After more than three decades, the case against Frank Gable, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of Oregon Corrections Director Michael Francke, is finally over. And the 1989 killing is officially once again an unsolved murder.

On May 8, Oregon U.S. District Magistrate Judge Michael Acosta dismissed the April 6, 1990, Marion County grand jury indictment against Gable “with prejudice.” He ordered that the State of Oregon and all of its political subdivisions are barred from rearresting, reindicting, or retrying Gable for Francke’s murder.

The Marion County District Attorney’s Office and the Oregon Department of Justice both said they will not challenge the ruling.

“The Marion County District Attorney’s Office intends to comply with Judge Acosta’s dismissal,” Marion County Deputy District Attorney Brendan Murphy told the Portland Tribune in a May 9 email.

“We respect the court’s ruling,” justice department spokesman Roy Kaufman emailed the Tribune.

Gable had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Acosta originally overturned Gable’s 1991 conviction on April 18, 2019, ruling that he was likely innocent and did not receive a fair trial. He ordered that Gable either be retried or have the charges against him dropped within 90 days.

Gable was released from prison on supervision a few weeks later while the justice department appealed Acosta’s ruling all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to accept it on April 24 of this year, sending it back to Acosta. In his May 8 order, Acosta also released Gable unconditionally.

Francke’s brothers Kevin and Patrick praised Acosta’s May 8 ruling. They have long believed Gable is innocent.

“We are beyond happy that Frank and his wife Rain will no longer be paralyzed with fear by every unexpected phone call or knock at the door, and they can go about a normal existence. While Frank has been “free” for four years, that Sword of Damocles has been hanging over him every waking hour; an insane, unwarranted and unjustified torture few of us could imagine or tolerate,” the brothers said in a joint statement hours after the ruling.  

“We are most pleased that Mike Francke’s legacy will not be tainted by the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. One victim was one two many; two was a travesty. We pray that although it has cost Frank 33 years of hell to get here, that he and Rain will enjoy many, many years of peaceful freedom and a wealth of happiness to make up for it.”

Before issuing his ruling, Acosta held a status conference on the case on May 1, where he said there were only 10 days left for the state to make a decision. Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman argued the DA’s office should be able take as long as it wants to decide whether to retry Gable, which appeared to anger the judge. Gable’s attorneys argued Acosta has the authority to impose such a deadline, and that it was unjust for their client to continue living in fear that he could be rearrested at any time.

It is unclear what, if anything, happens next, given that the case is now officially once again an unsolved murder. The Marion County District Attorneys’s Office did not promptly respond when asked if it intends to reopen and reinvestigate the case.

“Of course the big question is, who killed Mike Francke, and what did the Oregon State Police, along with the Marion County District Attorney fear so much that they would consciously and willingly work in concert to ‘create’ a suspect, Frank Gable, then ‘create’ witnesses and false testimonies to convict him?” the Francke brothers said on May 8.  

“What would have been uncovered by a bona fide investigation?”

The Francke murder was perhaps the most high-profile killing in Oregon history. He was stabbed in the heart and bled to death outside his office in the department headquarters known as the Dome Building on Jan. 17, 1989. The case took many twists and turns over the years, beginning with the emergence of conspiracy theories that Franke was killed because he was investigating corruption in his department. No suspect was charged with the crime until Gable, 15 months after the killing.

Gable’s conviction was upheld by the Oregon Court of Appeals and the Oregon Supreme Court, but overturned by the two federal courts that considered it. Their decisions were based in large part on new evidence uncovered by Gable’s federal public defenders during an extensive investigation. Among other things, both Acosta and a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that investigators violated Gable’s rights by coercing testimony against him from a network of minor criminals in Salem. Most of them have since recanted their testimony.

“The facts on appeal are extraordinary,” U.S. Ninth Circuit Court Judge Jacqueline Nguyen wrote in a 30-page opinion upholding Acosta’s earlier ruling. “Since trial, nearly all the witnesses who directly implicated Gable have recanted. Many explain they intended to frame Gable after hearing he was a police informant. They attribute their false testimony to significant investigative misconduct, which the State — remarkably — does not dispute.

“As Gable’s expert explained, the investigators used widely discredited polygraph and interrogation techniques as a ‘psychological club’ to elicit the statements against Gable. The prosecution then built their entire case on that tainted foundation.”