Missing Nailah Franklin's Car Found In Hammond

Nailah Franklin is missing

Update: 10-30-07: Reginald Potts speaks out in Nailah Franklin Case

Update, 9-28-07: Sad news -- Police confirm the body found in Calumet City is Nailah Franklin.

Update: Nailah Franklin's family has set up a website: bringnailahfranklinhome.com. Also, a $10,000 reward is being offered.

Missing Eli Lilly pharmaceutical representative Nailah Franklin's car was found near an abandoned building in Hammond, Indiana at the intersection of Kenwood Street and Blaine Avenue, reports the Northwest Indiana Times.

Nailah Franklin's car was found Friday evening and police have been searching nearby areas since then.

The 28-year-old Nailah Franklin was reported missing after she failed to show up for a meeting with her bosses at Eli Lilly, reports Fox News.


Nailah Franklin

" When Franklin didn't turn up for an important meeting Wednesday morning with her boss at Eli Lilly and Co., where she's a pharmaceutical sales representative, co-workers called family, and family called police. Eli Lilly is based in Indianapolis. Franklin's sales territory covered Chicago's suburbs, her sister said. "

Police searched the River Oaks Golf Course in Calumet City, Illinois this morning after finding Nailah Franklin's car in Hammond because it was within a search perimeter set up by police.

Nailah Franklin
(click to enlarge flyer)

Several local police departments are involved in the search, including the Hammond Police, Chicago Police, and the Cook County Sheriff's Department. (Link to the Chicago Police's missing person report for Nailah Franklin).

Fox News reports that Nailah Franklin had contacted the police about threatening phone calls before she disappeared.

Reports ABC 7 Chicago:

Franklin, missing since Tuesday, lives in the University Village neighborhood, in the 1500 block of S. Sangamon. She had reported threats to police before she disappeared.

The family has set up a command center at a gymnasium at 700 W. Maxwell, as a headquarters for flyer distribution. Police held a press conference Friday afternoon to update the media on new information.

CrimeBlog.us has been covering Nailah Franklin's story:

Dana McClellan, a good friend of Nailah’s, also spoke to the ABC affiliate — “It defies explanation. That sounds dramatic, but she’s not the type of person who just leaves.”

McClellan heard at least one of the threats left for her friend. CBS 2 in Chicago reported her statement about that chilling message: “Basically [the message said] ‘I could do harm to you. You haven’t seen that side, of me but I do have a bad side and I could do harm to you’.”

Lehia Adcox also spoke to CBS 2. She said, “This is someone who just had everything to live for; she was at the top of her game professionally; she bought two condos on her own as a single woman; she dotes on her niece, my daughter; she’s just a person who is very connected with the people she cares about [. . .] This is so out of character.”

Nailah Franklin missing person Hammond Calumet City Chicago

Thousands Protest Jena 6 In Chicago's Daley Plaza, NW Indiana Residents Bus To Jena For Protest

Thousands of protesters gathered in Chicago's Daley Plaza last night to show support for the " Jena 6 " -- six teens who some say were overcharged when they beat a classmate who had taunted them with racial slurs after African-American students had gathered under a tree usually frequented by Caucasian students.

Chicago area residents also boarded buses to join a nationwide protest to be held in Jena, Louisiana. Some Northwest Indiana residents also traveled to Jena, Louisiana.

Friends of Northwest Indiana & the Chicagoland -- We have organized a bus to Jena, LA. We will leave Sept. 19th @ 11 a.m. from the old K-Mart parking lot, Indpls. Blvd., Hammond, IN. We will then pick up passengers from the Chicagoland Area. ... We will attend the rally on the 20th.

Reports CNN about the Jena 6 case:

Many said they are angry the six black students, dubbed the "Jena 6," are being treated more harshly than the white students who hung the nooses. The white students were suspended from school but did not face criminal charges. The protesters argue they should have been charged with a hate crime. The black students face charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy in the schoolyard beating.

