Unforbidden Truth

In March 1998, Jeffrey Franklin, a 17-year-old high school student from Huntsville, Alabama, brutally attacked his family in their home in the Camelot subdivision. Armed with a hatchet, sledgehammer, and knife, Franklin killed his mother, Cynthia, and father, Gerald, and severely injured three of his younger siblings. Two other siblings managed to escape the attack unharmed. When police arrived, they found a horrifying crime scene described as one of the most gruesome in Huntsville’s history. Franklin, who had fled in his parents’ car, was captured a short time later after a police chase.

 Investigators later uncovered Franklin’s journal entries, which detailed his fascination with Satanism and violent fantasies about killing his family. He was described as a bright but deeply troubled teenager who had been suspended from school earlier that day for bringing a knife. In 2000, Jeffrey Franklin pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder, avoiding the death penalty due to his age. He was sentenced to 5 life sentences.

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In April 2015, Amanda Taylor, a 24-year-old woman from Virginia, committed a shocking and highly publicized murder that would earn her the nickname “The Selfie Killer.” Still grieving the suicide of her husband, Rex Taylor, Amanda blamed his father, Charles Taylor, for his death. On April 4, she and her friend Sean Ball went to Charles’s home in Montgomery County under the pretense of a visit. Once inside, Amanda brutally stabbed Charles more than 30 times with a knife, while Ball helped restrain him, killing him in cold blood.

After the murder, Amanda displayed a chilling lack of remorse. She posted photos on Instagram holding the bloody knife and wrote captions bragging about the killing, describing it as “revenge.” The pair then stole Charles’s car and fled Virginia, sparking a multi-state manhunt. During their flight, Ball attempted suicide, and the two were eventually captured in North Carolina. Authorities later revealed that Amanda had discussed her plans for revenge before the killing, suggesting the act was premeditated and fueled by obsession and grief.

Amanda Taylor was charged with first-degree murder and grand larceny, and in 2016 she pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced her to life in prison without parole, calling the crime “cold and calculated.” Sean Ball, who cooperated with investigators, received 41 years in prison. The case gained national media attention due to Amanda’s disturbing social media posts and emotionless demeanor, symbolizing the dark intersection of grief, revenge, and the performative nature of online notoriety.

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In January 2014, Julie Lane Kennedy Griffith (age 55) was found dead in her home in Reidland (near Paducah). Investigators later determined that she had been shot three times in the chest, and her house was then set on fire in what was believed to be a cover-up of the murder. Two dogs inside the residence also died in the blaze.

Her husband, Keith Griffith, was later charged with her murder, arson, tampering with evidence, and animal cruelty, among other charges. In February 2015, the trial ended in a mistrial due to a deadlocked jury. In January 2016, Keith Griffith pleaded guilty to multiple charges, admitting to killing Julie and setting the house ablaze. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

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Steven Nigg is a former federal inmate best known for his 2016 assault on notorious sex offender Larry Nassar’s fellow high-profile prisoner, former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle. While serving time for a firearms conviction at a low-security prison in Colorado, Nigg became enraged that Fogle was housed with other inmates in relative comfort despite his crimes against children. In January 2016, Nigg attacked Fogle in the prison yard, punching him repeatedly and leaving him with injuries to his face and neck. Prison officials quickly intervened, and Nigg was placed in disciplinary segregation after the assault.

The incident drew national attention because Nigg expressed open contempt for sex offenders and frustration at what he described as lenient treatment of such inmates. Although the attack did not lead to new criminal charges, it added to Nigg’s disciplinary record and affected his prison standing. He later served out his original sentence before being released. The case highlighted both inmate resentment toward sex offenders and the broader challenges prison officials face in managing high-profile prisoners.








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Luis Bracamontes, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was convicted of murdering two sheriff’s deputies in Sacramento, California, in 2014. Bracamontes, who had previously been deported multiple times, carried out a violent shooting spree that left Deputy Danny Oliver and Detective Michael Davis Jr. dead. During his 2018 trial, he showed no remorse, even boasting about the killings and threatening to kill more officers in the future. His violent past and repeated illegal reentries into the United States drew widespread national attention.

In 2018, a jury found Bracamontes guilty of murder, attempted murder, and other charges. He was sentenced to death in March 2018 after a highly publicized trial in which his outbursts—including laughter and taunts—shocked the courtroom. His wife, Janelle Monroy, who was accused of aiding him during the crime spree, was sentenced to nearly 50 years in prison. Prosecutors highlighted Bracamontes’s repeated illegal entries as well as his history of criminal activity to show the severity of the case.

