Christine Francisco

Back on February 13th, Christine Francisco waited for her husband to come home from work to make Valentine’s Day cookies with their children, but Christine’s husband, Nicholas, never came home.

It has now been several months since Nicholas just walked out of work never to be seen again, but there are still no leads for police to follow. While his car was found in a condo parking lot that has no previous known connection for the Franciscos, there was also no sign of foul play discovered by police.

Christine, however, has maintained from the beginning that something sinister had to have happened to Nicholas because he was not the type of guy to just walk out of their lives. She says he was not a coward.

Read moreI watched several videos of Christine talk about Nicholas’ disappearance, and I find Christine’s behavior peculiar.

The first video where Christine spoke to the news is dated February 16, 2008. In this video, Christine appears to be crying, yet I do not see any tears. She says:

“I am begging everybody, everybody to please, please help find my husband because I can’t live my life without him.”

The first notable thing I see is a lack of tears falling from Christine’s eyes, yet Christine acts like she is crying, and even wipes her face as if there were tears.

The second notable point for me here is Christine’s tone-of-voice. It doesn’t sound distressed, upset, or concerned. Instead, it sounds whiny–like she is complaining. It also sounds notably different that in her video interviews with Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren. Usually when people are distraught and upset, they sound consistent.

I also found it odd how she says the following:

“If you can’t find him, these kids don’t have a daddy, then this unborn baby won’t have a daddy.”

Notice she says if you can’t find him. Where is her connection to the search? I find the word you an odd word choice. Most people would say if we can’t find him. “We” have to find him.

The second video I looked at was Christine talking to Greta Van Susteren.

Greta says, “Did you get the sense that anything unusual was going on in his life?” Listen to Christine’s response. She holds back laughter when she replies, “Not at all.” When she continues, notice how normal she acts, like she is talking about a PTA meeting or something. “He sounded so excited to come home, and he was ready to go with the cookies.”

As she continues her conversation with Greta, she shows absolutely no emotion, and no concern.

Greta asks Christine if Nicholas was having any personal problems at work, and Christine holds back laughter again. She smirks, lets out a sigh and replies “Not that I’m aware of.”

Why does Christine feel the need to laugh? Is it nerves, or something more sinister?

Greta then questions Christine about financial problems. Watch Christine when she says “We are not in poverty…we’re just in the middle”. Watch how animated she is…she teeters her head from side-to-side to gesture when she says “in the middle”. This shows she is relaxed. There is no hint of sadness, or concern whatsoever. If you didn’t know what Christine was talking about here, you’d think she was just having a casual conversation about gardening or something.

When people are worried or concerned, they are usually subdued in their reactions, and are less likely to gesture like this–especially about unimportant things like financial status when someone could be in danger. That’s because their one and only focus is to bring back their loved one.

Greta then questions Christine about when she first got suspicious something wasn’t right. Christine says she was concerned when Nicholas wasn’t home to make cookies–about eight o’clock which is the children’s bedtime, but she figured she was just overreacting and ignored it. I thought that was a little strange.

If Nicholas was going to make cookies with the children, wouldn’t she be expecting him earlier than the children’s bedtime? By bedtime, wouldn’t you feel justifiably alarmed?

When Christine talks about Nicholas not being home by 10 pm, she also says she was “absolutely petrified”, yet when she recollects this, she strangely shows no emotion again.

When people recollect a terrifying time, they display the fear of that moment on their faces, if only for a second. Our emotions are closely tied to our memories. Yet for Christine, this doesn’t seem to be true. She just chats as if nothing were wrong. It’s very strange.

Christine smiles again when she says it was very peculiar for him to be at the condominium complex. Why does she smile like this over and over again? Her emotions aren’t adding up with a woman who is fearful her husband is in trouble. Where is the fear??

When Greta says “What do you think happened to him? Where do you think he is?”, watch Christine. First she grins. Then she looks up before speaking which is an indication that she is thinking, not talking from her heart about how she feels. Then she speaks about herself in third person which is odd.

Instead of saying “My intuition tells me…” She says “Ummm…ah…a wife’s intuition, it’s foul play.” This is weird. It’s another red flag. Why the sudden change of tense? It’s as if she is repeating what she has heard someone else say before. It sure makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

When most people face a crisis, normal behavior is for them to hold on to every shred of hope that the worst case scenario didn’t happen. They don’t want to believe that something horrible is wrong. Instead, they cling to “safe potentials” because it is comforting, but Christine does not. She doesn’t plea to her husband to come home, or worry that perhaps that something else happened. She just accepts foul play without question–which is unusual.

