Sniper's victim mourned in Florida

GAINESVILLE -- They knew her as the woman who constantly asked the difficult questions, who relentlessly sought after God, who always persevered -- through school, through breast cancer, through life.

To those who knew Linda Franklin, the ninth victim of the Washington-area sniper, she was tender-hearted, honest and courageous.

Nearly 200 mourners gathered Friday at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church to remember Franklin, the 47-year-old FBI analyst from Arlington, Va., who spent most of her childhood in Gainesville.

"Every summer she would come home for vacation and bring a list of questions," her father, Charles Moore, told the tearful audience in the church where Franklin was married. "She would always seek the truth."

Franklin was felled by a single shot in the head Oct. 14 as she and her husband, Ted, were loading their red convertible in the parking lot outside a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va.

During the service, Moore painfully recalled how as a child, Franklin questioned everything from religion to dress and how her constant pursuit of the truth helped her earn a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Florida.

At the time of her death, Franklin was still undergoing physical therapy for her double mastectomy to rid her body of breast cancer. Two months earlier, the Moores also lost their 18-year-old granddaughter in a car accident.

"I've seldom seen people be brutalized by two such remarkable occurrences together," said church rector Gordon H. Tremaine, who counseled the Moores through both tragedies. "They have had their whole world explode."

Tremaine said the family was relieved that police captured two men suspected in the sniper attacks. He said the family was comforted to know that no one else would fall victim to the sniper's random shot.

"(Moore is) glad they caught him," Tremaine said, referring to Thursday's arrest of suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo. "But I didn't hear any desire for vengeance."

Franklin is survived by her husband, Ted; two grown children, Thomas Belvin and Katrina Hannum; her parents, Charles and Maryann Moore; her brother, Steven Moore; and her sister, Susan Kundrat.

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