SCOTTSBORO, Ala., Jan. 22 -- Convicted killer and one-time suspected serial killer Frank T. Potts was back in Scottsboro, Ala., Monday preparing his appeal of last April's murder conviction for the 1989 slaying of an Indiana teenager whose family is helping in his appeal. Potts' hearing is scheduled for Thursday before Jackson County, Ala., Judge Woody Haralson, the same judge who presided over the April 1995 trial. Victim Robert Earl Jines' family is assisting Potts because they believe someone else killed the teen runaway. Potts, 52, contends witnesses who helped convict him lied. No specific witnesses were publicly named, but among those who testified against Potts were Jines' girlfriend Bobbie Lee Harrell and Harvey Taylor, the man who says Potts forced him to help bury Jines' body. During the trial Taylor told jurors Potts was the last person seen alive with the teenager. But Potts' attorney, Hoyt Baugh, claimed authorities had arrested the wrong man, then worked out a deal with Taylor to testify against his client. Jurors rejected the contention and on Apr. 15 convicted Potts of first-degree murder. Jines, 19, apparently was killed on a rural north Alabama mountaintop owned by Potts just outside Scottsboro and his body buried there. The victim's skeletal remains were discovered near Potts' cabin in March 1994 and the Alabama native was charged in his death. Jines and Harrell reportedly had traveled with Potts to Alabama from Lakeland, Fla. At the time murder charges were filed, Potts was in jail in Lakeland awaiting trial for sexually molesting a young girl.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison before being handed over to Alabama authorities to face the murder count. At one point Potts was a suspect in as many as 13 slayings or missing persons cases across the eastern United States and police spent weeks unsuccessfully combing his remote land for evidence of more bodies. Ultimately, he was linked only to Jines' death.
