Did the Grim Sleeper Kill 180 Victims? As Alleged Serial Killer’s Trial Begins, Mystery Surrounds His Massive Stash of Photographs Showing Women Asleep, Drugged and Even Dead
- Lonnie Frankilin Jr has denied killing 10 females between 1985 and 2007
- Most of the victims were dumped in alleys and garbage bins in LA
- Some of them were found naked and covered with mattresses and trash
- Officers now fear that the Grim Sleeper may have claimed 180 lives
Daily Mail UK, 18 February 2016
Sitting in the dock with a formal blue shirt and a pair of reading glasses, Lonnie Franklin Jr watches the big screen as the faces of ten women are shown to the jury.
The 63-year-old former police mechanic from Los Angeles is accused of killing the women over a period between 1985 and 2007, having taken a break between 1988 and 2002. The gap between the murders earned him the moniker 'Grim Sleeper'.
Franklin denies the murders. But when detectives raided his house they found a bizarre collection of more than 1,000 photographs and several hundred hours of video. Police believe as many as 180 of those women have been killed by the Grim Sleeper.
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Lonnie Franklin Jr, 63, pictured yesterday on the first day of his trial for the murder of ten women, listened as prosecutors claimed he was the notorious 'Grim Sleeper' killer who stalked South Los Angeles for 22 years
Prosecutor Beth Silverman, pictured, showed the jury photographs of ten women she believes were murdered by Franklin between 1985 and 2007 on the opening day of the trial which is expected to last for four months
Porter Alexander, pictured holding a photograph of his daughter Alicia, who is one of Franklin's alleged victims. Mr Alexander was forced to leave the courtroom when an image of his daughter naked was shown to the jury
Franklin denies killing the women whose bodies were all found within a five mile radius of his house
Over the next four months, prosecutors will attempt to link Franklin to the first ten killings. The youngest victim was just 15. At the same time, detectives will interrogate cold case files to try and link Franklin to other unsolved cases, some of which date from the 1970s.
The bodies of all ten women were found within five miles of Franklin's home in South Los Angeles.
Prosecutor Beth Sliverman set the scene. Many of the young women had been shot. Most had been subjected to some form of sexual assault. Their bodies were dumped in alleys, stuffed into garbage bins while some were covered with a mattress.
One, Janecia Peters, was found by a homeless man who was collecting cans. Her body was discovered on New Year's Day, 2007, hidden under Christmas tree, approximately five miles south of Franklin's home.
The 25-year-old victim had been shot in the back, but police at the time could not identify her. Her family were unaware of her murder until after Franklin's arrest.
Officers discovered a bizarre collection of images in his house. They released 180 pictures to the public to see if they could identify anybody. At least one of those pictured was an unidentified murder victim. Peters was 191 on the list.
She is the final victim on the charge sheet, but police and prosecutors believe there are others.
Franklin insists he has not killed anyone.
Franklin was arrested after detectives ran DNA from the crime scenes against a database seeking a partial match with any of the suspect's relatives when they identified Franklin's son Christopher
Prosecutors projected images for the jury of the ten women who they claim were murdered by Franklin
Franklin, according to prosecutors, was invisible, able to blend in perfectly amid the chaos of a city which was blighted by crack cocaine.
For the families, the graphic details were too much. Photographs of each victim were shown to the court. Groups of family members wept openly. Some had to leave the court.
After 30 years, Franklin appeared in court, almost six years since his arrest in 2010.
Prosecutors claim that all the victims, bar one, had cocaine in their system.
The families claim that the LAPD was not interested in investigating the deaths of young black women, some of whom had turned to prostitution to pay for their addiction.
In the Grim Sleeper's South Los Angeles of the mid 1980s, crack cocaine spread through the community destroying lives. The victims came mostly from poor backgrounds and had a multitude of problems.
Police are undecided over the Grim Sleeper's true record of death. One victim survived an attack in 1988 which some believe scared the killer into taking a break until 2002 when the urge to murder became too strong.
Others say a serial killer will not take a break and there are more victims out there. Women who had disappeared and their bodies never found.
The woman who survived despite being raped and shot told detectives her attacker was a black man in his 20s and between 5'8 and 5'10 tall weighing about 160 pounds.
She described him as 'soft-spoken and articulate'. She said his hair was trimmed and he had a 'pockmarked face'.
One team of detectives has been going through cold case files going back to the 1970s to see if any of the unsolved cases match the Grim Sleeper's profile.
Officers raiding Franklin's house after his arrest found pictures of more than 1,000 women and videos
The LAPD has released copies of the photographs in the hope that friends or family can identify the women
It is feared that many of the women on the list may have been murdered by the Grim Sleeper
Silverman stood before the jury to open the case against Franklin. She spoke about the crack cocaine problem which swept the city and accused Franklin of targeting the women 'willing to sell their bodies and their souls in order to gratify their dependency on this powerful drug'.
She said: 'This was the perfect opportunity for someone who preyed on women.
'Someone who knew the streets and the dark alleys by heart, someone who lived there and was able to blend in, someone who knew where the drug-addicted women and perhaps prostitutes would congregate and who knew how to lure potential victims into the darkness and the isolation of a vehicle through the promise of crack.'
