A Beautiful Child's Horror

I've long liked reading true crime books, with Ann Rule being my favorite true crime writer. But, sometimes it is way too disturbing reading these type books.

With Ann Rule's books part of what made them interesting to me is so many of her books are about murders about which I am familiar due to living in the northwest where many of the crimes Ann Rule details take place.

Ironically, parts of the story in the latest true crime book I've read took place here in Texas and Oklahoma, at locations with which I am familiar. The book I'm referring to is titled "A Beautiful Child" by Matt Birkbeck.

It tells the disturbing story of the girl you see in the photo. In the late '80s, that girl, who went by many names, but who for most of her life was known as "Sharon Marshall" was a bright and beautiful high-school senior in Florida. Top of her class and the leader of her ROTC unit who scored well on the SATs, earning a full scholarship to Georgia Tech.

A few years later, she would be dead and the details of her life would gradually come to light, to the shock of the people investigating her death.

In the early '70s, "Sharon" had been kidnapped at the age of 4 or 5 by a psychopath named Franklin Delano Floyd. Floyd raised her as his daughter. But, as the police and FBI investigating her death would come to find out, he was molesting her for her entire life.

A few years after Sharon graduated high school, Floyd took her to Louisiana and married her.

Soon afterward, Sharon gave birth to a son, Michael. Later, DNA testing would prove Floyd was not the father.

In 1990, Sharon was killed by a hit-and-run driver (most suspect Floyd). Sharon did not die from her injuries and was coming out of her coma when she received a late night hospital visit from Floyd. She was dead the next morning.

Later, Floyd kidnapped Michael from his school, and killed him a few days later. Following the kidnapping, photos were discovered in a vehicle Floyd had stolen in Dallas which revealed the true horror that had been Sharon’s life. Photos of Sharon being sexually abused and molested from the age of 4 or 5 til her early teens.

Floyd is now on death row in Florida for the murder of an exotic dancer in the mid '90s, a conviction made possible due to other photos discovered at the same time as Sharon’s molestation photos.

Floyd had been convicted of and imprisoned for the rape of a 4 year old girl in the early 60s. He was let out of prison a few years later. To me that is as great a crime as any other part of the story. Child molestation should get the death penalty in my Draconian world view.

"Sharon's" true identity is still unknown. Somewhere in America there may be a mom and dad still wondering what happened to their little girl. They would not be wondering and "Sharon" would still be alive, if Floyd had never been allowed back out of prison. Appalling. And it happens way too often.