President Donald Trump seized on Bracamontes’s crimes during his push for stricter immigration policies. Trump repeatedly cited Bracamontes as an example of the dangers of “open borders” and featured him in a controversial 2018 campaign ad ahead of the midterm elections. The ad, which portrayed Bracamontes as representative of undocumented immigrants broadly, was widely criticized as misleading and racist, but it underscored how his case became a flashpoint in the national debate over immigration enforcement and border security.



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In April 2006, 23-year-old Christopher Lampkin was murdered in a Salem apartment, shot execution-style, and dismembered by Leonardo Garcia Gonzalez and Victor Gonzalez. His remains were stuffed into a duffel bag and fed to pigs at a Yamhill County farm, where police later recovered partial remains in a feed barrel. The killers were ordered to pay Lampkin’s family $1 million, while charges against the farm owner and apartment complex were ultimately dismissed.

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Theresa Knorr is convicted of murdering 2 of her 6 children. Theresa has been married a total of 4 times. Her first husband, Clifford Sanders died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, inflicted by Theresa. Theresa was acquitted of his murder. Theresa was known to be physically, psychologically and verbally abusive to her children. She would abuse and torture her kids in different ways, including: throwing knives at them, burning them with cigarettes, beating them and force feeding them. Theresa would go on to murder her two daughters, Suesan (17) and Sheila (20). Theresa is currently serving two life sentences. She is eligible for parole in 2027, she will be 80 years old.

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Please note the prisoners were on speaker phone, on a prison tablet, so that's why it is so loud/why the quality is the way it is. This was a live interview I conducted on tik tok, which i occasionally do on Tuesday's. @unforbiddentruthpodcast is my username.

Donald Ray Middlebrooks

In 1987, Donald Ray Middlebrooks, along with his then-teenage wife Tammy Middlebrooks and accomplice Robert Brewington, kidnapped and brutally tortured 14-year-old Kerrick Majors in East Nashville. The attack followed Majors accidentally breaking a vase at a makeshift flea market, and descended into a racially charged and horrific hate crime involving torture, mutilation, and ultimately stabbing — with racial slurs and extreme violence central to the ordeal. Middlebrooks was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping, receiving a death sentence in 1989, later affirmed through retrial and appeal

After years of appeals, his execution was scheduled for December 2022 but was stayed amid concerns over the state’s lethal injection protocol; as of early 2025, a new execution date has been set, though it remains on hold pending federal litigation.

Steven J. Wiggins

Steven Wiggins, of Dickson, Tennessee, was convicted in August 2021 for the brutal killing of Sergeant Daniel Baker—shooting him multiple times during a traffic investigation, then dragging his body into the patrol car, impersonating him, and setting the vehicle ablaze with the body inside.

The scope of his convictions included premeditated first-degree murder, felony murder, theft, impersonation, arson, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. In April 2022, he accepted a federal plea agreement on carjacking and firearms charges which resulted in a life sentence — prompting withdrawal of the federal death penalty notice, though the state-level death sentence remains active.

He is currently on death row, and his legal team filed a motion for a new trial citing multiple errors in the original state proceedings.

Jonathan Wesley Stephenson

Jonathan Wesley Stephenson was convicted in 1990 in Cocke County for the premeditated, contract killing of his wife — alongside a related conspiracy conviction for hiring an accomplice. Initially sentenced to death plus 25 years, his case went through a complex appellate process. Due to sentencing irregularities, a new sentencing hearing followed, resulting in a life-without-parole term plus 60 years for conspiracy. However, that sentence was later vacated and resentenced to death again, which was affirmed by Tennessee’s Supreme Court in 2006.

He continued seeking relief — most recently filing a habeas corpus petition, which was dismissed in 2024 by the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, affirming the legality of his death-plus-60‑year sentence.

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Prentiss Williams, of Toledo, Ohio, ultimately pleaded guilty to four murders committed in the mid‑1990s—specifically those of Shelley Johnson, Robert Hendricks, Carmita Dickey, and Jonathan Booker—and was also implicated in a jail incident in which he obtained a weapon and fired shots (with no one injured) after a counselor smuggled contraband to him.

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Christopher “Life” Willars is a renowned motivational speaker, prison‑rights and mental‑health advocate, and successful social‑media content creator who, after spending 17 years incarcerated, emerged to co‑found and lead a cosmetology vocational school outside Atlanta called Lasting Layers of Beauty with his wife. He also founded The Life Unit, providing re‑entry support and coaching to those affected by the criminal justice system, helping countless individuals find resilience, purpose, and transformation.

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