Jerome C. FRANKLIN

February 12, 1952-April 10, 1972

“Tweetty”
Our Beloved Son

Photo/information-, courtesy of Edith Guynes Stanley

*Obituary
HEDLEY - Five persons were killed and one critically injured late Sunday night when a car pulled into a roadside park near here and collided with a parked tractor trailer truck. Two of those killed were identified as Borger men - 19-year-old Richard Earl Coffer of 1316 Patton Circle and 20-year-old Jerome Clyde Franklin of 1124 Brain.

The other three victims, a 14-year-old girl and two smaller girls aged 5 and 1, were not identified. The name of the injured woman was not known either.

The driver of the truck, asleep in his cab at the time of the accident, was not injured.

The accident occurred at a roadside park about three miles southeast of Hedley on U.S. 287 in Donley County at 11:45 p.m. Sunday.

Investigating Highway Patrolman Tex States of Memphis said Franklin was the driver of the car. He died at 3 a.m. today at the Hall County Hospital in Memphis. Coffer, a passenger in the car, was dead at the scene. The three unidentified girls also died at the scene.

The driver of the truck, Kenneth Dale Murphy of Moriarty, N.M., told Department of Public Safety officials he was sleeping in his truck in a roadside park when the car hit his truck.

Investigators said the victims' car, a late model Mustang, was wedged under the truck.

The injured woman, about age 20, was transferred to High Plains Baptist Hospital in Amarillo in critical condition. Doctors said she fractured both legs and her skull in the accident.

The dead were taken to Spicer Funeral Home in Memphis.

Sheriff Elmer Neil of Memphis said this morning that attempts were still being made to identify the three dead girls and injured woman. He said those in the car had been to Dallas and were returning to Borger at the time of the accident.

Both of the Borger men had attended Borger High School and Coffer graduated in 1970.

Franklin attended school there until 1970 when he entered the Job Corps program and worked for the City of Borger. He played basketball during his freshman and sophomore years. He was a native of Borger.

Coffer played on Borger's basketball team three years in high school and was granted a one-year scholarship to Southwestern Junior College in Oklahoma City, Okla. He was named to the all-district team his senior year in high school.

Funeral arrangements for both men are pending with Minton Mortuary of Borger.

Coffer had been working for Phillips Petroleum Co. He was a ember of the Bethel Baptist Church.

He is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. Coffer; three brothers, Ray, Don and Dwight, all of the home; and four sisters, Shirley, Lawanda, Barbara and Denise, also of the home.

Franklin is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. R.C. Franklin; two sisters, Lynn and Sheila; and one brother, Darrel.

(Published in Borger News Herald, April 10, 1972)
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Texas Birth Index, 1903-1997
Name: Jerome Carlisle Franklin
Date of Birth: 18 Feb 1952
Gender: Male
Birth County: Hutchinson
Father's name: R C Franklin
Mother's name: Florence Lucille Collier
Roll number: 1952_0005

Texas, Death Certificates, 1903–1982
Name: Jerome Caryle Franklin
Birth Date: 18 Feb 1952
Birth Place: Borger, Texas
Gender: Male
Race: Negro (Black)
Residence: Borger, Hutchinson, Texas
Father: R C Franklin
Mother: Florence Collier
Age at Death: 20
Death Date: 10 Apr 1972
Death Place: Memphis, Hall, Texas, USA

Contributed on 1/26/21 by neldapat
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Record #: 382658

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