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The fifth episode of Oxygen's Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2, titled Smoke and Mirrors, will be released on July 5, 2022 at 8 PM ET.
The upcoming Dateline: Unforgettable episode will feature correspondent Keith Morrison reflecting on the 2007 murder case that took over 8 years to reach justice.
Anger allegedly drove Reginald Potts to murder ex-girlfriend Nailah Franklin in cold blood. However, there wasn't any physical evidence connecting Potts to Franklin's murder. The jury found him guilty based on mounting circumstantial evidence, but Potts still maintains that he is innocent.
Dateline: Unforgettable will track the events of the case and showcase how Potts was finally caught.
Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2 Episode 5 will showcase the events leading to Nailah Franklin's murderer being sentenced
Nine days after Nailah Franklin went missing from her University Village condominium complex in September 2007, investigators found her body decomposed to bones. Her body was discovered in a desolated wooden area behind a vacant video store in Calumet City. Medical examiners eventually ruled that the cause of her death was asphyxiation.
Franklin was a 28-year-old pharmaceutical sales rep for Eli Lilly, hailing from Chicago, Illinois. Until early September 2007, she was casually dating Reginald Potts, a 32-year-old businessman at the time. The two parted ways due to Potts' lengthy criminal history and s*xual relationships with other women while he was dating Franklin.
After their break-up, Potts began stalking Franklin, in addition to threatening her via calls and messages. She planned to seek a restraining order against him and tried her best to fight back but he terrified her. She even told a friend just days before her disappearance that if she ever went missing or something terrible happened to her, Potts would be to blame.
Franklin even gave her best friend her passwords just in case something happened. Prosecutors eventually chalked out Potts' motive to be Nailah's decision to break up with him and reveal his criminal past to her friends.
Dateline: Unforgettable: Mounting evidence against Reginald Potts in Nailah Franklin murder case
Reginald Potts was prone to angry outbursts and had a history of criminal behavior, including domestic violence. He has had over 200 violations while being incarcerated.
According to CBS News, Nailah's co-worker Tiffani Miley testified that just days before Franklin disappeared, she had her listen to a threatening message from Potts that said that he'd "erase her a**" and make her "disappear."
Investigator Richard Lombard also testified to Potts' pattern of violence against women by citing one of Potts' former girlfriends who claimed that he had choked her during their stay at a New York hotel.
Cook County Jail Chief Tarry Williams testified to Potts' numerous violations while in custody, including setting fire to his cell and sabotaging plumbing. According to Chief Williams, Potts was among the top ten worst inmates he'd seen in his career.
The prosecution tried to paint Potts as a habitual con man with a propensity towards violence. Additionally, circumstantial evidence such as surveillance tapes showing Potts in Franklin's building on the day of her disappearance and cell tower signals showing their phones around the same place that day implicated Potts in the murder. Potts' brother-in-law owned the store behind which Nailah's body was found.
Nearly 30 witnesses testified against Potts in the trial, which had been delayed many times due to Potts insisting on defending himself until the judge appointed a public defender to him.
In 2015, a jury found Potts guilty of Franklin's murder. In 2016, Judge Thomas Gainer sentenced him to life in prison without parole, after calling him a "cold, conniving coward who must be punished." More than eight years after her disappearance, Franklin's family found closure as the verdict was read.
Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2 Episode 5 will air on Oxygen on Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 8 PM ET.
