stab wounds to the neck and legs<\/a>.<\/p>\nFranks\u2019 sister, Jessica Wilson, said she had not spoken to Franks for several days before her body was found. Wilson said she believed Franks knew she was in danger.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said Jesse, if anything ever happens to me, just know that it wasn\u2019t an accident, I didn\u2019t commit suicide, and I didn\u2019t overdose,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Wilson also said she believes Franks\u2019 identity as a transgender woman has affected how the case has been handled.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she had no past, no background, and she wasn\u2019t in transition and stuff like that, they would be on top of it,\u201d Wilson said about the investigation. \u201cEvery time you hear about my sister\u2019s case is every year when y\u2019all do a story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacksonville Police Department took the lead in the investigation with assistance from the FBI. Police Chief Jarad Phelps, who was not with the department when the murder occurred, said leads have become less frequent over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year was the last time that we got a good lead that we went all the way through to exhaust all those leads, so hopefully someone can come forward today to give us a little more information,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
Phelps also addressed why the death was not immediately announced as a homicide when the body was found.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always been a homicide investigation. It took a few days for us to come out and say it was a homicide because of the level of decomposition and the medical examiner having to go all the way up to Greenville,\u201d Phelps said.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville police are offering a $15,000 reward for information in the case. The FBI is offering an additional $10,000.<\/p>\n
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Jacksonville Police Department or Crime Stoppers. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WITN. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, N.C. (WITN) – Five years after Jenna Franks, a transgender woman, was found dead in a ditch,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117,79894,79892,18234,79893],"class_list":["post-167872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jenna-franks","tag-jenna-franks-murder","tag-transgender","tag-transgender-woman-killed-jacksonville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}