The last day of his life, Sean France drove some close friends to a Glendale nightclub to meet another friend.
But shortly after he drove into the parking lot of Al’s Palace on the 4400 block of Leetsdale someone fired four shots into his car. One of the bullets struck him in the head and killed him. France left behind a wife and two young children. He was only 24.
His murder may have been the result of a random rage incident involving a man who had just been thrown out of the nightclub.
Courtesy Glendale Police DepartmentSean France, 24
France had never been involved in gangs or gotten into trouble. He was the last person you would expect to be the victim of a homicide, said his ex-wife, Tracy Snell, 42, who has since remarried and lives in Atlanta.
“He was a good guy,” said Sgt. Jim Bang of the Glendale Police Department.
He was clean cut and had a promising future ahead of him, Bang said.
Sean was born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1968. His father, George France, 75, competed in the Pan American Games as a weightlifter and became Mr. Guyana in 1959. He said his son Sean was a jovial boy who always had a smile on his face and never got into trouble as a child. The France family moved to Brooklyn in the late 1970s.
George and Lynette France instilled a strong work ethic in their four children and taught them that they could do anything they out to accomplish. Sean was the oldest child. He was a good example to the other kids. In high school, Sean won numerous track awards while competing in speed races. He was competitive and ambitious, his father said.
From a young age Sean wanted to be an automobile mechanic. He earned a high school diploma in 1987 after taking mostly automotive classes. Right out of high school he joined the U.S. Army reserves and for the next seven years he maintained and repaired Army trucks whenever he fulfilled his monthly and annual military obligations. In the late 1980s he applied and was accepted at the Denver Automotive and Diesel College in Aurora.
Sean met his wife at Celebrity Sport Center in Glendale. Tracy Snell said she was 17 at the time and was in the bowling alley when Sean made a humerous remark as she was walking by. They exchanged phone numbers and soon they were doing everything together. The practical side of her noticed that he had oil stains on his hands, marking him as a hard worker.
The couple soon married and started raising a family. First came a girl they named Passion and then a son, Sean France Jr.
Sean was always angling for a laugh. A running joke was that whenever Tracy said she liked something she saw like jewelry in a store Sean would tell her, “Oh, I’ll make it for you.”
“He was a real corn ball,” Tracy Snell said.
Courtesy of Glendale Police DepartmentSean France, 24, was a U.S. Army reservist
Sean told his wife that with hard work he could retire when he was 40. He completed his automotive education in 1991. Although they were a young couple they were well established with many friends that they often had cook outs with. He formed his own engine repair business called Superior Automotive.
He spent a lot of time with his children. Every morning he would make his children a warm breakfast. Often it was “porridge.” Tracy can still picture him hold his son in one arm and his daughter’s tiny hand in the other as he walked them to a preschool in the mornings in the East Denver neighborhood where they lived. She would also work.
“He took care of us. He paid the bills. We were building a life together,” Tracy Snell said.
On Feb. 20, 1993, Sean drove his family to a number of dealerships in East Denver. They had saved a few thousand dollars. They were hoping to get a good deal on an inexpensive car that Sean could keep running. They were back home at 9 p.m. when Tony, one of his friends, called. Tony and two other friends had followed Sean to Colorado from Brooklyn. Tony asked for a ride home from working at a hospital.
Sean said he would bring the friend to his house and they would hang out. He put on his jacket and hugged and kissed his wife good-bye.
“I love you,” Tracy said.
“I love you,” Sean responded.
When he picked up his friend they later met two of their other friends from New York City and they were riding around together. They told Sean that a friend of theirs was working as a DJ at Al’s Place that night. He hung out with the friends several hours that night.
Al’s had a reputation of being a rough bar where police would often be called for fights. Another bar was on the other side of the street. There were many people outside in the parking lot early the next morning when Sean and his friends arrived, as many as 75.
Sean drove his 1985 blue Buick Century into the parking lot at 1:15 a.m. Feb. 21. As he made a turn he nearly ran into a man who walking away from the nightclub. Police would later tell family members that the man had just been thrown out of the nightclub.
“He was in there and got into a beef with somebody. He was probably fuming,” Tracy Snell said.
