WBNG reports that when asked his plea by the judge, Ernest Franklin said “guilty,” but his public defender quickly corrected him, and changed the plea. Both Ernest and Heather pleaded “not guilty” and were sent to the Chenango County Jail without bail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/parents...y-killing-son-setting-fire-to-cover-up-crime/
His parents wed in 2011 and adopted him six or seven years ago, the sheriff’s office said. Heather, according to her Facebook page, is pregnant.
[...]
“People are wondering how anybody could do something so brutal to a developmentally disabled and handicapped 16-year-old boy,” Cutting tells PEOPLE.
“There are a lot of people who would have taken him. There are organizations that would have taken care of him. Why resort to that?” he says.
“It’s just a terrible, terrible tragedy.”
http://people.com/crime/parents-murder-disabled-teen-son-set-fire-house/
Jeffrey Franklin, a 16-year-old adopted child with special needs, did not perish in an early-morning blaze that appeared to have started in the wood stove that heated the house in the town of Guilford, about an hour and half southeast of Syracuse, investigators said.
“Early on, almost immediately at the scene that night, some red flags went up,” Chenango County Sheriff Ernest Cutting Jr. said Saturday. “We chose to kind of keep it close to the vest.”
http://ktla.com/2017/03/25/upstate-...opted-special-needs-son-setting-fire-to-home/
"It's shocking," Cutting said. "Jeffrey was a handicapped person who was totally reliant on his parents. You would hope in your mind that they would be there for the right reasons and try to take care of this boy. Unfortunately, his life ended brutally."
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/us/new-york-disabled-son-death/