Look at her lack of emotions as well. Here she is telling us she thinks her husband was potentially harmed, or coerced into leaving, and yet she doesn’t seem to show any concern whatsoever when she first talks about it. Then in the middle of it, she expresses some emotion, but it dissipates quickly.

Greta then asks if there were any peculiar phone calls to the house to which Christine replies as calm and collected as one can be “No, not at all.”

Christine’s emotions almost turn on and off like a faucet, don’t they?

And last, on one of Christine Francisco’s profiles at JPG Magazine, Christine Francisco is listing herself as single!

You read that right. Single.

It’s not even four months since this happened, and she is content listing herself as single? I can’t imagine the courts have declared her husband dead without a body. What is Christine thinking?

If that doesn’t turn your head, I don’t know what will. It’s like she is resigned to the fact he is gone forever. Hmmm….

I’m wondering what Christine knows that we don’t.

FindNicolasFrancisco.com

* Thanks to Cheri’s Corner forum for sharing the many video links.

Set Up Your Recorders!

This Saturday night, 48 Hours will be running a new program titled “The Preacher’s Wife“. It’s about Kari and Matt Baker, who I have written about in the past. ABC’s 20/20 did a small segment on the story in March.

If things go well for me this weekend, I will try to write this up by early next week and share with you anything that I might see.

Set your DVR to record Saturday, May 10, at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

One Year Ago: Madeleine McCann

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since little Madeleine McCann disappeared. With that, I want to ask:


To read what I think about this case, click on the labels below, or you can click here to read my first post on the case last May.

Cynthia Sommer Talks to Matt Lauer

Last week Cynthia Sommer talked to Matt Lauer.

When I heard the news she was released from prison and all charges were dropped, I decided to look at Sommer with fresh eyes. If she was wrongly convicted, she would be carrying a lot of pain on her shoulders after being locked up for two and a half years, but oddly, I didn’t see a hint of it.

In the video (link above), Cindy Sommer was asked if she was angry (about being locked up when she was innocent), and oddly, she happily smiled and said, “Would you be? Yeah.” Yet Sommer doesn’t look angry or upset in any way when she says this. Her facial expressions clearly contradict her spoken words. It’s perplexing. Where is this anger that she talks about?

Of course, one will argue that she is happy, and that she should be happy about being let out of prison, if she is innocent, and that is true to a degree. But every human being knows how violated they would feel if they were wrongly convicted of killing a man they loved dearly, were ripped away from their children, and had to live in prison for two and half years while they were innocent.

Read moreWith that, newfound freedom for anyone wrongly held in prison would be very bittersweet. There may be a few smiles, but there would also be a lot of anger, and sadness for all that they were denied and missed while locked away. And even if they tried to hide it, there would still be visible signs to this pain, but oddly, with Sommer, there is none of this–across the multiple interviews she has done to date.

In the video, we see a clip of Sommer talking to Josh Mankowitz while she was still in prison about why she slept with her husband’s fellow Marines shortly after his death, and she says:

“I wanted someone to hold me, …uh…I wanted my husband back, and I missed him, and… I didn’t have him, and… the closest thing I could have were his friends.”

When Sommer says this, she seems to be thinking as she speaks–not talking from the heart. When people talk about their true feelings, the words flow naturally, and there is little to no hesitation. When people don’t tell their true feelings, however, we often see choppy speech, hesitations, and lots of “um” and “uh” words used. Sommer continues this pattern throughout the entire interview with Lauer. It definitely raises my eyebrows.

At time marker 1:57, the video shows Sommer as she is released from prison. Watch her behavior. She is completely avoiding eye contact with the reporters. The lack of eye contact here doesn’t tell us she is lying, but it does suggest incredible insecurity. Why is she insecure at this time? Why doesn’t she want to look the reporters in the eyes? And talk of her injustice? She finally has support for her claims. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her here. Why?

We should see a woman who feels violated, who feels her voice has never been heard, who has much to say about her injustices, but oddly, Sommer says nothing about this at any point in her interviews. Instead, we see her smile, and say she is shocked to be out of prison. If she is innocent, why is she shocked? Wouldn’t it be about time?

Matt Lauer asks Sommer to explain the range of emotions that she has felt over the last several days since she has been released. Sommer says:

“I’m overwhelmed with emotion…I… can’t… describe, um… being in jail one day, one minute actually, and being out the next.”

Here was Sommer’s chance to let it all out, again, but she doesn’t. Doesn’t she feel violated? Misunderstood? Treated unjustly? Instead, I see the most incredible grin on her face like the cat who ate the canary. It’s perplexing behavior.