Trey Ellis explains the significance of the Jena 6 case:

The Jena 6 case began last fall when a new black student to the mostly white, rural Louisiana town of Jena sat under the "white tree," so called because it was the place where the white kids at school congregated.

The next day three white boys on the rodeo team hung three nooses from the tree.

The white boys were only given an in-school suspension, their act deemed no more than a "prank."

The day after that several of the school's black high school football stars organized a peaceful silent protest under the tree. The school freaked, called in the police and the next day Reed Walters, the local D.A., addressed the school. There, he is reported to have looked at the black kids in the audience, waved his pen in the air and said, "With a stroke of this pen, I can make your life disappear."

As thousands from around the country travel to Jena, Louisiana, the Associated Press reports in this video that tensions are running high in that town.

Jena 6 civil rights protest Louisiana Chicago

Illinois Senate Approves Chicago Casino Along With 2 Others.

The Illinois Senate approved three new casinos, including a Chicago casino that would compete with those in Northwest Indiana, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Despite passing the Illinois Senate 37-15, the casino expansion plan backed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has to survive the Illinois House which is controlled by speaker Michael Madigan who has been fighting with Blago all summer and who worked to defeat similar legislation this June.

"I don't know if this gets much farther," said Madigan spokesman Steve Brown. "The darnedest thing . . . is it doesn't deal with the RTA/ CTA problem in any way."

It is time to start working on legislation that would allow land-based casinos in Lake County, Indiana to compete with any new establishments that will eventually open in Chicago.

Illinois Senate gaming Illinois House Gov. Rod Blagojevich House Speaker Michael Madigan Chicago

Chicagoans Skip Indiana Vacations

A view of Lake Michigan
from Beverly Shores, Indiana

Chicagoans would rather visit Wisconsin or Michigan than they would Indiana, reports Ben Goldberger of the Chicago Sun-Times.

A vacation in the Hoosier state? Not likely if you're a Chicagoan. Indiana does not even crack the top five as a vacation destination for Chicagoans, according to market research data collected by the Scarborough Research Corporation. Wisconsin is Chicagoans' top place in the U.S. to vacation, with Michigan -- which most Chicagoans must drive through Indiana to get to -- a close second.

Curt Brantingham, an Indiana tourism officials says, "Everyone kind of has their own things that they like to do, but Indiana is very diverse. It may not have quite the reputation as some of the other states, but we try to work on that."

Taking Down Words comments (hat tip to TDW for having a reader who spotted the Sun-Times article):

Wow, Curt, what a ringing endorsement of the state you're paid to promote. Maybe you could fashion that into your very own uplifting tagline: "Working Hard Not To Suck As Much As People Think We Do."

It seems that people from Chicago want to see the natural beauty of Michigan or Wisconsin. I suspect if Lake County's lake front was developed a la the Marquette Plan proposed by Rep. Pete Visclosky, we'd see more interest in visitors from Illinois spending some time in the state. See also GLC's PDF for more information about the Marquette Plan.

Indiana tourism Chicago

Video Fun: Exotic Car Spotting In Chicago

Exotic Car Spotting Chicago - Awesome video clips here

exotic cars Lamborghini Chicago Gallardo Aston Martin DB9 Rolls Royce Phantom Porsche Boxster Porsche Carerra Chicago

A Bridge Over Deadly Waters?

A Bridge Over Deadly Waters?

A bridge that thousands of Chicagoans and Northwest Indiana residents drive over daily has received a bridge structural rating of 2 percent!

The Associated Press reports that the I-290 / Congress Parkway bridge over the Chicago River rated the extremely low score of 2 out of 100.

The south bridge of Interstate 290 over the Chicago River, which carries 139,000 vehicles a day and has a sufficiency rating of 2. A sufficiency rating summarizes detailed inspection data for a bridge's deck, superstructure and substructure.

