Netflix’s ‘Girl in the Picture’ Tells the Horrific True Story of a Child Kidnapper Who Married His “Daughter”

In case you aren’t already disturbed enough by the world around you, there’s a new horrifying true crime documentary on Netflix, Girl in the Picture, that will really push you over the edge.

Girl in the Picture, which began streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, comes from director Skye Borgman, who previously the 2021 Hulu true-crime doc, Dead Asleep. In Girl in the Picture, audiences are taken through an FBI cold case that starts with a 1990 hit-and-run-death of a 20-year-old woman named Tonya Hughes. From there, it snowballs in a truly upsetting way.

If you want a look at the rabbit hole before you watch the movie on Netflix, here’s what to know about the Girl in the Picture true story.

IS GIRL IN THE PICTURE BASED ON A TRUE STORY?

Yes. Netflix’s Girl in the Picture is a true-crime documentary that tells the true story of Tonya Hughes, also known as Sharon Marshall, who was kidnapped as a young girl by Franklin Delano Floyd, raised as his daughter, and eventually became Floyd’s wife.

The story, which you can read about on the official FBI website, begins with a 20-year-old woman named Tonya Hughes, who died after she was struck by a hit-and-run driver in Oklahoma City in 1990. She left behind an infant son named Michael, and a husband, a man then going by the name of Clarence Hughes, who would later be revealed to be Franklin Delano Floyd. Floyd struck authorities as a very strange man, and foul play was suspected in Tonya’s death, so Michael was sent to foster care.

Though Floyd fought to get his “son” back, it was eventually revealed he was not Michael’s biological father and was ordered to stop seeing him. It was also discovered that Floyd was a fugitive from Georgia, and had been on the run since 1973. He was sent back to prison to serve the rest of his sentence. After he was released from prison, he kidnapped Michael in 1994, then 6 years old, at gunpoint from the boy’s elementary school.

In the manhunt that followed, Floyd was arrested two months later, but Michael was nowhere to be found. Authorities believed him to be dead, but Floyd insisted he was alive. In the investigation into the kidnapping, the FBI uncovered evidence that Floyd had murdered a woman named Cheryl Ann Comesso in 1989. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Florida in 2002.

But the search for Michael continued. More evidence came out that Tonya Hughes had been kidnapped as a young girl by Floyd, sometime between 1973 and August 1975, and that for many years, Floyd had raised her, and sexually abused her, as his “daughter,” using the name Sharon Marshall. Through death row interviews with Floyd, investigators uncovered that Tonya’s real name was Suzanne Marie Sevakis and that she was the daughter of a woman Floyd married under an alias, whom he had taken after the mother went to jail. Floyd’s story was later confirmed to be true via DNA samples.

As for Michael Hughes, Floyd confessed to investigators that he murdered the child on the same day he kidnapped him and buried the body on the interstate in Oklahoma. Though investigators searched the area Floyd described, after 20 years, no remains were left of the body.

It’s certainly not a happy story, but it does, at least, have some closure. If you want the full story, you’ll have to watch Girl in the Picture on Netflix, now streaming.