Seaside, CA: Former Capitola woman's killer sentenced to life

By VIRGINIA HENNESSEY - Monterey County Herald
Posted: 12/02/2010 08:11:46 PM PST
Updated: 12/02/2010 08:13:15 PM PST

SALINAS - The daughter and sister of a Seaside woman who was stabbed to death in 2008 bared their grief Thursday as her killer was sent to prison for life.
Edward Gardner, 47, was sentenced to 35 years to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Jean Franklin. The popular, 46-year-old postal worker, who worked in Capitola, was found dead in their apartment on Feb. 8, 2008. Her throat was slashed. Gardner's bags were packed near the door where she'd placed them.
Shimeko Franklin, the victim's daughter, said she is haunted by the violence of the slaying that left a bag of her son's toys soaked in her mother's blood.
"I would picture in my dreams how this whole thing played out," the 27-year-old woman said. "I slept with the light on and was terrified for my own life. I spent a year paralyzed with fear, depression, guilt and thoughts of suicide."
The young mother said her 5-year-old son is left without a grandmother who was "co-parenting" him, and she is left without her "confidant, my best friend and the strongest link in my support system."
"She'll never know how much she meant to me," she cried.
Placing a framed photo of her sister on the table facing Judge Larry Hayes, Yoko Hoffman said Gardner's "selfish act" had robbed her of the opportunity to mend a strained relationship with her younger sibling and robbed her two nieces of their mother.
Shimeko Franklin's father has been absent and the father of Jean Franklin's other daughter was killed in an industrial accident in 2007.
"Now the girls have no parent," Hoffman said. "This is the biggest tragedy of all."
Both women talked about how Franklin, a devout Buddhist who was training as a supervisor at the Capitola post office, was reaching a pinnacle in her life. She was building her dream home next door to her mother in Seaside when she was murdered. Franklin's mother died unexpectedly in 2009 "waiting for justice," Hoffman said.
Gardner, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, showed no emotion as the women spoke, but then apologized to them.
"Things just went wild that night," he said. "I miss Jean, too ... I hurt, too. But I feel I should be punished."
Hayes told the man his pain in no way could be compared to the anguish of Franklin's family. And prosecutor Elaine McCleaf bristled at a characterization of the killing that Gardner made in a letter to Hayes that apparently minimized his actions. The description, she said, was completely inconsistent with Franklin's wounds.
Defense attorney Bryan Keller said Gardner was to be credited for pleading guilty for a sentence that was equal to the maximum he could have received at trial. He said his client opted to enter a plea out of respect for Franklin's family.
"I do not believe I've ever come across anyone who's more sincere in his regret and more dignified in his acceptance of his punishment," he said.
It was Gardner who directed police to discover Franklin's body after he was arrested for drunken driving the morning after he killed her.
Calling his crime an incomprehensible act of inhumanity, Hayes told Gardner he would not be eligible to apply for parole until he was over the age of 80. He told Franklin's family he wished there was more he could say to relieve their pain.