Corazon Frandsen (Jack of Diamonds, Utah)
2023-08-23 00:37:19
For years, some law enforcement agencies have replaced the faces of traditional playing card decks with images of missing and murdered people and distributed those cards in prisons hoping inmates would come forward with information needed to crack these cold cases wide open. Now, audiochuck is dealing you in. Each week, we will be working with investigators and family members to bring you the details of some of the coldest cases from around the country in hopes that someone listening can finally bring these victims the justice they deserve.
Our card this week is Corazon Franson, the Jack of Diamonds, from Utah in 1978. Corazon was just 26 and a widow after losing her husband from cancer five years earlier. And she was still mourning the loss of her husband when she herself became a victim of a horrifically brutal attack in the parking lot of her seemingly safe apartment complex. I bet most of you have never heard of Corazon, much less her tragic story, but it's one our team hasn't been able to stop thinking about.
And once I'm done telling you what we've learned, I bet you won't be able to stop thinking about it either. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is the deck.
February 5, 1978, was a Sunday and just after 8 a.
M.
Churchgoer David Lake was just pulling into the parking lot of his Latter-day Saints Chapel in Murray, Utah, as David was parking his car. Something unusual caught his eye. It was a woman lying in the shrubs on the edge of the church parking lot and whatever had happened to her. It didn't look good because he could see that there was some blood on the pavement. David ran inside the church and alerted the bishop, a guy named Calvin Gillen, who, in this small town, just also happened to be the Murray police chief.
The two ran back outside to get a look at the woman. She was in such bad shape that they couldn't tell if she was even still alive. So Chief Gillen called for the Murray Police Department and a county ambulance to come quick. Unified Police Detective Ben Pender, who's working this case today, told us that the woman was lying face up. And it was obvious from the wounds and blood on her head and her face that she had been severely beaten, but she was still alive.
They checked for a pulse. they could not find a pulse. However, it was obvious she was still alive and breathing. Her breathing was shallow.
The woman was wearing a coat, but her underwear and stockings had been pulled down, which immediately made police think that she'd been sexually assaulted. She appeared to be barely clinging to life when suddenly, the woman started flailing her hands and arms at first responders as if she was trying to fight them off. And it guts me thinking about this because she obviously thought that her attacker or attackers were back to finish what they started. She must have been so out of it and scared that she didn't know she was laying in a church parking lot with medics and police trying to save her.
As they were preparing to put her in the ambulance, officers spotted some stuff nearby that they thought might have been hers. There was a brown grocery bag on its side, and spilling out of it was a can of fruit, cocktail, Angel Food, cake and some packs of jell-o. There was also a purse and inside was a driver's license for 26-year-old Corazon Franzen. They also found a checkbook with her name and address on it, so some officers headed that way. While the ambulance rushed Corazon to Cottonwood Hospital with another officer in tow, just in case Corazon could give any information about what happened to her.
But she was in and out of consciousness and unfortunately, wasn't able to say anything. And the officers who went to the address listed on her checkbook didn't have much more luck. The people who answered the door said that they used to be Corazon's roommates, but that she had recently moved to a different apartment. Luckily, though, they knew which one, so officers headed straight there.
As they pulled up to Cobble Creek apartments, they noted a few things right off the bat. First of all, the apartment complex was in a really nice neighborhood and it seemed pretty high-end. There was this huge fence going around the entire parking lot and there was a security booth at the entrance. But the second thing that they noticed flew in the face of the picture of safety and security that had been so well-constructed. Because at the back corner, they saw a white car with bloodstains all along the side of it and a long blood trail. Even more random grocery items on the ground. They figured that it had to be related to Corazon's attack.
But before launching an investigation, the officers had to pause. Because, even though the apartment complex was not even two miles from the church where Corazon had been found, Murray officers were technically outside their jurisdiction.
