Police Blotter: Body found near Flagstaff

Posted by Navajo Times | Nov 12, 2015 | Police Blotter |

FLAGSTAFF – On Nov. 5 at approximately 9:10 a.m., a woman contacted several Arizona Department of Public Safety officers on North Highway 89 and told them she found the body of a deceased person at a temporary campsite off of Fat Man’s Loop Trail, according to a news release from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office.

The officers accompanied the woman back to the campsite and found the body of a deceased adult white male. Arizona DPS officers contacted the sheriff’s office, and deputies and detectives responded to the campsite.

Once the investigation at the scene was complete the body was released to a representative of the Coconino County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Although detectives believe they know the name of the deceased individual, his name will not be released until positive identification and notification of his next of kin are completed.

Detectives and medical examiner’s death investigators will continue this investigation in an attempt to determine the deceased person’s name as well as the manner and mode of his death.

Shiprock man gets 10 years for firearms violation

ALBUQUERQUE — Jeffrey J. Franklin, 31, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Shiprock, was sentenced Nov. 5 in federal court in Albuquerque, to 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for violating the federal firearms laws by discharging a firearm during an act of violence, according to a news release from the attorney’s office.

Franklin was arrested in August 2014, on a criminal complaint charging him with assault with a dangerous weapon and abusing a child by placing the child in a situation that could endanger the child’s life. The complaint alleged that Franklin committed these crimes on Aug. 9, 2014, on the Navajo Indian Reservation in San Juan County, N.M.

According to the complaint, on Aug. 9, 2014, Franklin assaulted four Indian women and two Indian children by firing shots while inside the residence of one of the victims and by firing shots at the victims’ vehicles. Two children were inside one of the vehicles when Franklin shot at the vehicle.

Franklin was subsequently indicted on Nov. 19, 2014, and charged with four counts of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm, negligently placing minors in a situation that endangered the children’s health, and two counts of using and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

On Aug. 5, 2015, Franklin pled guilty to one count of using and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.