Parents of Vancouver teen who died from starvation arrested in California

By Jaimie Ding | The Oregonian/OregonLive

A Vancouver couple whose 15-year-old son died of starvation last November was arrested Friday in California, police say.

Jesse Franks, 56, and Felicia Adams-Franks, 52, were arrested June 4 in Stockton on suspicion of second-degree murder and homicide by abuse in the death of Karreon Franks. Their extradition to Clark County is pending.

Adams-Franks brought her son to the emergency room at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver on Nov. 27, according to court records. He was pronounced dead 14 minutes later, and his cause of death was initially listed as pneumonia, the records show.

Police learned of the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death a few days later when his body was taken to a funeral home whose staff reported “concerns with his appearance,” according to court records.

The Clark County medical examiner determined April 12 that the teen died of starvation and neglect.

Adams-Franks adopted Karreon Franks and his two younger brothers from their mother, Adams-Franks’ sister, in 2012.

Court records allege years of physical abuse and restriction of food from the three kids. A state worker visited the home a week before Karreon Franks’ death, after Washington child welfare authorities received a report from the teen’s aunt who alleged that her sister was withholding food from her children and that the teen was a “walking skeleton,” according to court records.

Court records also show that Franks and Adams-Franks spent hundreds of hours gambling at Ilani Casino Resort over the past four years and that they went to the casino hours after their son died. The two had a combined lifetime loss of more than $280,000, according to Cowlitz Tribal Law Enforcement records that were turned over to Vancouver police.

-- Jaimie Ding

jding@oregonian.com; 503-221-4395; @j_dingdingding