Once upon a Time: A True Story of Memory, Murder and the Law [Hardcover]

Harry N. MacLean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1993

The author of In Broad Daylight offers an in-depth account of how a woman's alleged recall of the murder of her childhood best friend resulted in the conviction of her own father for the crime. 40,000 first printing. $60,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is a superb analysis of a case already widely publicized via 60 Minutes , a TV docudrama and Eileen Franklin's book, Sins of the Father , written with William Wright: a murder committed in 1969 brought a conviction in 1990 because of testimony stemming from a previously repressed memory. Susan Nason, 8, was molested and killed near San Francisco and 20 years later Eileen Franklin, who had been her best friend, accused her own father, George, of the crime. No forensic evidence substantiated her allegation, but as details of George's abuse of his five children--verbal, physical and sexual--emerged, the possibility grew that he could have committed murder. The case turned on the credibility of Eileen, who kept altering her story. Also looming large were the questions of accurate and false traumatic memories and of repression versus disassociation, which MacLean ( In Broad Daylight ) elucidates. In an epilogue, he presents his conclusion that Eileen was not a trustworthy witness--and his reasoning is highly credible. Photos not seen by PW .
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In 1990, the public was shocked to hear Eileen Franklin accuse her father of sexually attacking and murdering her best friend 20 years ago. She claimed that she had recently recalled a repressed memory of the incident. Her father was subsequently charged with her friend's murder and found guilty. Exploring this case in depth, MacLean found that Franklin was basically convicted upon the uncorroborated recollections of his daughter. Every key fact in her "purported" eyewitness account was already public knowledge. Did Eileen really witness this crime or was this memory created in Eileen's mind, unwittingly or not, as an explanation of her troubled childhood? MacLean describes in detail the Franklins' family life and reveals the father's brutality and sexual depravity. Following the trial jury proceedings carefully, MacLean challenges the reader with the ultimate questions: Was George guilty? Were Eileen's recollections true? A well-paced, exciting narrative, grippingly told, this book belongs in most true crime collections. Recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/92.
- Sandra K. Lindheimer, Middlesex Law Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 485 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins; 1st edition (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006016543X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060165437
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #829,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry MacLean had a successful career as a lawyer before turning to writing. Graduating magna cum laude from the University of Denver College of Law in 1967, he went to work as a trial attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. He returned to private practice in Denver and accepted an adjunct professor position at the DU College of Law. He was appointed magistrate in the Denver juvenile court, where he served for two years, before becoming First Assistant Attorney General for the Colorado Department of Law. From there, he went to Washington, D.C. as the General Counsel of the Peace Corps in the Carter administration.

Harry returned to Denver in 1980 and was working as an independent arbitrator and mediator when he read the story of the "vigilante killing" of Ken Rex McElroy, the "town bully," in northwest Missouri. After reading what he could find on the murder, he drove to the small town of Skidmore, and found the town wrapped up tight around the killers. Over time, MacLean made friends and became accepted in the community. He lived with a prominent Skidmore family, and for the next four years researched the story. "In Broad Daylight" is the tale of McElroy's reign of terror, his murder, and the ensuing cover up. The book won an Edgar Award, was a New York Times bestseller for twelve weeks, and was made into a movie starring Brian Dennehey, Chris Cooper, Marcia Gay Harden and Cloris Leachman.

"Once Upon A Time" is the story of Eileen Franklin, a California housewife who claimed to recover a repressed memory of her father murdering her playmate twenty years earlier. Based solely on this memory, George Franklin was tried and convicted of the murder. The book chronicles the trial and the story of the highly dysfunctional Franklin family as it played out in court. It also explores the intersection of psychology and the law and the use of repressed memories as evidence in criminal cases. "Once Upon A Time" was selected as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.

On his sixtieth birthday, Harry threw a dart at a map pinned to his dining room wall. It landed on Dover, Delaware. One month later, Harry gathered a suitcase and $500 and took a bus to Dover, where for a year he lived on what he could earn. After driving a postal truck down the coast of Delaware in the dark of night for a few months, Harry worked undercover as a prison guard at the maximum security prison in Smyrna. This book chronicling this year is still under construction.