Sean kept driving around the parking lot looking for a place to park. Suddenly shots rang out. The same tall black man that Sean had nearly ran into fired four shots, according to accounts of the other passengers. One of the bullets hit him in the head.
The car started rolling down a hill until it rammed another car. Several witnesses described seeing a car racing out of the parking lot, but different people remembered seeing different models of cars including a mustang.
Courtesy of Glendale Police DepartmentSean France's car rolls into vehicle in parking lot of Al's Palace
Paramedics rushed Sean to University Hospital.
Tracy Snell remembers getting a call from someone at the hospital saying her husband had been in an accident. She called a girlfriend, left her kids with a cousin and they rushed to the hospital.
Police met her in a waiting room and started asking questions. It frightened her.
“I was probably pretty hysterical. I said I wasn’t going to answer any more questions until they told her what had happened to Sean,” she said.
They finally told her that Sean had been shot. They asked her if Sean had any enemies and if he was involved in gangs. But there was never any hint of that. Late she saw him in a gourney and she passed out. Later doctors told her that he was brain dead and would not recover.
The next day she got dressed in her Sunday clothes and dressed her children in their best clothes and they went to the hospital.
Tracy whispered playfully in her husband’s ear that his feet were dry and cold. She rubbed lotion on his feet. Her kids asked what was wrong with “daddy.” She told Passion and Sean Jr. that their father was very sick and that he was going to heaven.
“They were too young to know what was happening,” Tracy Snell said.
Sean’s daughter Passion was 5 and Sean Jr. was 3. That night that Sean had gone out with his friends he hadn’t finished a beer. Tracy put it in the refrigerator and refused to move any of his things in the apartment for months. When she realized all the beer had evaporated out of the beer can she still saved it. When she later moved to Atlanta she brought it with her.
Over the years she has regretted that her husband couldn’t see everything that they have been able to accomplish. Passion is a nurse and a mother. His namesake is in college and only one year younger than his father was when he was murdered. Sean Jr. is a spitting image of him, she said.
The shooting that may have been sparked by a rage incident has never been solved.
The night Sean was fatally shot, Sgt. Bang, who had about two years on the force, searched the parking lot for evidence that night.
Detectives looked into the backgrounds of Sean and his friends and found no indication they had been involved in gangs.
The small police force rarely has murders to investigate. Detectives spent several months investigating but there were no viable suspects despite the many witnesses.
Recently, Sgts. Bang and Greg Cazzell offered to open a cold case unit to investigate three unsolved murders including the Sean France case.
Both of them had personal memories of the case. They’ve interviewed family members and witnesses. For Bang, this case is what police work is all about. He hopes to find justice for a family that went without a husband and father all these years.
Bang said France had a young family and was working to make a good future for them.
He said that he hopes that someone who saw something back then will come forward and tell him or Cazzell what they know.
One of the suspects may have told someone about the shooting and now the relationship they once had with the killer has changed and they are willing to tell what they know.
Sean’s parents and former wife would very much like to see his killer brought to justice.
George and Lynette France said they miss their son terribly.
“He was a gem to us,” George France said.
Lynette France said police interviewed a suspect in prison last year, but nothing seemed to come of it.
Tracy Snell harbors intensely bitter feelings for her husband’s killer.
“He left us in shambles,” Tracy Snell said. “I think he should be punished. He had no right. Sean didn’t do anything to deserve this. I pray that he doesn’t have any peace the rest of his life. That’s how I feel and I won’t appologize for how I feel. I deserved to grow old with the man I fell in love with when I was 17.”
Tracy Snell said she believes that the killer may have come home that early morning and told someone “Hey, I think I may have killed someone tonight.” She hopes that person will come forward and do the right thing. It’s never too late.
As her son looks more and more like his father it gets harder to see the resemblance sometimes as much as she loves to see her son.
“It gets harder. He was one in a million,” Tracy France said of Sean Sr. “He was not a slacker. He had plans and goals. If he would have lived he would have realized all those goals.”
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call Sgt. Jim Bang or Sgt. Greg Cazzell the Glendale Police Department at 303-759-1511.