In a case of shocking and senseless brutality, a man was sentenced to 30 years in prison for beating his housemate to death with a sledgehammer following a row over a roll of toilet paper.
A Fatal Act of Betrayal
Franklin Paul Crow, a man with prior convictions, turned on the man who had offered him a home, 58-year-old Kenneth Matthews. The horrific attack occurred in February 2006 at their shared home in Moss Bluff, Florida.
Kenneth, a kind-hearted auto parts delivery driver and Vietnam War veteran, had met Crow at a biker bar and generously offered him a place to live. He had even included Crow in family Christmas celebrations. This generosity was repaid with unimaginable violence.
The Brutal Attack and Arrest
During the fatal confrontation, Crow struck Kenneth eight times with the handle of a sledgehammer and twice with the claw end of a hammer. The assault was so vicious that Kenneth's body had to be identified using fingerprints.
He suffered catastrophic injuries, including a skull fracture and broken fingers. His landlord discovered his body, and Crow was arrested two days after the murder.
Initially, Crow denied the killing. He claimed the argument over toilet paper had escalated when Kenneth produced a rifle. However, he eventually accepted a plea deal, pleading guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for a 30-year prison sentence.
A Family's Grief and a Killer's Remorse
Kenneth's devastated sister, Midge Pennington, attended the sentencing and had hoped Crow would receive the death penalty. In a heart-wrenching letter read to the court by Assistant State Attorney Jeremy Powers, she demanded to know why Crow had beaten her brother so terribly.
"My main question, of course, is why? Why did you kill my brother?" her letter asked. "Why, why, why did you have to beat him so badly? Are you some kind of sadistic b****** that gets a thrill out of hurting other people?"
Following the sentencing, Midge stated that while it was not the justice the family wanted, it was the best outcome they could get. She remarked that her brother would have "given the shirt off his back" to help anyone.
From his cell in April 2008, the then 59-year-old Crow wrote a three-page handwritten letter to the judge. In it, he lamented his fate, writing, "I have accepted the fact I'll never see my people again, or go fishing, or ride my motorcycle anymore." Describing himself as a "full-blooded Lakota Indian" and a warrior, he conceded, "It is hard for me to stand down but if I am in the wrong which I know I am, I am ready to except [sic] and deal with the circumstances."
The case remains a stark reminder of how a moment of petty rage can escalate into irreversible tragedy, leaving a family shattered and a killer facing decades behind bars.
