Anna Franklin was shot once. Her boyfriend was murdered feet away from her. Now, four teenagers are charged with the crimes.
In the early morning of Dec. 4, Justin McKinney and Franklin were shot in their home in Morganton, Georgia. Not many facts have been released by investigators, but Franklin talked with 11Alive's Hope Ford about what happened.
Sitting in a dark room, next to a bag of medicine, Franklin asked the 11Alive team not to show her face while she healed.
Taking a haggard breath, she begin sharing what happened around 1 a.m., as she and McKinney headed to bed.
"They were banging on the door, so Justin let them in, and the only thing I heard them say was they had to jump out of somebody’s car and run," Franklin began.
"Who is they?" Ford asked.
"Blake and Hunter," Franklin replied.
Blake Dickey and Hunter Hill are two of the teens who would eventually be arrested for the murder of McKinney.
Franklin claimed the boys knocked on the door, saying they were running from someone.
McKinney, who knew the boys through their father, let them in. Franklin said they all sat in the living, next to the fire.
“No one raised their voice or had an argument or anything like that, it was just regular talking,” she said.
But suddenly, Franklin said, things changed.
“The first shot - I thought it came from something in the fire," Franklin recounted. "I glanced over and I didn’t see Justin where he was, and I heard another shot, and I knew what it was, and all I had time to do was cover my face. There were two more shots, and one of them hit me.”
A bullet hit Franklin above the elbow, travelling through the back of her arm and through her jaw, where it remains lodged.
McKinney, meanwhile, lay near the door. Franklin said the boys ran out and she locked the door and went to her partner of seven years.
“There was so much blood, and I tried to stop it, but it wouldn’t. It just kept pooling around, pooling around my feet," Franklin said, crying.
McKinney died before EMS arrived.
Dickey and Hill, both 15, were arrested the next day. Dalton Levi Manuel, 15 and Lakota Ricky Cloer, 16, were arrested two days later. Dickey, Hill and Manuel are charged with murder, Cloer is charged with party to the crime of murder.
Investigators haven’t released a motive, but rumors in the small town of 300 people swirled.
Franklin admits McKinney smoked weed, but didn’t sell to the teenagers.
“Justin would not give him, I don’t know what you would call it, marijuana? Justin would not give it to him," she said emphatically.
Now, Franklin is trying to figure out how to cope with her memories of McKinney, bouncing between the time he gave her a cross necklace and the time she held him, as he lay bloody on the floor.
"I feel lost without him," she said. "I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what to do.”
Franklin said doctors are afraid to remove the bullet from her face because it might cause more damage.
And in any case, she’s uninsured and doesn’t know how to get to a doctor for help.
In the meantime, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said more charges are pending against the four teenagers charged in this case.
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