So at this point, there was some information that there was some type of a scene up at Cobble Creek. So deputies responded over there and realized that that's where the initial attack occurred, and that's how the transfer ended up. At the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office is they believed that the initial attack occurred in our jurisdiction, and talking with Murray, it was decided that the sheriff's office would take the case.
Around 9.
30 Sunday morning, just as county sheriff's deputies were taking over, authorities got word that Corazon had died at the hospital. Her body was taken to the University of Utah, where the medical examiner's office was located, to await autopsy. And that's when the case turned from an assault to a homicide. They got to work, processing the car and going off the address Corazon's former roommates had given them. Deputies knocked on the apartment door labeled 5272, a door that was super close to the car and the blood trail. When that door opened, a woman was on the other side, and she introduced herself as Brenda Corazon's roommate.
Now, just for clarification, you will hear Detective Pender pronounce Corazon's name slightly differently. We actually re-recorded this episode after finding out that we pronounced her name incorrectly, and we felt it was important to modify our pronunciation of her name for accuracy.
She said she observed Corazon's vehicle earlier in the morning as she left for church, but wasn't concerned because she thought Corazon had already left with Mr and Mrs Franson.
Mr. and Mrs Franson, or Burt and Ada Ray, were Corazon's in-laws. Brenda hadn't known Corazon long, but in the short time since they had been living together. She had already picked up on the fact that they were close, and she hung out with her in-laws a lot.
So much so that any time Corazon wasn't around, Brenda figured she was with them, which is what she had figured for the last day or so.
She indicated that she didn't see Corazon Saturday on the 4th, but believed Corazon had been there and had changed her clothes. And left some packages and picked up a key to the deadbolt lock, which had just been installed.
Brenda confirmed that she hadn't actually laid eyes on Corazon since Friday morning. She told police that she had had a date Saturday night, so she left their apartment at around 6 p..m and didn't get home until after midnight. Somewhere around like 12.30 or so on Sunday.
But she couldn't recall whether or not she saw Corazon's car in the parking lot when she got home. But if you're following along closely, you'll realize that Corazon's car likely was there. And Brenda got home just a half hour, or maybe 45 minutes after Corazon was attacked. Right outside their apartment. I mean, she just barely missed witnessing it. Now I know what you're wondering, and same my friend.
You saw her car that morning, maybe the night before, but you didn't see all the blood.
I don't think she went up close to the car to see if there's anything. I don't think she knew of anything at that point.
Thing is, that doesn't totally make sense to me, because Brenda told officers at her door that as she was leaving for church that very morning. She saw Corazon's car in the parking lot and had noticed that it was unlocked, which she thought was odd because Corazon usually locked her car. So if Brenda is up on the car enough to notice that it was unlocked? How had she missed all the blood, and how did she not see the spilled grocery items all over the ground?
The best explanation I can think of is that Brenda was possibly parked on the passenger side of Corazon's car and all that blood and stuff was on the driver's side. So maybe she peeked in, saw the lock up, but didn't necessarily see everything else, even as she was making the walk to her car. I honestly don't know, and that's not something that ever seems to get totally clarified anyways. Brenda also tells the officers that Corazon had moved there from the Philippines, but her immediate family all still lived back home. That's actually part of the reason she was so close to her in-laws.
Well, that, and the fact that she'd lost her husband five years before, she wasn't seeing anyone new. So besides an aunt and uncle that she had in town, her in-laws were basically all she had here in the states. Deputies also learned that Corazon was part of the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. So when Brenda couldn't give them contact information for her family in the Philippines, they reached out to someone at the church to see if they could put them in touch with. Maybe a missionary in the Philippines who could help find Corazon's parents and inform them in person of their daughter's death. While they waited for the opportunity to talk to the people who knew her best, police knew that the next best thing were her in-laws and that aunt and uncle who lived in town.
So they worked to set up interviews with them. Not only to notify them of her death, but detectives were also hoping that they might know where Corazon had been Saturday night before her attack. And luckily they did.
