Suspect left many threats, court told

Now this is what I can an investigation. They were just looking for evidence on this man and found it. Reginald Potts had his day in court today for the murder of Nailah Franklin. He was recently charged for it. From the Tribune...

The ex-boyfriend accused of killing Nailah Franklin left a voice-mail message threatening to have her "erased" shortly before her murder, prosecutors alleged Monday.

Prosecutors said that surveillance cameras in Franklin's building captured her and Reginald Potts Jr. together on the day of her murder, though Potts denied to police that he was with her that day.

Later that day, Potts' friends picked him up about a block from where Franklin's car was later recovered in Hammond, prosecutors said.

Potts, charged over the weekend in the murder of Franklin, a pharmaceutical representative, was ordered held without bail Monday by Circuit Judge Donald Panarese. He appeared in court with arms and legs shackled.

During the bond hearing, First Assistant State's Atty Bob Milan detailed how cell phone records "completely contradict" the alibi Potts gave police.

Prosecutors might seek the death penalty if Potts is convicted of Franklin's murder, Milan said, but that decision is months away.

Milan said that Franklin and Potts were in an on-and-off relationship for several months before her murder, believed to have occurred on Sept. 18. But by early September, the two were no longer on good terms, and Franklin sent an e-mail to several friends detailing Potts' criminal history, the prosecutor said. Potts found out about the e-mail and began making threatening phone calls to Franklin, Milan said. Two of Franklin's friends, both of whom knew Potts, heard a threatening voice-mail message he left for Franklin, the prosecutor said.

"On one message, he said how he could have her erased," Milan said in court.

In the days before her death, Franklin told her friends that she was afraid of Potts, Milan said.

Several residents in Franklin's building in the 1500 block of South Sangamon Street identified Potts as the person they saw lurking in Franklin's hallway and in the parking garage on the nights of Sept. 16 and Sept. 17, Milan said.