On July 4, 2023, 62-year-old Joan Frank was found dead in her Wichita Falls, Texas, home on Craigmont Drive after police responded to a welfare check at about 11:30 p.m. Officers discovered Frank in an upstairs bedroom with fatal gunshot wounds. Her husband, 65-year-old Cedric Sartin, was located in an adjacent bedroom with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth with serious injuries.

According to the arrest affidavit, Frank’s daughter — who owns the residence — said her mother called asking her to call police because Sartin had a gun. The daughter reported seeing Sartin standing over Frank in the bathtub before he shot her, then stare at the daughter briefly and return to his bedroom where he shot himself. The daughter, a local physician, performed CPR on Frank until first responders arrived.

Sartin was later arrested and charged with murder; he was booked into the Wichita County Jail on August 16, 2023, with bond set at $750,000 and was indicted by a Wichita County grand jury on September 6, 2023. This was the fourth murder in Wichita Falls in 2023. Does anyone have information about Joan Frank or her family that could help clarify the circumstances that night?