Bert and Ada Rae Franzen told detectives that they had been with Corazon just last night.
They went to the university club, where they had dinner and danced.
They said Corazon had met them on Main Street, where she parked her white two-door cougar, and they all rode together to the restaurant. After dinner and dancing. The Franzens took Corazon back to her car, and they say they stopped by the Smith's Food King for a late-night grocery run.
So Mrs Franzen just indicated that Corazon wanted to purchase some items for a planned dinner, but she didn't go into any other detail. As far as what kind of a dinner, who was going to be there? I would suspect, based on going to get that on that Saturday night, that it was probably going to be some type of a dinner for Sunday.
We were able to find out exactly what Corazon bought, which was a can of Ajax cleaning powder, whipping cream, four boxes of Jell-O, a can of fruit cocktail and Angel Food cake. All of which were found next to her at the church and next to her car at the apartment. Deputies tracked down the receipt and it confirmed that Corazon had checked out at Smith's at 11.05 p..m. on Saturday.
Upon leaving the store, the Franzens offered to follow Corazon home, but she refused, stating that she was in her part of town and was not afraid. So Corazon and the Franzens departed each other from Smith's.
Corazon got in her car and headed southeast and would have been at her apartment about ten minutes later because it was less than four miles from Smith's to her place. Detectives asked how Corazon seemed Saturday night, but the Franzens said she seemed pretty normal and that they all had a good time. Except now, in hindsight, there was this one thing that stood out to them. Apparently. When they met Corazon at her car at the beginning of the night, Corazon was kind of shaken up because of something that had happened to her on her way to meet them.
Corazon had told them that there was a drunk driver, somebody that had chased her prior to their arrival.
I wish we had more information about this. But Detective Pender said the Franzens didn't seem to know much else.
There was never any other discussion about that other than that happened. I don't think she even gave them, or if she did, they didn't provide a description of that individual that was chasing after her.
Do you think that's connected to her murder?
You know, I don't rule anything out, but it seems unlikely, just the location, unless it's somebody that was or has been following her. But it seems to me, if somebody's going to do an attack like that, why would they call attention to themselves prior to that? So I don't want to say there's no way that person could be involved, it just seems unlikely.
So that was that. After the grocery stop, it would have been about 11.15 or 11.30 Saturday night when Corazon was pulling into her parking spot at home.
It seems to me as though as she's getting out of the car is where she's being attacked. So either somebody's waiting for her or waiting for somebody to come.
Before the deputies wrapped up their interviews with the Franzens and Corazon's aunt and uncle, they got a little bit more background information. They found out that Corazon had worked at Shirdi Life Insurance for the last four years. And she also had a part-time job at a clothing store called Castletons at the mall in the town of Murray, they said. For cultural reasons. Corazon had no plans to ever date or remarry after losing her husband to cancer, so there was no romantic interest that they knew of her. Social life was pretty simple.
Her friends consisted of co-workers and fellow churchgoers.
She lived a pretty quiet life, She worked, based on all the reports. She was a very friendly person, but I don't think she was very outgoing. I think she was pretty shy and she did have some friends. But no one has ever said anything negative about her, that she has spoke negative of others.
This information was helpful, but also had to have made deputies wonder. Who would have had a reason to hurt such a nice woman who obviously led a very low-risk lifestyle, and who would want to hurt her in such a violent way? Because what they learned the next day from the autopsy was that Corazon died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head. And she had a number of defensive wounds.
There were abrasions on the right hand and the left hand, and that was also even noted by law enforcement at the scene. So primarily with Corazon, she was beat up really in the head, the face, that was really the primary areas as far as the injuries were observed and documented by the medical examiner. And then, of course, there was what they believed to be some type of a sexual assault.