Pretty scary stuff considering that the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis had a rating of 50 percent.

Congress Parkway: I-290: deficient bridge bridge ratings 2 percent I-35W Bridge Minneapolis Chicago commuters video

Gotham City Hospital Blows Up!

Gotham City Police vehicles spotted earlier this summer in Chicago.

I wish I could have been at the Batman The Dark Knight film set in Chicago's Lawndale neighborhood when they blew up "Gotham General Hospital."



Here's a link to another video of the explosion filmed at the abandoned Brach's candy factory for Gotham City Hospital scene in Batman The Dark Knight.


Batman The Dark Knight explosion Gotham City Hospital Chicago Batman TDK Batman TDK

Video -- Borman Expressway Flood

Video: Borman Expressway flood blocks eastbound lanes at Kennedy Avenue in Northwest Indiana. Crowds gather on Kennedy Avenue to watch INDOT flood clean up effort.



Borman Expressway Flood interstate I-80 I-94 Kennedy Avenue Chicago Northwest Indiana

On The Day Illinois Leaders Save The Lake ...

The Indiana Dunes
and Lake Michigan

On the same day I received an email from Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel reporting that BP backed down from plans to dump additional ammonia and other solids into Lake Michigan --

We must continue to fight to not just protect the Lakes, but also to improve their environmental health. While we keep working with our colleagues in Washington to restore the Great Lakes we need you to continue to join us in our fight.

Today we saw that real change is possible, and the agent of change was you. Thank you for your dedication to making sure that our Lakes are protected for future generations.

-- comes a report from Frugal Hoosiers that the city of Chicago dumped a bunch of raw sewage into the lake.

If you were one of those people who thought it was more than a little hypocritical for all those Chicago politicians (Rahm, Kirk, Durbin, Daley, et al) to be criticizing the BP permit while Illinois companies had been and continue to dump far more waste into Lake Michigan, you are not alone. So from now on, we’ll be sure to keep you up to date with stories like this.

“Thursday's deluge forced the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to open locks on the North Shore Channel in Wilmette, allowing millions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage to flow into Lake Michigan.

We need to make sure that our dedication to keeping Lake Michigan doesn't end when the issues aren't as sexy as those surrounding the BP America debate and that our resolve to protect Lake Michigan remains true even when it involves mundane issues such as cities dumping raw sewage into our water supply.

Lake+Michigan Chicago Pollution Sen.+Dick+Durbin Rep.+Rahm+Emanuel

There's Something Spooky About The Picasso

The Picasso sculpture in Chicago's
Daley Plaza watches visitors.

Four Winds Should Blow Changes Into NW Indiana Casinos

The newly opened
Four Winds Casino
in New Buffalo, MI

I've been to the Four Winds Casino two times since the Pokagon Band opened the huge land-based facility earlier this month. The casino's billboards say it is the size of the second largest casino in Las Vegas. I've enjoyed both of my visits to the beautiful building just across the state line in Michigan and have come out ahead.

One thing is for certain -- the Four Winds casino is larger than any of the boat-based casinos in Indiana.

This has gotten me thinking. Indiana needs to move away from limiting casino licenses in Northwest Indiana to those located on vessels that will likely never sail. Indiana's casinos need to have the ability to compete with the lovely Four Winds Casino and any possible Chicago casino that might or might not be approved one of these years (maybe on Northerly Island f/k/a Meigs Field). After all, the casino in French Lick is land based.

And, we can't forget that there might (or might not) be a land-based casino in the works for Gary, Indiana in Glen Park near Indiana University, Northwest.

Riverboat gaming is fun, but requiring casinos to cram everything into boats or barges is silly considering the fact that land-based casinos offer better services to their customers. It's just nicer to have wide open spaces and only a single level to navigate. We need to allow the Horseshoe, Resorts, Majestic Star I & II, and Blue Chip go land-based when they decide it is time to upgrade their facilities.