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The Case of Franky Carrillo
📻 Episode #556
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Jan 08, 2026
About This Episode
On January 18, 1991, six teenage boys were standing on a curb talking in front of a house in the Los Angeles, CA suburb of Lynwood. Donald Sarpy, the father of one of the boys, stepped onto the driveway to call his son inside when a car drove by and two shots were fired, killing…
Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.
The Case
On January 18, 1991, six teenage boys were standing on a curb talking in front of a house in the Los Angeles, CA suburb of Lynwood. Donald Sarpy, the father of one of the boys, stepped onto the driveway to call his son inside when a car drove by and two shots were fired, killing Sarpy.
16-year-old Francisco “Franky” Carrillo Jr. became a suspect in the case after he was mistakenly identified by the police as the shooter in separate case. On the night of the Sarpy shooting, the police showed one of the eyewitnesses a picture of Carrillo. That witness later identified Carrillo as the shooter and told the five other witnesses to identify Carrillo as the shooter. There was no physical evidence linking Carrillo to the crime. However, all the eyewitnesses identified Carrillo as the shooter and testified to the identification. Franky was convicted of murder, attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison.
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In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:05:11“Speaker 2: of people go in they think, well, why do I Speaker 2: need a lawyer. I'm just going to answer some questions, Speaker 2: and the justice system is going to work because I'm Speaker 2: an innocent person who abides by the law, and then Speaker 2: they'll see that they made a mistake and then they'll”
00:19:39“Speaker 2: are there for almost a guarantee of wrongful identification, a Speaker 2: mess identification, and that's exactly what happened. So you spent Speaker 2: much more than half your life behind bars. You're only Speaker 2: really a cognizant human, right maybe for ten years to Speaker 2: a round number, so more than twice that amount of time.”
00:34:01“Speaker 3: the advice was, for the first four years, just kind Speaker 3: of hang out, man, you know you're in prison, Just relax, Speaker 3: just play some cards and shit, and if you know Speaker 3: you want to play dominoes, go work out, right. But Speaker 3: the last year, man, like the last year, like, you know,”
Listen to the Episode
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← #555 Frank Gable #557 Dennis Maher →
Also on the podcast: #19 Franky Carrillo