Detective Pender said the M.E. collected vaginal, oral and rectal specimens for testing, but none of those indicated the presence of seminal fluid. Now there's some conflicting information in news reports from back then about whether or not investigators believed she was sexually assaulted. The M.E. Dr. Moore told The Salt Lake Tribune in 78 that there were, quote, no signs of sexual assault. But maybe he just said that because he didn't find any semen. Because obviously, her underwear and stockings being pulled down could constitute signs of sexual assault.
And investigators today believe that there likely was a sexual component to this crime. Either way, Dr Moore said in that same Tribune story that the autopsy revealed. Corazon had been beaten with a 22-inch steel pipe that deputies found smeared with blood and hair near Corazon's apartment. But does that information hold up today? I mean, if the opinion on the sexual assault has changed, we thought we should ask about that, too.
But when we asked Detective Pender about the pipe, he declined to comment. Him being hush-hush about it makes me wonder if there's some investigative work being done today involving that weapon. But who knows? So there's no semen, maybe no weapon. Deputies were hard up for clues in those early days.
But they did have one thing when they were going through Corazon's belongings, they found something a little mysterious.
In her purse was a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper. When detectives finally called it, they reached a woman and after talking to her for a minute, they came to learn that. She didn't know Corazon, but her son did. Her son worked with her, actually.
The mother had informed the detective that her son, he was at work but was quite upset about what had happened. And had indicated that they had gone to lunch in the past a few times and could not understand anyone hurting. Such a lovely girl.
Now you'd think detectives would have wanted to talk to Corazon's coworker directly, but they must not have been suspicious of him. Detective Pender double-checked the case file for us, and he says there's no interview with him on file. Since that didn't get them anywhere, detectives decided it was time to think outside of the box and see if they could drum up any leads elsewhere. So they did a search for stolen or abandoned cars, thinking that if they found any with blood inside them, it might be connected to Corazon's murder.
But no such luck. Next, they compiled a list of other tenants at Cobble Creek apartments. I mean, with no suspects yet, the best they could do was start in and work their way out. They learned that there were 361 units and 404 tenants.
But for now, they mainly focused on the men and checked for criminal histories, but no one really stood out to detectives, so they filed that list away for safekeeping. They also got a directory of all the members of the church's single ward when Corazon was a member.
Detective Pender said that the documentation around what was done with this list is lacking. But he'd like to think that, if anything interesting had come of it, that that would be in the case file, and it just isn't. Detectives also interviewed Corazon's boss at the insurance company, this guy named Flint.
He had stated that he had locked up her desk after learning information about what happened and allowed the detective to go through her desk. The detective indicates that nothing appeared to be outside of business work, no phone numbers or anything.
But that path wasn't a total dead end, because Flint did tell detectives that there was one guy that they might want to look into. Someone who'd been fired last year, who had taken a special interest in Corazon and had a habit of making her feel uncomfortable. We were asked to refer to him by his initials, D..B. But basically. Police figured out through interviews with Flint and other employees that D..B. had worked with Corazon at the insurance company. And he was kind of a creep. One of her co-workers said that he had asked Corazon out on dates in the past, and she always politely declined.
Another employee said D.
B had a tendency of forcing himself on his female co-workers. Oh, and D..B was fired just two months before Corazon's murder. Now, because of that, it made it a bit difficult to track him down.
No one had current contact information for this guy, so over the next few days, as detectives worked to track him down. They also interviewed the security guard who had been on duty at the apartment complex the night of Corazon's attack. Detective Pender also asked us to call him by his initials, J..P.
He had stated that he was on duty Saturday night from 7 p.
M. to midnight indicated that he was not in the guard shack the entire time. He didn't notice anything unusual. He indicated he left the guard shack three to four times to patrol the grounds. There were no logs in the guard shack maintaining vehicle numbers. And he indicated that, in fact, when he was shown the victim's vehicle, that he did not recall that vehicle.
What really? He didn't notice her white cougar coming in and out.