Sommer then talks about how incredible it was to see her children, and she talks about “how it was really fun” to visit with them. I found this statement very odd.

Most parents who were deprived of watching their children grow for over two and a half years would tell you that the reunion was bittersweet, that seeing their children, and how they have grown without them re-ignites the pain of the injustice done to them, and to their children. Such a visit would be a reminder of the unfair price they and their children had to pay at the hands of a faulty system. But again, we hear none of this from Sommer.

Notice there is absolutely no pain and no burden on Sommer’s face when she talks about her children. Why?

Matt Lauer asks Sommer to go back, and think about the feeling she felt the moment she was being arrested for Todd’s death. Watch Sommer when she speaks.

“Um, I was devastated….I didn’t…um………………I don’t know how to describe…………what goes through your head….what…what you could….what I thought…it….you, you could never prepare yourself for something like that …to ever have happen.”

Does she hit you as a woman who was wrongly accused?

Does she have any feelings of being violated?

She’s had two and a half years in prison to think about this.

If you were wrongly accused, tell me you wouldn’t have relived that day in your head a thousand times. It doesn’t appear Sommer ever did? Does she have other memories she has been reliving these past two years?

Matt Lauer talks about Sommer’s unusual behavior after Todd’s death, and he says to Sommer, “You have to admit, even to a casual observer, this doesn’t sound good.”

Watch Sommer’s response. Her eyes wander all over as she thinks how to respond.

“Not knowing…ah…the scientific…um…end of it…um…we’ve gone over everything…and…eh…it doesn’t sound good (grin) because it isn’t good. It doesn’t add up. Two and two didn’t equal four….you know.”

Wow. She says it plain as day. It didn’t add up, and it still doesn’t add up. She is right on the money. Everything adds up when you have the right pieces of the puzzle. I just don’t think we have all the pieces of this puzzle yet.

I also find it perplexing that she never tried to understand the scientific end of the arsenic claims made against her. Wouldn’t you want to understand exactly what happened, if it were you?

Matt Lauer goes on talking about how Sommer didn’t act like the typical grieving wife, and what other decision could the jury come to? Watch Sommer respond.

“Well, I don’t think that that’s true. I believe everyone grieves differently, and I believe she….um…. made… me…um…out to…”

Matt Lauer says, “You think you were misunderstood in those days after Todd’s death.”

Okay, maybe now we will hear how she feels violated.

Sommer responds:

“I do. I do. And I think she put …um…my behavior… Right the prosecutor put…….um…put my behavior in an exaggerated something that didn’t really happen and I think that …um…the things that she… said that happened didn’t happen the way that she said that they happened.”

Does that make sense? She has had two and a half years to think over all the wrongs done to her, and this is all she can say?

Instead, we see classic signs of thinking-as-she-speaks behavior instead of talking from the heart. And more than that, we see absolutely no pain on her face. It’s amazingly absent. We see smirking instead, which I find a complete contradiction to someone who should be feeling violated.

Matt Lauer ends the interview asking Sommer if there is a lesson in all of this, after these three and a half years, and if so, what is it?

“Well, I think that…um… the lesson is that…um…that our judicial system is flawed. I’ve seen more than just myself…um….that…this has happened to….I’m… in the spotlight…I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to be in the spotlight and to be able to have a voice, and there are so many people that this has happens to, and um… and that’s a scary…that’s a scary thing that…that… people sit in jail and in prison…that have been wrongfully accused, wrongly charged, wrongfully convicted, overcharged.”

Notice her eyes glancing at Matt Lauer the entire time? It’s like she is looking for his responses to her thoughts as they ramble off the top of her head. Does she wonder if he is buying her story?

I’m not.

I also find it exceptionally unusual that Sommer feels fortunate to have a voice, and be in the spotlight. She feels fortunate! Does this make any sense? Here is a woman who wants you to believe that she was locked up for two and a half years based on an unfair trial, and she says she feels fortunate.

And she says it is very scary that “people” sit in jail and in prison being wrongfully accused. What about her? Is she not one of them? Why does she not enter into this equation?

Sommer’s behavior is absolutely perplexing, and very inconsistent for someone who claims innocence.

Did Sommer forget to feel violated, wrongly accused and treated unjustly? Or did she not feel violated from day one because she did do something to Todd? You certainly do have to wonder.

You can also watch Sommer on Dateline NBC.

Please Note:
I realize my opinion will be controversial because it is far from the common opinion. If you disagree with me, you are welcome to post your opinions, but keep them respectful. I will not tolerate bashing of any kind. Crude or rude comments will be deleted.