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Oxygen's true-crime docuseries Dateline: Unforgettable premiered its second season on June 7, 2022. The fifth episode of the season, titled Smoke and Mirrors, will be released on Tuesday, July 5, at 8 PM ET. The episode will examine the brutal murder of Nailah Franklin, a Chicago woman who fell victim to her violent ex-boyfriend.
Dateline: Unforgettable features Dateline correspondents who dive deeper into real-life murders and the impact they have on victims' families and communities. While meticulously exploring the numerous facets of the case, the show presents a mix of cold-hard facts and raw emotions.
The official synopsis for the upcoming episode of Dateline: Unforgettable reads:
"Keith Morrison reflects on the case of a Chicago woman from a big family who went missing. Investigators began to suspect a man in her life was full of secrets."
Nailah Franklin's brutal murder will be the focus of Dateline: Unforgettable Season 2 Episode 5
28-year-old Nailah Franklin was a native of Chicago, Illinois. She belonged to a large family but held on to her individuality which eventually helped shape her career, allowing her to build a stable life in the city.
Although she graduated with a degree in advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana, she ended up becoming a pharmaceutical sales rep for Eli Lilly. On September 18, 2007, she was last seen alive at her University Village condo. She was reported missing a day later.
Three days after she was reported missing, authorities located her black Chevrolet Impala in Hammond, Indiana. However, the car had been cleaned thoroughly to remove any DNA, fiber, or fingerprint evidence. Her jewelry and samples of prescription drugs were also discovered in the parking lot of a Calumet City restaurant.
For nine days, Nailah's whereabouts remained up in the air. Extensive search finally led the authorities to find her naked and skeletonized body in a desolate wooded area behind a vacant video store in Calumet City. The body was so badly decomposed that it took medical examiners a while to confirm that the cause of her death was asphyxiation.
Who killed Nailah Franklin?
Further investigation into the homicide led the officers to zero in on Nailah's ex-boyfriend Reginald Potts as the killer. The two had broken up in September 2007 due to Potts' criminal past and promiscuous nature. He had been threatening and stalking her since then.
Perhaps the most incriminating evidence behind convicting Potts was that the video store behind which Nailah's body was found belonged to Potts' brother-in-law.
Strangely enough, Potts had impersonated Nailah for days, texting her family and friends using her phone to convince them that she was alive.
Despite there being no physical evidence linking Potts to Franklin's murder, the mounting circumstantial evidence against him was enough to convince the jury to find him guilty. During the trial, nearly 30 witnesses testified against him.
Prosecutors painted Potts as someone prone to angry outbursts and violent criminal behavior. Not only did he commit acts of domestic violence but he also issued death threats. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole by Judge Thomas Gainer, who called him a "cold, calculating, conniving coward of a con man."
Dateline: Unforgettable Season 5 Episode 2 will be released on Oxygen on Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 8 PM ET.