Well, I don't know if he didn't notice her, if he indicated he was there from 7 to midnight, so she would have arrived home. Close to the time he was going home. So I don't know if he was doing a walk shift where he was walking through the complex. And she just happened to pull in during that time when he wasn't in the guard shack, or if he just wasn't paying attention.
I kind of want to pull my hair out thinking about this. J.
P Guy, who was being paid as a security guard that night and somehow didn't notice a vicious murder going down in his parking lot. I mean, we know Corazon fought back, so how did he not hear the assault or hear her screaming? I mean, maybe she was taken by surprise, but we know she had defensive wounds. The thing is, Detective Pender said that there were no reports of anyone hearing any screams, which just seems so weird to me.
Now J.
P said that when he was in the guard Shack, his responsibility was to record the license plates of any car that didn't have authorized tenant parking stickers. So why didn't he have a log from Saturday night? were there no visitors during his shift? This is another piece of information that was either not documented in detail or it's just been lost to time.
But knowing that security guards were supposed to record license plates of visitors made police wonder if Corazon's killer was a tenant with a legit sticker on their car. Or if they parked outside of the fence on the road. And it's actually that second option that they kind of leaned into because of where the blood trail led. Cobble Creek apartments are actually still there today, and there's a tall concrete fence around the property now, but back then it was just a chain link fence.
Somebody could have jumped over the fence to enter into the property without being detected, I believe at that point.
But could they have gotten her out over the fence?
I doubt that it appears that somebody was probably waiting at the entrance there. I don't know if the person or persons were familiar enough that it looked like. Security worked from 7 to midnight, but after midnight it didn't appear anybody was there. So if they knew the routine of security that would leave at midnight, then, as long as they came out after midnight, they would probably be undetected.
J.
P was the investigation's best bet for a witness to Corazon's attack. So I imagine it was frustrating for detectives to find out. He not only didn't see anything suspicious, but didn't even hear anything either. And that makes me wonder if it was well after midnight when the attack occurred, but that doesn't really work with the timeline.
It wouldn't have taken Corazon 45 minutes to drive from Smith's to her apartment. Remember she's checking out at Smith's at 11.05 p..m? So even if she took a moment to say goodbye to her in-laws at the grocery store, like in the parking lot, she would have been arriving home by 11.15 or 11.20. But as sus as this all seems today, Detective Pender said that back then, the whole thing with the security guard was basically just all chalked up to bad luck.
I don't believe there was any type of weird vibes, I don't see where anybody thought that there was any type of suspicion or anything there. Just because he just kind of would do his rounds and stuff. And I mean, I know, from years ago, working at a guard shack as an extra duty job, they did require that. So we would have to walk through the complex periodically throughout the evening, and, you know, check doors and stuff like that.
J.
P was also a reserve officer with the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office back then, and he had passed a background check for that job. So he must have just seemed credible to investigators. That's why detectives moved on to interview other employees of the apartment complex to see if anyone else stuck out to them.
They checked with the maintenance staff, they really kind of combed through everybody, that was like working there at the complex. No information was provided again. I think just because of the time this occurred that staff wouldn't have been on site, so nobody really had any additional information again because of the time frame.
Now remember at the beginning, when Detective Pender mentioned that Corazon's roommate Brenda said they'd just gotten a new deadbolt installed? Well, unfortunately, there isn't any follow-up information on that available. I mean, I was wondering who installed it, what they had to say. But Detective Pender said that that particular maintenance man was questioned, but nothing came of it by Friday, February 10th, nearly one week after Corazon's attack. Police had finally tracked down D..B. And they were finally sitting down with him to talk, hoping that he would hold the key to solving this case.
D.
B admitted he used to work with Corazon at Surety Life Insurance and that the two had talked a few times at the office, mostly about LDS missions. But D..B told police he had never asked Corazon out to lunch or anything, and that they never went anywhere alone together, D..B.