Harry has long been interested in the state of Mississippi as the supposed unrepentant heart of the old South. When James Ford Seale was arrested in January 2007 for his role in the kidnapping and murder of two black youths in 1964, he decided to tell the story of the trial and explore the landscape of modern Mississippi. The result is "The Past Is Never Dead."
Harry continues to live in Denver and work as a labor arbitrator and mediator.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars SPOILER ALERT: UPDATES PROVIDED, November 14, 2011

By 

Martina "Martina" (Los Angeles, Ca., USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Once Upon A Time, A True Story of Memory, Murder and the Law (Kindle Edition)

Spoiler Alert: I'm a trial lawyer in Cal., and have some information for those looking for updates. First, as to the book, it's very well written, and you feel like you are at the trial. My quibble might be that it is clear that the author just personally liked the prosecutor better than the defense lawyer, and put her performance and the descriptions of her in a much better light than the defense, even though objectively, as a trial lawyer, from my reading, the defense attorney did the best he could with a biased judge.

UPDATE:

For those interested, I think you can Google Franklin vs. Duncan to find the federal court decision overturning the conviction in 1995. The federal appeals court agreed in overturning the conviction, and the prosecutors decided not to retry the case. My take is that the father was a horrible, abusive, depraved person, but that the evidence he committed this particular crime was flimsy to non-existent. The book does a good job in showing how the cops, prosecutor and jury believe what they want to believe, and how they can twist the evidence to fit what they want to believe.

The grounds were that the trial judge was wrong to let the prosecutor argue that the defendant's silence when his daughter asked him whether he did it when he was in jail indicated guilt, because a criminal defendant has the right to remain silent and that cannot be used against him. The trial court also was in error by refusing to let the defense present evidence that every single detail of the crime that the daughter came up with had been published in newspapers and mentioned on TV. The prosecutor argued that the details the daughter gave could only be known by someone who had witnessed the crime, and they all matched up with the actual scene and body, but then the judge wouldn't let the defense show she could have read the stuff in the paper. The federal court was also very disturbed by the prosecutor implying to the jury that the information wasn't publicly known, when she knew that it was known, and the court thought the prosecutor may have induced perjured testimony. The trial court also indicated there was evidence the daughter committed perjury in testifying that she didn't discuss the facts of the case with her family, that she didn't watch press reports and that the memory was not induced by hypnosis. Her mom and sister, who backed her up in the trial, now claim that she was lying. The conviction was thrown out only on the jailhouse silence and the refusal to permit evidence of the press coverage, but the court was clearly disturbed by the other issues.

FURTHER UPDATE:

The father, after his release, sued the cops, the prosecutor, his daughter and the state's expert witnesses for conspiring to violate his rights. In 2002, the federal appeals court held that the witnesses had immunity from suit for various reasons. I think an Internet search of Franklin vs. Terr may turn that up.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Did he or didn't he?, November 8, 2007

By 

J. Wilson (Warrenton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Once upon a Time: A True Story of Memory, Murder and the Law (Hardcover)

Very well written, but disturbing story of a woman's repressed memory of child abuse, rape and murder. I have no doubt that Eileen Franklin's father was guilty of some of Eileen's accusations, but I'm uncertain whether or not he murdered her friend. Eileen seems to have a lot of emotional issues that made me question her credibility, in addition to her constantly changing stories. But her mother, brother and sisters were able to corroborate on the abuse so at least some of what she said must have been true. I was engrossed in the book and had a hard time putting it down. Harry Maclean has done a great job.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and Compelling!, July 29, 2011

By 

Burl Barer "Buy all my books!" (California) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Once Upon A Time, A True Story of Memory, Murder and the Law (Kindle Edition)

ONCE UPON A TIME is absolutely gripping, and an example of true crime writing at its insightful best. Maclean is a master of the genre, and the case itself is fascinating. The family dynamics are horrific and tragically true -- and that means people lie to themselves and others with terrible consequences. The man accused of murdering a child was uncouth, unfaithful, disgusting, abusive ..and innocent. This book is important for anyone who thinks our justice system should react like an outraged victim instead of bending over backwards in the assumption of innocence. Even then, emotion and violations of the Constitution can put the wrong people behind bars. For reasons of literary brilliance, coupled with social relevance, I cannot lavish enough praise on ONCE UPON A TIME by Harry Maclean