A New Mexico man will spend more than 51 years in prison for the 2023 murder of a Gardner woman at a hotel.
On Oct. 29 in Johnson County District Court, Franklin Bluelake, 59, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was sentenced to 620 months in the Kansas Department of Corrections for second-degree intentional murder in the death of Rhoda Morgan. Judge Timothy D. McCarthy handed down the sentence.
Bluelake and Morgan, who were involved in a relationship, checked into a room at the now-closed eLODGE hotel, 20662 W. 151st St. in Olathe, on Jan. 28, 2023, according to court documents. Bluelake was later seen on security footage leaving the hotel room in the early morning hours of Jan. 29 and driving away.
Bluelake pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder charge in June.
After his sentence, Bluelake filed an appeal to his sentence and the judgment to the Court of Appeals of the State of Kansas.
Attorneys for Bluelake did not return a request for comment from the Johnson County Post.
Bluelake was visiting Morgan in Olathe
Both originally from New Mexico, the two met on Facebook, according to court documents.
While Morgan lived in Gardner with her daughter, Bluelake would visit her and they would get a hotel room, court documents stated.
When police contacted a friend of Morgan’s after her body was found, she said that Morgan had discovered he was in relationships with several other women and was planning to confront him about it.
Weeks before the visit, Morgan had been communicating with a former girlfriend of Bluelake to warn her about him, “as he uses women for a place to live and for money,” according to court documents.
Before Morgan’s murder, Bluelake had a criminal history that included serving eight years of a 10-year sentence for beating a woman and fellow member of the Navajo Nation with whom he had previously been romantically involved, according to court documents.
Morgan’s body was found at the hotel
At about noon on Jan. 29, 2023, officers from the Olathe Police Department responded to a call from someone that they had discovered the body of a deceased woman in the hotel room.
Prior to his arrest, Bluelake was last seen on the hotel’s security footage leaving the hotel at 2:23 a.m. on Jan. 29, carrying a similar purse to the one Morgan had when the couple was captured on camera at Walmart, according to court documents.
On Jan. 31, 2023, Bluelake contacted the ex-girlfriend Morgan had been communicating with and asked her for $100.
Bluelake told her that he was calling from Texas and was out of money. He also alleged that he had been involved in a fight with two men, who he said beat him up. Court documents did not specify when and where the alleged fight took place.
During the fight, Bluelake said he accidentally broke Morgan’s neck, court document stated.
An autopsy by the Johnson County Medical Examiner found that Morgan’s body had a broken bone in her neck and determined she was the victim of a homicide, court documents stated.
Bluelake was arrested by U.S. Marshals in Flagstaff, Arizona, and was brought back to Johnson County on March 18, 2023, according to the Kansas City Star.
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