An Oregon man whose murder conviction was overturned in April walked out of prison Friday after being incarcerated for nearly three decades in the killing of the state’s corrections director.

Frank Gable, 59, was greeted by his wife outside the Lansing Correctional Facility, about 22 miles southeast of Kansas City, Kansas, and gave a brief interview with a local television station before getting into a car and driving away. He said he didn’t want to talk about the 1989 killing of Michael Francke and at one point became choked up with tears.

“I’m glad to be out,” Gable told WDAF-TV. “I’m thankful to the judge for exonerating me and just really looking at the case, finally, seeing what really happened with the state police and the DA’s office.”

Gable was convicted in the January 1989 stabbing death of Francke, 42, in Salem. Francke was the director of the Oregon Department of Corrections when he was fatally attacked during a confrontation near his state-issued car outside of the Dome Building, the agency’s headquarters.

Gable was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1991.

Gable’s release follows an April ruling by a federal judge in Portland who found that the state judge in the case was wrong to exclude another man’s confession to the crime from the trial and that Gable’s defense lawyers at the time should have asserted Gable’s federal due process rights in light of that error.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta ordered Gable be released or retried within 90 days of his order. The state is appealing the order and Acosta agreed to put his order to retry Gable on hold while the state’s appeal is pending.

Francke’s brothers, Pat and Kevin Francke, have been among Gable’s defenders and believe he was wrongly convicted.

Kevin Francke said he spoke to Gable by phone shortly after his release.

“We both blathered like babies for several minutes, then we were able to get some talking in,” Francke said in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Gable gave a short TV interview because “he wanted to show the world he was human, and not some monster cut loose on a technicality,” Francke said. “He thanked us for getting him out and said he would have done himself in years ago without that support, and also didn’t want the Francke family to not see justice.”

Gable was ordered to report directly to a federal probation officer after his release. He has been allowed to live with his wife in Kansas.

Maxine Bernstein of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com | 503-221-8343 |@EvertonBailey

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