In the fall of 2016, a domestic dispute in a Jersey City home tragically escalated, leaving a mother of two dead and a community in mourning. On the evening of Thursday, October 27, 2016, police responded to a call on the 100 block of Manning Avenue. Inside, they discovered 38-year-old Sineka Davis unresponsive with a gunshot wound to her upper torso. She was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.
The investigation quickly focused on her husband, 39-year-old Steve L. Franklin, Jr.
The following day, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office announced that an arrest warrant had been issued for Franklin, charging him with first-degree murder. Authorities warned that he should be considered armed and dangerous, sparking a manhunt for the Jersey City man.
The search for Franklin came to a somber end just a few days later. A man, believed by the Hudson County Prosecutor to be Franklin, was found deceased inside a car in the parking lot of an AMC movie theater on Route 1 in New Brunswick. The preliminary investigation suggested that the man had taken his own life with a handgun, turning the case into an apparent murder-suicide.
In the wake of the tragedy, friends, family, and the wider community rallied to support the couple's two young daughters, who were 12 and 15 years old at the time. The loss of their mother, Sineka, who was born on November 16, 1977, and the subsequent death of their father left the girls in the care of their grandmother.
