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in: Florida, 1988, Burglary,
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Arthur Frankford

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Art Frankford1

Arthur Frankford

Real Name: Arthur Fielding Frankford (at time of broadcast)
Aliases: James Wallace Ferguson, Andrew E. Kearns
Wanted For: Theft, Fraud, Burglary, Forgery
Missing Since: July 29, 1988

Case[]

Details: On July 29, 1988, a brazen daylight robbery took place in a suburb of Palm Beach, Florida. The thief had a key to the house. He was highly selective and seemed to know just what he wanted. Not one fingerprint was left behind. It was a quintessential inside job. At the door, the thief paused long enough to leave a note for his victim. He signed it "L."
The active social life in the warm, healthy climate of Florida makes it a welcome new home for retiring senior citizens. Many of them are widows and divorcees who often hope to remarry, and, in fact, love does bloom frequently in the warm Florida sunshine. But sometimes these widows and divorcees become easy marks for a particularly sleazy type of con man – a con man who moves in on their emotions and makes off with their cash.
On May 20, 1988, a sixty-one-year-old widow named “Mrs. K” went to a Friday night singles dance at St. Mary’s Church in West Palm Beach. Eligible men were not plentiful at these dances, so when a good-looking man named Arthur Frankford approached her and asked her to dance, she was flattered. When she first saw him sitting up against the wall, she thought he was too old. After he asked her to dance, she realized he was not as old as she had thought. The two danced every dance that evening at the church. It was the beginning of a two-month whirlwind romance.
Mrs. K says that from the day she met Frankford until the time that he left, she was never suspicious of any movements he made. She never felt the need to question his character or who he was. She never had any indication that he was a liar or a thief. She thought he was well-spoken and "charming". He told her he was a geologist. He said he had worked for the government, primarily in Alaska, and had just retired after twenty-one years of service. He told her he owned a house and several other rental properties in nearby towns and lived off that income in addition to his retirement pay. One day, he took her to a property he claimed he owned; however, he told her they could not go inside because the tenants were there.
On the night of June 29, Frankford came to Mrs. K’s home and told her that instead of renting another place for himself, he thought it would be better if he lived with her. She says that once he moved in, things were great. She would come home from work and he would have her dinner ready. He would do the grocery shopping. He would clean the house. He befriended her children and grandchildren. She says there was no reason for her to have anticipated what he did.
One day, Frankford came home with money. It was wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. He told Mrs. K that he had sold his other house and rented it out with the option to buy. He asked her if she would put the money away for safekeeping. She was worried about keeping it because it was a lot of money. She offered to give him the combination to her safe since it was his money, but he refused. She agreed to put it in her safe. Eventually, he did allow her to give him the combination to it.
By the end of July, Mrs. K and Frankford had lived together for one month and had settled into a comfortable domestic routine. One night, after she came home from work, they started to play gin. During the course of the game, he stopped what he was doing, and he said to her, “Do you really love me?” She responded that she did, very much. He then said, “Guess that means I can get away with anything.” At that time, she thought he was talking about the game, because he “had” to win and liked to cheat at it.
The day after their card game, Mrs. K arrived home to find the bed she shared with Frankford unmade. She thought that was strange, because it was always made; whoever was last up would always make it. However, it did not appear that out of the ordinary to her. When she walked into her closet to change her clothes, she discovered all the clothes from his side of the closet were missing. She then realized that he had left. She was heartbroken.
On the hall table, Mrs. K found a note from Frankford. It read: “Sorry. Things too possessive. L,” which was their code for love. Then, she remembered giving him the combination to her safe. When she opened it, she discovered that she had been robbed. Her most expensive jewelry, valued at $4,500, was gone. Also missing were several items that had belonged to her late husband: his wedding ring, handgun, work ID card, and driver’s license renewal form.
Mrs. K notified the authorities. She says that it took a lot of courage to call them. She was not in a hurry to do it. She did not want to say it out loud to herself that Frankford was who he was. She felt too embarrassed. Detective David Hoyt came up with sordid background information on this senior citizen “Don Juan”. He discovered that Frankford was wanted for check forgery and burglary to a condominium. One of the aliases he used was “James Ferguson”.
Police also learned that Mrs. K was not Frankford’s only victim. Manya Joyce was the president of a senior Olympic center where Frankford worked for a short time. She remembers receiving telephone calls from three women who had been conned by him. She says the women took her into their confidence, admitting that they had invited him to live with them. They were sexually involved with him. And it made them very vulnerable. According to them, he stole “anything he could lay his hands on” when he was in their homes.
According to Detective Hoyt, Frankford preys on the emotions of women in their late fifties and early sixties. They are usually widows and divorcees with sizable fortunes. He often passes himself off as sixty-five years of age. In reality, he is seventy-seven. Detective Hoyt says that swindling women is “sort of a game” to Frankford. He believes that Frankford is probably somewhere else in the United States, preying on other women the same way.
Frankford has been known to use the alias James Ferguson, and may now be using the alias of Andrew Kearns, posing as a widower from West Palm Beach. He would have the identification papers and wedding rings to substantiate this false identity.
Extra Notes:

Art frankfort

Frankford/Donaldson after his arrest

Results: Captured. Within minutes of the broadcast, two viewers called the telecenter to report that they recognized Frankford. One viewer, Frankford’s ex-brother-in-law, said that he knew where Frankford was. Detective Hoyt, who spoke to the viewer, asked him if he had ever seen Frankford “do magic.” He said, “yes he did, and he (Frankford) does it very well.” This was a piece of information that had not been released to the public.
Twenty minutes later, they received a call from the second viewer, a white female, who said that Frankford lived next door to her in Whitley City, Kentucky. This was the confirmation call that Detective Hoyt was looking for. At that time, he knew they had their man. Soon after, a Kentucky state trooper also called, saying he recognized Frankford as a man he had arrested for drunk driving the previous weekend.
Two hours later, Frankford was arrested at his home in Kentucky by the McCreary County sheriff and Kentucky state troopers. He was living under the assumed name James Ferguson with his thirty-seven-year-old wife of two months. Interestingly, he had watched the show and was preparing to flee when he was arrested. After his arrest, he told the sheriff he "married forty women and never divorced any of them."
During a search of Frankford’s house, police uncovered several identification and credit cards with different aliases. They also found a handgun that may have been stolen from Mrs. K’s home. On the night of the broadcast, there were other calls to the telecenter from women who said that they had been married to Frankford. They said that they had divorced him, and he had left them “holding the bag.” Detective Hoyt hoped that any other victims of his would come forward.
Ultimately, it was determined that Frankford's real name was Harry Fielding Donaldson. Records show he was born in 1927 in Iowa, where he did prison time in the 1940s and 1950s for motor vehicle theft and forgery. He is believed to have victimized women since at least the 1970s. One victim was a Sarasota socialite who said she had met him at a church function in 1979. He had moved in with her and then stole her Mercedes-Benz. Another victim was a prominent Lakeland woman who was "taken for everything she had." The FBI also looked into the possibility that he was involved in bank robberies; it is not known if they ever connected him to any.
After Donaldson's arrest, he was returned to Florida. He gave back most of the jewelry that was stolen from Mrs. K. On May 2, 1989, he pleaded guilty to fraud and grand theft in her case. He agreed to pay her $500 and was sentenced to time served. He was later convicted of grand theft and forgery in other cases. He was sentenced to two years in a Florida prison. He was also sentenced to serve time in federal prison as well. In January 1998, he was released. He passed away on July 24, 1998, six months after his sentence was completed; he was seventy-one. Mrs. K passed away in 1993.
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