06-09-2021
Young Skeegie, Old Sparky and J. Edgar – Episode #4 (of 4)
J. Edgar Hoover, now smelling blood, rejoins the interrogation, from the other side of the two-way mirror. He leans hard and loud into McCall. With Hoover relentlessly breathing down his neck, McCall agrees to escort the cops to where he “believes” his alleged partner in crime may have left the child. The field team quickly comes across an appalling find; the decomposed body of young Skeegie Cash, buried in a dense palmetto thicket. Hoover leaves Florida shortly thereafter, taking the lion’s share of the credit for cracking the case. Franklin McCall breaks down and admits that he acted alone. With astonishing speed, he is indicted, pleads guilty, is tried, and convicted of murder. All less than three weeks after the actual kidnapping. A year later, on June 24th, 1939 in the Death House at the State Prison in Raiford, FL, 22-year-old Franklin Pierce McCall walks the “Green Mile” on his way to the chair, a.k.a. Old Sparky.