The Oscar-winning movie “Manchester by the Sea” inspired an upstate New York couple to kill their adopted, disabled teen son and then set their home on fire in a coverup, prosecutors said.
During a bail hearing for Ernest Franklin II, 35, and Heather Franklin, 33, who are charged in the murder of 16-year-old Jeffrey Franklin, prosecutors said the couple watched the flick — in which children die in a house fire set accidentally by their father — just hours before the boy’s death.
“Within two hours of that movie playing to this defendant and her husband, Jeffrey’s deceased,” Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride said Friday during the hearing.
The couple is accused of killing Jeffrey at their Guilford home on Feb. 28 — two days after the movie starring Casey Affleck won Academy Awards for best actor and best original screenplay.
An autopsy revealed that the fire did not cause the death of the teenager and that he was dead prior to the blaze.
“The victim was badly burned,” McBride said during the hearing. “Because of the damage to the body by the fire, the pathologist is not able to determine the cause of death.”
A lawyer for Heather Franklin told the court that she’s “innocent until proven guilty.”
The Franklins are charged with second-degree murder, arson and tampering with physical evidence.
A judge set bail at $250,000 cash for Ernest Franklin and $125,000 cash for Heather Franklin.
With Post wires