but she lost consciousness. She was pronounced dead at 6 17 p.m. After her death, Adrian's family expressed frustration over Frances refusing to give a final statement or admit guilt. Adrian's cousin said she hoped that Frances would at least apologize. Adrian's family cried at the execution, but they said they were crying for their son and the children who were murdered. Frances' parents and her family maintain that they believe their daughter was innocent.

They believed she had been framed and they stood by her until the very end. Now, the execution triggered immediate protests outside the unit and across Texas. Anti-death penalty groups used Frances Newton's execution as a case study, highlighting systemic flaws in the justice system that could potentially lead to the execution of an innocent person. And that is the risk, isn't it? Whether you agree with the death penalty or not, an execution is permanent, unlike a prison sentence. If new evidence were to emerge, the execution cannot be undone.

Frances Newton became the third woman to be executed in Texas since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1979. So in 1998, Carla Fay Tucker was executed for her involvement in the 1983 pickaxe killings, and in the year 2000, Betty Lou Beats was executed after she shot her husband. France's family vowed to clear their daughter's name and they sought legal action against local authorities for mishandling evidence throughout the investigation, but the family did not successfully bring or win a civil lawsuit against the justice system.

And the case remains one of the most heavily scrutinized capital proceedings in Texas history. Whether Francis was actually guilty remains a point of division between legal systems and her supporters. So what do we think? Well, I'll tell you what I think. So I watched an interview that Francis did. It was for Dutch Public Broadcasting, and this was in July 2005. She's being interviewed in prison. And in this interview, to me, she's lying. I don't believe her at all. I think she's lying through her teeth.

That's my opinion, but I absolutely think she's guilty. I thought because of the gun, that was what was swaying me to guilty. But then when I watched that interview, she's she's lying. She's manipulative. And she comes across very kind of softly spoken and gentle and all, you know, like this, but it doesn't seem sincere at all. It's all but I find it a bit creepy, but I definitely think she's lying, and I think she's guilty. For me, the gun, she hid the murder weapon immediately after the murders.

I I can't come up with an explanation for that. That was the gun that was used to kill her family, her husband and her two little children. That was the gun that was used, that was proven. So if she took the gun from the house to protect Adrian, that gun was used. Adrian was already dead. So he would have been dead when she took the gun. But you know, it doesn't make any sense.

And have a look at the interview and see what you think. You can find it on YouTube if you put her name in, so Frances Elaine Newton, and then a few things will come up, but then quite close to the top of like YouTube, the um the interview from the prison will be there. It's like four clips. But let me know what you think. Oh, I no, I definitely think she's lying. I definitely think she's guilty. Well, thank you for joining me today. Um, I have an Instagram account now at Unthinkable TrueCrime. If you'd like to come and join me over there, if you'd like to leave me a review, I'd be very grateful or any feedback.

Um, and I like to end as ever by saying in a world where you can be anything, be kind. Take care, guys.

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