A 76-year-old man who raped and murdered a 15-year-old Carmel schoolgirl in 1979 has walked free from Wyoming Correctional Facility after serving 37 years behind bars. Franklin Morrison was a stable hand at the old Tilly Foster Farm when he was charged with killing Jill Garrett, who was hitchhiking along Route 6 when he encountered her.
Morrison, who was living in Patterson at the time, was arrested by the Putnam Sheriff's Department and charged with murder and rape, according to Mid Hudson News. He dumped Garrett's body in a wooded area near the Carmel-Brewster line. Because of intense local media coverage in the Hudson Valley, officials moved the case out of Putnam County, and it was ultimately tried in New City, Rockland County, over the course of a month-long trial that ended with a jury convicting Morrison on all charges.
A Brutal Crime and a Sentence Built to Last Decades
Then-Putnam County Judge Frank C. Bowers Jr. sentenced Morrison to an aggregate term of 37.5 years to life. Under New York Penal Law, consecutive indeterminate sentences are added together to compute a prisoner's minimum parole eligibility date, and that is exactly what happened here: Morrison received 25 years to life for second-degree murder plus a consecutive 12.5 to 25 years for first-degree rape, according to records from the New York State Board of Parole. In a 2020 administrative appeal filing, the Board documented that Morrison killed Garrett by repeatedly striking her head against a rock after raping her.
Bowers died in 2016, before Morrison ever appeared for his first parole hearing, according to the Rockland County Times. Morrison filed numerous appeals over the years citing prosecutorial errors, mistakes by the trial judge, and ineffective counsel, but none of them succeeded.
A Decade of Denials Before a Reversal
Morrison first became eligible for parole in October 2016 after completing his 37.5-year minimum sentence, but state commissioners denied his release and kept him incarcerated through repeated two-year review cycles, the Rockland County Times reported at the time. As recently as June 2024, parole commissioners again denied Morrison release and imposed a 24-month hold. That decision did not stand: the Board's Appeals Unit recommended vacating the hold and remanding his case for a new interview, records from the Board of Parole show, setting the stage for his eventual release this year.
Over his nearly four decades in custody, Morrison moved through multiple state facilities, including maximum-security Attica as well as medium-security Wyoming and Gouverneur correctional facilities, before parole was ultimately granted following his time back at Attica. Mid Hudson News and Board of Parole records both place him among New York State's longest-serving inmates.
From a Working Farm to a County Park
The Tilly Foster Farm where Morrison worked as a stable hand in 1979 no longer resembles the private dairy and horse breeding operation it was then. Putnam County purchased the 199-acre property in 2002 using East of Hudson water quality preservation funds, and it has since been restored into a public farm and educational attraction, according to Putnam County records.
An Aging Prison Population Behind the Case
Morrison's release at 76 fits into a much larger shift in New York's prison demographics. A 2026 report by the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging found that roughly 25% of all incarcerated people in New York State prisons — about 7,600 individuals — are 50 or older, up from just 12% in 2008. Elder advocacy groups cited in that report have noted that older prisoners incur significantly higher state healthcare costs while posing lower recidivism risks.
That demographic shift has coincided with policy changes at the parole board itself. Following guideline updates adopted by the state parole board in September 2016, the overall release rate for incarcerated people aged 50 or older rose from 24% to 40%, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Morrison had served more than 35 years in prison before his release.
