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Crime News Domestic Violence

Where Is Franklin Floyd, A.K.A. Clarence Hughes, From Netflix's 'Girl In The Picture' Now? 

Franklin Floyd, whose crimes are portrayed in Netflix's new true crime documentary "Girl In The Picture," was convicted for the kidnapping of Michael Hughes as well as the murder of Cheryl Ann Commesso. 

By Gina Tron
Franklin Floyd featured in Girl In The Picture

Franklin Delano Floyd was a man of many aliases and crimes — and he left many victims in his wake, as the Netflix documentary "Girl in the Picture" details.

He grew up in an orphanage in Georgia with his three siblings and it wouldn't take long before his alarming criminal career began taking shape. When he was just 19, he kidnapped a 4-year-old girl from a bowling alley. He was arrested, but escaped a year later, only to rob a bank in Macon, the Tampa Bay Times reported in 1997. He served a decade for that crime before being released on parole in 1973.

In 1974, while living under the alias Brandon Williams, he married Sandi Chipman, according to the FBI. Chipman had four young children: three girls and a boy, according to the documentary. But in 1975, while Chipman was serving a 30-day sentence for writing bad checks, Floyd put the boy up for adoption, left the two youngest girls with a local social services agency (where there mother was eventually able to find and reunite with them), and absconded with the Chipman's oldest daughter, Suzanne Marie Sevakis, who was around 5 years old.

He fled with Suzanne to Oklahoma, changing both of their names to avoid detection. He began going by Warren Marshall, presenting Suzanne as his daughter Sharon Marshall. Eventually, after she completed high school, he moved with her to Tampa, Florida. It was around this time she gave birth to a son, Michael, and began working in strip clubs to support her family, according to the Tampa Bay Times. During the course of her work, she met Cheryl Ann Commesso, who also worked as a stripper and lived in the same trailer park as "Sharon" and "Warren." Witnesses alleged in the documentary that Floyd would routinely sexually abuse Suzanne.

As the documentary details, Commesso had been spending time with the two and once got into an altercation with Floyd in the parking lot of her job. She ended up vanishing in 1989. Soon after, Floyd and Suzanne were on the move again, their trailer having burned down.

Floyd took her to New Orleans, changing her name to Tonya Tadlock. He was now going by Clarence Hughes and actually married the girl he'd once passed off as his daughter. They would eventually move to Oklahoma City as Clarence and Tonya Hughes with their son, Michael.

The twisted life Floyd had built took another dark turn in 1990, when he appeared at an Oklahoma City hospital with a seriously injured Suzanne. He told staff that she'd been struck by a car in a hit and run and she died days later, buried as "Tonya Hughes" at the age of just 21.

That's when the charade Floyd had constructed began unraveling. Police would soon discover his true identity as a a fugitive wanted by federal authorities for breaking his parole on the bank robbery charges 17 years earlier. While in prison, he lost custody of Michael — who, it was later determined, was not actually his biological son — The Oklahoman reported in 2016.

Michael spent the next four years in foster care, but Floyd, in addition to his legal woes, continued seeking to regain custody. Things came to a tragic head in 1994, when he kidnapped Michael, now 6, at gunpoint from his school, along with the school's principal, who he left handcuffed to a tree. That was the last time anyone saw the boy. 

Authorities did manage to track down Floyd two months later in Kentucky and he was charged and convicted in Michael's kidnapping, though he refused to reveal what happened to the boy.

Meanwhile, Commesso’s skeletal remains were discovered in March 1995 near Insterstate 275 in St. Petersburg after a worker from a landscaping crew found a human skull and then silicone breast implants in a swampy area off the highway, according to court records.  "A bikini-type bathing suit top was found in two separate pieces" and a "pair of pants had been cut into pieces which were tied together. A crime lab analyst "gave his opinion that the items had been separated by use of a double-bladed implement." The unknown woman, identified as Commesso in 1996, had been beaten and shot twice in the head.

Floyd was charged with her murder in 1997 and convicted in 2002, according to court paperwork. He was sentenced to death in the case.

In 2014, he finally admitted that "Tonya Hughes" was an alias for Suzanne Sevakis, who he'd kidnapped in 1975. At that time, he also admitted to killing her son, Michael Hughes.

"Without a doubt, Franklin Floyd is one of the most evil people I've ever met in my life," Oklahoma prosecutor Lisa Hammond said in 1997, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

He remains on death row for Commesso's murder.