Also said that the last time he saw Corazon was about three months prior. Now, he did admit to calling her at work once, just to check in. But it's unclear if he meant after he got fired, or like while he was still working there. When asked where he'd been last Saturday night, D..B. said that he'd been home with his wife. But Detective Pender can't tell from the case file if police actually tried to verify his alibi with his wife or not.
So there really wasn't much there. D..B. didn't seem to have a motive, maybe they let him off the hook because he was married with a family. But otherwise, police were scrambling to come up with any logical scenarios for who would want to hurt Corazon. No leads were panning out and tips just stopped coming in.
It's heartbreaking. But by the spring of 1978, Corazon's case was cold. A few months later, in May, a write-up in the Sun Advocate newspaper, penned by a woman named Connie McCourt, dedicated a few words to honor Corazon. Connie wrote that Corazon finished college and earned a degree in journalism, and that she first arrived in Utah in October 1972 after meeting her husband, Gary, in the Philippines, where he was serving a mission for his church, they married in the Salt Lake Temple, and Gary died just eight months after the wedding. Connie wrote that Corazon moved in with Bert and Ada Ray, where they all grieved.
The loss of Gary and her in-laws helped Corazon adapt to American culture, even teaching her how to drive. Connie also wrote that Corazon was accomplished in crocheting and typing, tennis, housekeeping and cooking. She reported that Corazon was working two jobs to save enough money to bring the rest of her family to the states. And that, in order to achieve that, she had to have had lived in the United States for five years. A goal that she was just months shy of when she was murdered. Connie closed out her column by writing Quote A maniac with a lead pipe beat Cora to death in a parking lot in Salt Lake City. But the laugh is on him.
Those of us who loved her are repelled by the means of her death. But we remember her oft-voiced wish to join Gary on the other side. We rejoice with her at their reunion. End quote. In December 1978, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Shirdi Life Insurance was offering a $2,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Corazon's killer. But nothing came from it.
Very little headway or even effort really was made in Corazon's case in the years after her murder. And listen, I don't know if Corazon's lack of local family had something to do with her case not being investigated beyond the winter of 1978. Or if other cases popped up and there just weren't enough detectives to go around. But I know that they did try new things here and there. Like in 1980, when they reached out to other regional and out-of-state agencies to see if there were any cases similar to Corazon's. Like women who were attacked and left at churches, but nothing came of that.
More than three decades went by, but eventually, around 2011, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office formed a cold case unit. And a detective finally picked up Corazon's case file. For the first time in 33 years, that investigator presented her case to the VDOC Society, hoping for some guidance.
It looks like they did make some suggestions about some potential DNA testing. They talked about, maybe putting it out into the media. But unfortunately, it didn't produce any viable leads at that point.
So Corazon's case went back on the shelf. Fast forward two more years. And the next movement was in 2013, when a grant had been acquired for detectives to work some Salt Lake County cold cases. That's when a detective decided it was finally time to get some of the evidence tested for DNA. In Corazon's case, the items from both crime scenes had been preserved over the years. So he sent off her purse the can of Ajax that was found near her car, a beer can that was also by her car. Though they weren't sure if it was even related and one of her shoes.
Which, by the way, one of Corazon's shoes was still on her when she was found, but the other one was actually later found in a dirt field. A little ways away, in like, the opposite direction of the church, in the next lot over, it was a construction area at the time, where a new subdivision was being built. So that's the shoe that they sent off. From. Looking at the photos, Detective Pender thought that it looked like someone had maybe thrown the shoe over there.
There was another item that was also sent, but I don't want to talk about that one.
Whatever that mystery item was, that was the only item that came back with real evidentiary value. It showed a mixture of three unknown male profiles, which is exciting, but also not ideal because mixtures of DNA are very tricky to work with. So what good was that in 2013??
Not good at all. I mean, it was still helpful, right? It still is progressing the case a little bit because now we have some information. We can't do a whole lot with it right now, but we're hoping, as time goes on, that technology will change, which it is changing, it has changed.
