James Clayton Vaughn Jr. was born on April 13, 1950, in Mobile, Alabama. He was the eldest son of James Clayton Vaughn Sr. and Helen Rau Vaughn and had three siblings: Carolyn, Marilyn, and Gordon. Vaughn's father, a World War II veteran and butcher, abandoned the family when Vaughn was eight years old. Carolyn, Vaughn's sister, recounted, "Whenever [Vaughn Sr.] came to visit, he'd beat us," and mentioned that their mother had Vaughn Sr. jailed twice for public drunkenness. A family friend described Vaughn's mother as "a full-blooded German, a real strict, perfectionist lady. I never saw her beat any of [her children], but they told me stories."

Vaughn later revealed that he often went hungry and endured severe physical abuse during his childhood. He claimed that his mother "didn't care about [him and his siblings]" and believed that these experiences hindered his emotional growth, leaving him "at least ten years or more behind other people in their maturity."

During his high school years, Vaughn became interested in evangelical Christianity, which eventually led him to Nazism. He joined both the National Socialist White People's Party and the Ku Klux Klan. Vaughn later changed his name to "Joseph Paul Franklin" to honor Paul Joseph Goebbels and Benjamin Franklin. In the 1960s, after reading Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, Franklin felt inspired to initiate a race war. He remarked, "I've never felt that way about any other book that I read. It was something weird about that book."

In the early 1970s, Franklin went on a road trip to attend an American Nazi Party conference in Virginia, accompanied by David Duke (then a student) and Don Black.

For much of his life, Franklin drifted along the East Coast, seeking opportunities to "cleanse the world" of individuals he deemed inferior, particularly targeting Black and Jewish people. He primarily financed his activities through bank robberies, supplementing his income with blood bank donations, which ultimately led to his capture by the FBI.

On July 29, 1977, Franklin firebombed the Beth Shalom Synagogue in Chattanooga, Tennessee, destroying the building. Thankfully, no lives were lost as some worshippers had left early that Friday evening, leaving too few for a minyan. On August 7, 1977, Franklin shot and killed an interracial couple, Alphonse Manning Jr. and Toni Schwenn, in a parking lot at East Towne Mall in Madison, Wisconsin. On October 8, 1977, Franklin fired on congregants at Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, killing 42-year-old Gerald Gordon and wounding Steven Goldman and William Ash.

On March 6, 1978, Franklin used a Ruger .44 caliber semi-automatic rifle to ambush Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and his lawyer Gene Reeves in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Franklin confessed it was retaliation for an interracial sex edition of Hustler. No charges were filed for this shooting. On July 29, 1978, Franklin killed Bryant Tatum, a Black man, near a Pizza Hut in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and shot his white girlfriend, Nancy Hilton, who survived. He confessed and received a life sentence, along with a sentence for an unrelated 1977 armed robbery.

On July 12, 1979, Taco Bell manager Harold McIver, a Black man, was fatally shot in Doraville, Georgia. Franklin confessed but was not tried for this crime. On October 21, 1979, Franklin murdered Jesse E. Taylor, a Black man, and his white wife, Marion Bresette, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

On May 29, 1980, Franklin shot and seriously wounded civil rights activist Vernon Jordan in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Initially denying involvement, Franklin later confessed. On June 8, 1980, Franklin killed cousins Darrell Lane (14) and Dante Evans Brown (13) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He confessed in 1998, receiving two life sentences. On June 15, 1980, Franklin shot and killed Arthur Smothers and Kathleen Mikula in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Although never arrested for these murders, he confessed during a jailhouse interview. On June 25, 1980, Franklin killed hitchhikers Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian in West Virginia. He confessed in 1997. Jacob Beard was wrongly convicted and later freed. On August 20, 1980, Franklin killed Ted Fields and David Martin, two Black men, in Salt Lake City, Utah, facing both federal civil rights and state first-degree murder charges.

After the Utah murders, Franklin was detained in Kentucky but fled. Evidence from his vehicle linked him to the sniper killings. His racist tattoos and blood bank visits led to a nationwide alert. In October 1980, he was arrested in Florida. Franklin was convicted of multiple murders and crimes across the U.S., receiving life sentences and the death penalty in several states.

During his 1997 Missouri trial for murdering Gerald Gordon, Franklin attempted to escape but was convicted. Psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis testified that Franklin was a paranoid schizophrenic, but he was deemed fit for trial. In October 2013, Larry Flynt called for clemency for Franklin, opposing the death penalty.

Franklin was executed on November 20, 2013, in Missouri, using a single-drug lethal injection due to a European Union export ban on execution drugs. His execution was initially stayed by federal judges but ultimately carried out after appeals were rejected. Franklin renounced his racist views before his execution, attributing his actions to an abusive upbringing and illogical thinking.

Franklin inspired William L. Pierce's novel "Hunter," about a racist serial killer. Pierce dedicated the book to Franklin. Franklin was portrayed by Jan Tříska in the film "The People vs. Larry Flynt" and appeared in the MSNBC series "Criminal Mindscape