Eileen stated that she was overwhelmed after the November 1990 verdict. “I am extremely relieved that this is over. “I know I did the right things.”
She said she was not happy with the outcome. “It can’t be a true win for me because my dad’s still in prison.”
Margaret Nason, Susan’s mother, said, “It does lay it to rest, 21 years later.” She and her husband Don Nason still lived in the same Foster City home where they had once been raising Susan and her older sister.
San Mateo County deputy district attorney spoke out to explain why detectives never took a good look at George in 1969. Elaine Tipton, the lead prosecutor, said, “Twenty-one years ago, it was assumed that persons who molested children were strangers, outsiders and phantoms. They appeared, then they vanished.” At the time, she explained, authorities weren’t inclined to suspect a familiar face from the neighborhood.
She said, “I am certain that the verdict will stand.”
In January 1992, San Mateo Municipal Court Judge Thomas M. Smith gave George a life sentence with the possibility of parole, calling him a “depraved and wicked man.”
While she had sounded conflicted about her father’s ultimate fate, Eileen had written in a letter to the probation department, which provided the sentencing recommendation: “George Franklin should spend the last moments of his life imprisoned, which is far better than how Susan Nason spent hers.”