Husband of slain Las Vegas teacher gets life sentence

By Dave Toplikar

Thursday, May 10, 2012 | 11:45 a.m.

Mark Franta was given a life sentence Thursday morning for second-degree murder in the 2010 strangulation death of his wife, Marybeth Franta, a 49-year-old Las Vegas junior high school teacher and equestrienne.

In a courtroom filled with friends and relatives of the victim, Clark County District Judge Michelle Leavitt told Mark Franta, 51, he would have to serve a minimum of 10 years before he would be eligible for parole. He was given credit for already serving 540 days.

Franta had taken an Alford plea to a second-degree murder charge, although he continued to claim that he was in an alcoholic blackout that day and did not remember what had happened with his wife.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Lalli told the judge that Marybeth Franta was recognized for her teaching abilities and was a horsewoman and a leader in the local equestrian community.

She was a science teacher at Irwin and Susan Molasky Junior High School, which has since planted a tree in her honor and also set up a scholarship fund in her name.

According to a police report, Franta was drunk on Saturday, Nov. 13, 2010, when he got into an argument with his wife. Police said he killed her, put her in the trunk of her car and then drove to a desert area behind an Albertsons store at Tenaya Way and Craig Road to dump her body.

Franta reported her missing on Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010.

The Clark County coroner’s office said Marybeth Franta died of asphyxiation and had blunt force trauma injuries on a substantial portion of her body.

On Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010, homicide detectives confronted Mark Franta with surveillance video they obtained from the Albertsons grocery store and a nearby convenience store that placed him at the site where his wife's body was found. In their report, investigators said he didn’t provide an explanation for being on the video, nor did he deny being there.

“He has not accepted responsibility for his crime,” Lalli said, calling Franta a coward. Lalli said the teacher's death was "slow and tortuous" and left many injuries on her face, neck and body.

Franta told the judge that he was an alcoholic and blacked out many times. He said his wife was a "very strong person" and she would have left him with some injuries.

"For me not to have any is ludicrous," he said. "If I had done this. If I knew I had done this, I would stand up and say, 'Yes, send me to prison.' And I have done that. I have said they can prove the case against me. And I am willing and ready to go to prison."

The sentencing took more than an hour and included emotional testimony from Marybeth Franta’s family members, some of whom asked the judge to sentence him to the maximum penalty, which would have been life without parole.

During the sentencing, Franta, who has grown his hair almost to his shoulders since being jailed, stood next to his attorney, Christy Craig-Rohan, as his two children and his wife’s sister and her parents testified.

Both of his adult children, Ashley Franta and Brandon Franta, asked the judge to give their father the opportunity for parole.

“Letting my dad sit in prison for the rest of his life accomplishes nothing,” Ashley Franta said. She spoke about five minutes and finished with a quote from Mahatma Ghandi that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Brandon Franta said “some people would like to paint my dad as an evil person.”

However, he said, he holds his father’s character in high regard, although he said his father made a poor choice to drink to the point “that no one will know what happened that night.”

Marybeth Franta’s sister, Lori Nitzschke, told the judge that Mark Franta had an abusive relationship with his wife and that he had struck her when she was pregnant with their first child.

Dale Nitzschke, her father and a former administrator at UNLV, asked the judge for a life sentence without parole.

He said there was a long history of violence and spousal abuse in the marriage.

Nitzschke said he was “deeply saddened” when he found out that Nevada is No. 1 in the country in men murdering women, and he hoped the sentence could send a “powerful message” throughout the state.

Asked outside the courtroom if he thought Franta would be paroled in 10 years, Nitzschke said, “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Also speaking was Barbara Armbruster, the victim’s mother, who told the judge that when her daughter was reported missing, she had gone to her daughter’s school the next Monday morning hoping she would turn up.

Armbruster said Mark Franta was also there and looked at her with “an evil eye” and told her he remembered everything.

“I beg you for the harshest sentence possible,” she told the judge.