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The upcoming episode of Oxygen's Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2 will delve into the brutal murder of Chicago native Nailah Franklin. Tune in to the true-crime docuseries on Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 8 PM ET to watch correspondent Keith Morrison reflect on the case.
It took Nailah Franklin's 2007 murder case nearly eight years to be brought to justice. Her murderer was eventually sentenced to life in prison based on circumstantial evidence alone. Dateline: Unforgettable will reveal all the ins and outs of this horrific case.
Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2 Episode 5: Who is the man behind Nailah Franklin's death?
Nailah Franklin broke up with boyfriend Reginald Potts in September 2007 due to his criminal history and promiscuous nature. He slept with other women while dating her and also fathered a daughter with one of them. Their breakup was in no way amicable, Potts stalked and threatened Franklin in the months after.
Potts was furious about the fact that Franklin had told her friends about his criminal past. Days prior to her disappearance, Franklin had told a friend that if she went missing or something terrible happened to her, it'd be Potts' doing.
The homicide investigation conducted in Franklin's case led the officers to reasonably suspect Potts. The jury found him guilty based on circumstantial evidence alone and he was sentenced. However, he maintained that he was innocent and a victim of the media's untrue narrative.
More about Nailah Franklin's murder at the hands of Reginald Potts
In September 2007, 28-year-old Nailah Franklin, a pharmaceutical sales rep from Chicago, went missing. After nine days of extensive search, her badly decomposed body was found behind a vacant video store in Calumet City. The skeletonized remains made it difficult to determine the cause of death, but eventually medical examiners ruled it as asphyxiation.
Surveillance tapes from the day of her disappearance placed Potts in her building. Official records also revealed that cell tower signals showed their phones in the same vicinity on that day. The vacant store behind which Nailah's body was found also belonged to Potts' brother-in-law.
Potts was prone to angry outbursts and had a history of domestic violence, at least against two women. Investigator Richard Lombard detailed Potts' pattern of violence against women during the trial. One of Potts' former girlfriends' revealed that he "choked her, choked her out, and threw her on the bed" during their stay in a hotel.
One of Franklin's co-workers also testified that days before she went missing, Franklin made her listen to a threatening message sent by Potts. In the message, he told her he'd "erase her a**" and make her "disappear."
Where is Reginald Potts now?
In the upcoming episode of Oxygen's true-crime docuseries Dateline: Unforgettable, Keith Morrison will reflect on the 2007 murder case of Chicago woman Nailah Franklin.
The investigators never found any physical evidence linking Reginald Potts to the murder of Nailah Franklin. However, during the trial, the prosecution presented a mountain of circumstantial evidence against Potts, with nearly 30 witnesses testifying against him.
The trial was delayed many times due to Potts insisting on defending himself until the judge appointed a public defender to him. In 2016, Judge Thomas Gainer sentenced Potts to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Potts remains incarcerated despite his claims of innocence.
Eight years after Nailah Franklin's death, her family finally found some closure, though her father didn't live to see it.
Watch Dateline: Unforgettable on July 5, 2022, for further clarity on the case.
