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Dec 10, 2007 5:08 pm US/Central

Cell Phone GPS Helps Nab Suspect In Franklin Case

Reginald Potts Held Without Bond In Nailah Franklin's Murder

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Prosecutors say global positioning system records from a cell phone helped solve the murder of Nailah Franklin. A judge Monday denied bail for her ex-acquaintance, Reginald Potts.

As CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker reports, the man charged with killing Franklin can blame his arrest on his cell phone. Police say Potts is a suspect in Franklin's death because on the day she disappeared Potts gave one story to police, but the satellite records on his cell phone told another.

The night Franklin went missing, Potts asked two friends to come pick him up in Hammond, Ind., one block from where Franklin's car was later found, prosecutors said Monday.

Statements from the friends and other witnesses, cell phone records and video surveillance tape point toward Potts being Franklin's killer, they said.

Potts, 31, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering Franklin, 28. At his first court appearance since being charged with Franklin's murder, Potts was ordered held without bail by Judge Don Panarese.

"It was premeditated . . . this defendant went through a lot of trouble and time in order to take Ms. Franklin out to an abandoned area, a desolate area, and take her life," First Assistant State's Attorney Robert Milan said after Potts' bond hearing in the Criminal Courts Building.

Potts has proclaimed his innocence, but "the evidence will show that, through his own cell phone records and the testimony of his own friends, his story is completely contradicted," Milan said.

"As a prosecutor we've very grateful to that kind of technology," Milan added. "It's very appropriate to refer to it as our new DNA, extremely helpful. We may not have solved this case without that kind of technology."

Franklin, a pharmaceutical rep for Eli Lilly, had an "on-and-off dating relationship for several months" with Potts, according to Milan. In early September, Franklin sent an email to several friends discussing Potts' prior criminal history. When Potts found out about the email, he began making threatening phone calls to Franklin, Milan said. In one message, "he told her he could have her erased," Milan said.

On Sept. 10, Franklin filed a police report saying she had been threatened.

She also told friends she was afraid of Potts. She gave a friend her e-mail password "in case anything happened to her," Milan said.

A few days after Franklin's disappearance, Potts told police he had not seen her since August. But "several residents" at Franklin's Pilsen-area condominium reported seeing Potts "lurking in the victim's hallway and in the parking garage on the evenings of Sept. 16th and 17th," according to Milan.

Also, surveillance tape from the building shows Potts in the parking garage the evening of Sept. 17, Milan said. At one point, building security called police after spotting Potts, but he left before police came. Police found tape over the lock on the garage door, providing access to the building without a key.

Potts allegedly told police that on Sept. 18, he was at a Loop restaurant and later downtown. But cell phone records show he was within a half mile of Franklin's condo, Milan said. Surveillance video shows Potts and Franklin together in a hallway in Franklin's building also on Sept. 18, he said.

Potts claimed to have been at a Target store with two friends the evening of Sept. 18. But surveillance tape shows the friends there without Potts, Milan said.

Meanwhile, cell phone records show Potts heading south on the Dan Ryan Expy. shortly after 7 p.m. — the same time his friends were in the Target store, Milan said. The records also "place the defendant and the victim within the same vicinity of 159th Street in Calumet City during the same evening," Milan said.

The records show Potts and Franklin traveling east in Calumet City at the same time, and show them both in the area in the south suburb where Franklin's naked, decomposed body was found more than a week later, Milan said.

"After disposing of the body, the defendant kept the victim's cell phone and drove her car farther east to Hammond, Ind.," where he parked her car on a residential street, Milan said. An eyewitness allegedly saw Potts looking into the windows of Franklin's car.

Potts then called one of his friends who was at the Target store and told the friend "he was stranded and needed a ride." Two friends drove to Hammond to pick up Potts. On the way back while going north on the Dan Ryan, Potts made three aborted 911 calls from Franklin's cell phone to make it look like she was still alive, Milan said.

Potts has eight previous felony convictions. Assistant Public Defender Kathy Lisco said Potts is involved "in various small business enterprises."

"He has, since childhood, suffered from grand mal seizures," Lisco added.

Potts — whom sources have described as a disciplinary problem in Cook County Jail — appeared before Panarese shackled, wearing tan jail fatigues. He told Panarese he did not want a public defender to represent him, though Lisco represented him at the bond hearing.

As for the motive, detectives say e-mails between the couple indicate Franklin was trying to end their stormy relationship.

"It was very painful to hear that one person could lay out the blue print of how to murder somebody," said Takisha Walters, a friend of Franklin's.

Potts insists he's innocent. His next court date is Dec. 28.

CBS 2's Dorothy Tucker and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

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