For six weeks Sonia Barber had shown no emotion even as jurors said they could sentence her son to death, even as prosecutors portrayed Tracen Franklin as a murderer.
She was stoic even when her 20-year-old son was found guilty of murdering Bobby Tillman by kicking and punching him along with several others in one of the most shocking and talked about murders in recent memory.
But after the second showing of the police interview with her son, the 38-year-old mother buried her face in a dark blue jacket that belongs to Franklin and sobbed as everyone else filed out of the Douglas County courtroom during jury deliberations Thursday.
“I can smell his smell,” said Barber, who spoke exclusively to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in her first public comments outside a courtroom. “Anything to feel close. Anything to feel normal.”
The six-week trial has been emotionally wrenching for the women at its center — the mothers of Franklin and Tillman.
Barber’s emotions have swung from remorse to grief to joy. On Friday she was thrilled to learn her son will not be executed. Barber’s hope now is that some day Franklin will be free.
The jury that quickly convicted Franklin on Sept. 12 deliberated for more than two days last week and could not agree on a punishment — death, life without parole or life with a possibility of parole after 30 years.
Judge William McClain has scheduled a sentencing hearing for Friday. He will decide Franklin’s punishment, but he only has two choices — life with parole or life without.
There was never any doubt about Franklin’s role in the slaying, but there was considerable shock that the aspiring sportscaster and college student was involved.
Tillman was killed as a Nov. 6, 2010, party hosted by the parents of two teenage girls was ending. The unprovoked attack on the 18-year-old was so violent and so stunning in its randomness, it drew national attention.
Tillman’s mother, Monique Rivarde, is withholding further public comment until after Franklin’s sentencing. But Rivarde has said in the past that she supports a death sentence for Franklin, and she has used the noteriety of the case to speak out against teen violence and bullying.
Barber has stayed to the side, afraid to speak for fear she could hurt her son’s legal case.
Now that she feels free to speak, she states painful truths and asks plaintive questions. “There are no winners,” Barber said. “But I’m still Tracen’s mother. Do I disown him? How do you take back your love?”
Franklin was born in a juvenile detention center where his then 17-year-old mother was serving time for an aggravated assault. Franklin was 13 when his mother moved him and his two sisters from West Palm Beach, Fla.
Like Barber, Rivarde was a teenager when her first child, a son, was born.
As single mothers, both women moved their children from other states to Douglas County in hopes of finding a safer community.
Franklin went to Douglas County High School, where he was a standout cornerback despite his 5-foot-6 slight build. Tillman, also 5-foot-6, went to the rival Chapel Hill High School.
Both were in college: Franklin at Alabama State University, where he was studying to be a sportscaster, and Tillman at Georgia Perimeter College, planning to be a sports agent.
But the young men ran in different social circles that centered on their respective high schools. Their only encounter was the fight after the party.
Barber said her son was home for the weekend because she had had surgery just a few days earlier.
Franklin’s buddy Emanuel Boykins called him about going to the party around 10 p.m., Franklin said in his police interview.
“He had come home to be with me,” Barber said. “I didn’t want him to leave, but I gave him permission.”
The parents hosting the party had shut down the celebration when it became too big. Teenagers were spilling out onto the lawn when two girls got into a fight over a boy. Then other girls started to brawl.
Franklin said in his police interview, played twice in court, that he tried to stop some of the fighting, as did Boykins.
It was Boykins who started the attack on Tillman after one of the fighting girls hit Boykins. The attack on Tillman was random and quick, with a group kicking and punching him for about 30 seconds, causing a tear in Tillman’s heart, according to testimony.
Four were charged with murder. Only Franklin faced the possibility of a death sentence.
Boykins pleaded guilty in April to avoid the death penalty and is serving life with the possibility of parole in 30 years. Quantez Devonta Mallory, then 18, and Horace Damon Coleman, 19 at the time, have not yet gone to trial.
The next morning, after the attack, Barber said she still knew nothing about the trouble at the party, even as her sullen son picked at the fish and grits breakfast his aunt had cooked.
She was tipped off to the fight — and her son’s involvement — by questions on Facebook. She drove him to the sheriff’s office so he could tell the authorities what he knew.
All the while, Franklin told his mother he was not involved.
An hour passed before an investigator called Franklin to the interrogation room.
But first Barber pulled him aside.
“I talked to Tracen and I prayed with Tracen and I kissed him,” she said.
They read Psalms 23 and she told him to tell deputies what he knew so he could put this behind him and go back to school.
At that point he was not a suspect, Barber said.
Two hours later the investigator told Barber and her sister that Franklin was ready to tell them the truth — and that he would be charged with murder.
Barber, three days after surgery, said she collapsed.
Her next encounter with her son was recorded by the camera that had also captured Franklin’s confession to participating in the beating he initially denied doing.
“Tracen, you didn’t do that? You didn’t beat that boy?” she said. “You’re going to be charged with murder. What happened, Tracen?”
Even if she had known what the outcome of the trip to the sheriff’s office would be, Barber said, she would still have taken him. But she would also have taken a lawyer.
“I didn’t raise my son to be in prison,” Barber said. “Look at his life before this incident. … If anybody could take it back, he would. I would.”
About the Author
