Belated Justice For A Childhood Friend's Murder -- Woman Fingers Her Father As Playmate's Killer

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Eileen Franklin-Lipsker was sitting in the family room of her Canoga Park home in January 1989 when she met her young daughter's eyes and saw instead Susan Nason, her best friend from childhood, who had been dead for 20 years.

In that brief moment, she also saw the man she said murdered Nason: her own father.

For the first time since those memories returned, Franklin-Lipsker told the story in public yesterday at a preliminary hearing to decide whether her father, George Franklin Sr., will stand trial for Susan's slaying.

With the exception of the click of camera shutters, the San Mateo County Municipal courtroom was tense and still for Franklin-Lipsker's recollection of her friend's death.

She said Susan, who was five days away from her ninth birthday, lived around the corner and was her best friend.

Susan disappeared while on her way to return a pair of shoes to another friend on the afternoon of Sept. 22, 1969. Her body was found six weeks later under a set of bedsprings near a Crystal Springs lake off Highway 92. The right side of her skull had been crushed by at least two blows from a rock, a pathologist testified last week.

Franklin-Lipsker remembered being in her father's Volkswagen van late that afternoon and seeing Susan walking down the street.

``I was excited about seeing her and asked my dad if she could get in the car with us,'' Franklin-Lipsker said.

Her father agreed, and the two girls went to the back of the van to bounce around on a platform mattress there, Franklin-Lipsker testified. The next thing she recalled was looking out the window and seeing the Crystal Springs reservoirs. Soon, her father pulled the van over, got into the back and began to play with the girls, Franklin-Lipsker said.

She went up to the front seat and turned around to see her father on top of Susan, holding her hands over her head.

``His pelvis was up against her pelvis. She was struggling. I think she said, `Stop' and `Don't' and `No, don't' . . . He said, `Now, Susie.' . . . I walked back between the seats. I could see she didn't like it. I put my head down on the floor. I was frightened,'' Franklin-Lipsker said.

She said she next recalled being outside the van and looking down to see her friend sitting on a little hill. Her father was standing nearby. Susan was crying, Franklin-Lipsker said.

``I saw the silhouette of my father with the sun behind him. I saw my father with his hands up above his head, with a rock in them. I think I screamed. She met my eyes.

``She turned her head and put her hands by her face. I turned away or closed my eyes. I heard a second blow.''

Franklin-Lipsker said she began to scream and went to look at her friend. Her right hand had blood on it and a ring Susan wore was smashed, Franklin-Lipsker testified.

She started to run back toward the van and remembers falling on her face. Her father grabbed her from behind and put her on his knee.

``He said, `It's over now. You have to forget about this.' He said I was a part of all this because it was my idea to have Susan in the van.

``He said if I told anyone, no one would ever believe me. If I told anyone, they would put me away. If I did tell anyone, he would have to kill me,'' Franklin-Lipsker said.

``I believed him.''

When they got home, she went straight to her room. ``I was shaking. I remember not being able to stop it and being very, very afraid.''

Franklin's defense attorneys tried to discredit the testimony by questioning Franklin-Lipsker closely about whether she had ever been hypnotized to recall the alleged murder. She denied she had.