The brutal murder of a young San Leon mother remains unsolved.
It was Thanksgiving in 1986. Shelly Franklin could not be reached. Her family was about to be notified of her murder. Her two children, 10 and younger would be separated and raised by different family members. Life as they knew it was about to be over.
Lieutenant Tommy Hansen is a cold case investigator with Galveston County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant. “The family was trying to get in touch with her, and they couldn’t.”
38 years later, Franklin’s son Ted Ludwig Junior is desperate to solve his mother’s murder. He reached out to KPRC 2′s Zach Lashway hoping ‘Solvable’ could reexamine the case.
“That’s devastating. That’s the hardest part, is not knowing. Tough. And sitting here brings back memories.” Cried Ludwig. “When I was younger, I didn’t really miss her as much as I probably should have, but I had aunts’ family members that took me in. So, I was kind of, surrounded by good folks. But as I got older, I started missing her. So, it’s tough. I didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day for a while, and then I thought, well, she would want me to. So, I do celebrate it.”
Hansen re-opened the cold case of Franklin in 2017.
He explained, “It (the murder) was personal. There were things on the scene that made it very obvious that probably who did this was there because they could be there, but something went totally awry, and it became very personal. I’ve worked hundreds of homicides in my 50-year career, and the brutality of this was pretty much off the charts. It was very, very brutal. Her head was completely stomped in many, many ways. It was apparent that it was it was purely physical. There wasn’t a knife used or gun used or anything like that. It was pretty much a direct physical contact. She was very small, very petite. Indications are there’s a possibility that she may have been secured in some fashion or form during all of this, which would have even limited her ability to combat what was happening, even more so.”
Hansen said evidence exists in the case.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff. We’re looking at going through reprocessing everything under the new latest, greatest technology and just pray and hope that we can come up with, a lead on this.” Explained Hansen.
The hope is to for someone to come forward with a lead.
“You want to just walk up to the family and say, ‘here’s what happened and here’s who did it.’ ‘Hey, we’re filing charges tomorrow.’” Explained Hansen.
If you have a cold case you want us to reexamine, email us at solvable@kprc.com.