None of the other items they sent off for testing in 2013 came back with any hits. And because they weren't sure what to do with the mixed profiles, Corazon's case got put back on the shelf once again. It wasn't until 2016 that Detective Pender got involved, but the bulk of his work on Corazon's case didn't really heat up until 2019, which is when he met with the Utah State Crime Lab and worked to review the entire case with a couple of scientists. They requested that he resubmit that mystery item for more testing. They also asked him to submit an item that had never been tested before. And, of course, it's another item that Detective Pender wanted to remain off the record, and they also sent Corazon's clothing.
The results more freaking mixtures.
They just indicate on these items that there was a presence of mixtures of at least two individuals and wouldn't qualify for any statistical calculations. Some of her clothing was also tested, but again came back that there was a presence of mixtures as well and could not draw a conclusion.
So how many different unknown profiles are you working with?
So I don't really know, because until they can separate those mixed profiles, I don't know if the mixed profiles are going to be the same individuals or if it's going to be different individuals.
But there was one item that provided a full unknown male DNA profile. Detective Pender wouldn't say which item it is. But this is exciting because it meant that he could enter that profile into Codis, which he did in 2019. But, of course, no hits. And before you accuse me of burying the lead, the reason I did is because the full profile came off. An item that investigators aren't 100 certain is actually tied to the crime.
And no, it's not the beer can, by the way, it's something else that they don't want to name. Apparently, this item was found close to Corazon's car. But if or when they get a hit on the profile, I guess it's not exactly the slam dunk that they're looking for. So undeterred, but not wanting to just sit around for a Codis hit, detective Pender has been exploring other avenues to try and solve Corazon's case.
So I've also been working again with Parabon, trying to see if this is something that could potentially at some point be able to get phenotyping and or investigative genetic genealogy. But again, currently we don't have enough.
They're retesting items, trying to get better profiles as I speak.
With the new technology, we're hopeful that we can get more in anticipation of being able to proceed forward with it.
Detective Pender really hopes those results give him enough to move forward with investigative genetic genealogy. Best case scenario It tells us who killed Corazon? Worst case scenario, the DNA connects to a former detective who was at the crime scene in the 70s. And that's a real fear in cases that are this old, because things were handled and preserved very differently.
I truly believe that all these cases, if they were easy to solve, they would have been solved at the time. They are just extremely challenging and even fast forward all these years, it's still challenging today. So I again credit them for the work they did and at the time and the efforts they put into doing this. And I'm sure they were extremely frustrated as as I get frustrated.
But at least I can see that there's hopefully things on the horizon where I think. Back in the 70s, a lot of this stuff wasn't even known.
Humor me for a moment. And just imagine if Corazon had been killed in this decade, police would probably have surveillance footage, cell phone technology, a sex assault kit. And her killer, or killers who viciously beat her unconscious and likely sexually assaulted her, leaving her for dead in a church parking lot on a Sunday morning. They would have been caught, but because their crime predates all that, they just got away with it, and who knows what else they've gotten away with?
In the past, police have had a hard time getting in touch with Corazon's immediate family. But a few years ago, Detective Pender got a call from her dad, Jose, who arranged a visit.
He showed up along with Corazon, one of her sisters, and her sister looked almost identical to Corazon. But it was really nice to meet them and speak with them and kind of exchange information and stuff like that. And to let them know that. You know, we haven't given up and we're not going to give up on his daughter's case.
She deserves answers like every other victim in these types of cases, and like I say in this particular case, Corazon, I think really got it worse. Than as far as getting married and having her husband pass at a short time. And having to go through that at that young of an age and then ending up getting murdered herself. I just I can't imagine what the family and friends are going through.
If you know anything about the murder of Corazon Franzen in Murray, Utah, in February 1978, please call Unified Police Detective Ben Pender at 385-468-9816.
The Deck is an audiochuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast..com. So what do you think, Chuck, do you approve?
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