Against this, Franklin's attorney Seymour Amster will attempt to spread doubt among the jury, to convince them that the LAPD have got the wrong man.
Speaking shortly before the trial, Amster said: 'There more to it than people want to believe.'
Soon he will get the opportunity to address the jury with his own opening statement.
The photographs were recovered by detectives who raided Franklin's South Los Angeles home, pictured
Yet Silverman tantalised the jury about the forensic evidence that had been gathered. Ballistics reports which link the killings to various firearms. DNA which matched Franklin.
Two of the photographs shown to the jury came from Franklin's home. The images featured two of the Grim Sleeper's victims, one of whom had been photographs after being shot in the chest.
Despite the abundance of evidence referred to by Silverman, police made very little progress in the case for the first couple of decades.
As many as 30 detectives investigated the case in the 1980s, but potential leads turned into dead ends.
Families erected memorials to the women outside a church on the 25th anniversary of the first murder
When Janecia Peters was found in June 2007, a special squad of detectives was assembled, tasked with capturing the Grim Sleeper. The 25-year-old's naked body had been dumped in a trash bag. She was laying in a foetal position. She had been shot.
It took a further three years for officers to arrest Franklin, even though he had a prior criminal record. His DNA profile should have been on file, yet it had been discarded by mistake.
Police decided to try and match the DNA found at the various crime scenes to see if they could identify a family member, to narrow down the search.
Franklin's son Christopher had been found guilty of a weapons charge. As part of the process his DNA had been entered onto a database. When officers ran the mystery DNA though the database, they found a partial match with Christopher Franklin.
Police then launched an elaborate sting to secure his father's DNA.
One undercover officer, posing as a waiter in a pizza restaurant served Franklin. As soon as the suspected finished his food, the officer bagged the remaining pizza crusts, dishes and utensils.
The unorthodox technique provided a match. The legality of this approach is bound to be tested by the defence.
Janecia Peters was 119 on the list released by the LAPD following Franklin's arrest. Her body was found dumped under a Christmas tree in 2007
Speaking at the time of Franklin's arrest, police chief Charlie Beck released a montage of 180 woman whose photographs had been found inside the suspect's house.
He told a press conference: 'These people are not suspects. We don't even know if they're victims.
'But we do now the reign of terror in Los Angeles, which spanned well over two decades culminating in almost a dozen murder victims certainly needs to be investigated further.'
One family recognised the photograph of their relative among those which had been found in Franklin's house.
Number 119 on the list, Janecia Peters was given a name.
Her body was found dumped under a Christmas tree on January 1, 2007 by a homeless man who was collecting cans. She had been shot and covered with a garbage bag.
At the time of her murder, she was listed as unidentified.
Yet, relatives of the victims have been frustrated by the length of time it has taken to bring the case to court.
Porter Alexander was 48 when his 18-year-old daughter was murdered. Now he is 75, yet the emotion is still raw.
'The day of reckoning is here. You can't help but be excited that you lived to see an end to this madness. It's been a long road, and I'm glad I'll physically be able to be there.'
Investigators recovered boxes of evidence from Franklin's South Los Angeles home after his arrest in 2010
In July, 2010, a billboard showing that the suspect known as the Grim Sleeper had been arrested stands near a freeway in Compton, California, 25 years after the killing frenzy began
When photos of his daughter's naked body were shown in court Tuesday, Alexander walked out as other family members comforted his weeping wife.
Neighbours said Franklin often boasted about visiting prostitutes and bringing them back to his home.
Sherwood Howard said Franklin would show off nude photos he took of the women from the neck down and talk about his exploits and kept the pictures in the garage.
'He'd go and mess with women all night long,' Howard said.
'We knew he was kind of weird, but he was a regular person.'
The Grim Sleeper was among at least three serial killers who stalked Los Angeles-area women during a crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s.
The attacks were dubbed the 'Southside Slayer' killings before authorities concluded more than one attacker was involved.
Chester Turner has been convicted of killing 14 women, including one who was pregnant, and was sentenced to death in 2007. Michael Hughes was sentenced to death in 2012 for strangling a 15-year-old girl and two women. He previously got life for four killings.
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THE TEN LA WOMEN LONNIE FRANKLIN JR IS ACCUSED OF MURDERING
August 10, 1985: Debra Jackson - A 29-year-old ****tail waitress who went to take a bus home after visiting her friend.
Her body was found three days later with three gunshot wounds to the chest.
August 12, 1986: Henrietta Wright - The 35-year-old was found dead in an alley near West Vernon Avenue.
She was shot twice and wrapped in a blanket and covered in a mattress.
January 10, 1987: Barbara Ware - The 23-year-old had been shot once in the chest and her body had been dumped under a pile of rubbish.
April 15, 1987: Bernita Sparks - 26-year-old went out to the shops but never returned. Her body was found in a bin, covered in rubbish. She had been shot, strangled and beaten.
October 31, 1987: Mary Lowe - 26-year-old left home to go to a party, but never returned. Her body was found in an alley of Western Avenue.
January 30, 1988: Lachrica Jefferson - Officers found the 22-year-old's body with a napkin over the face with the word 'AIDS' written on it.
September 11, 1988: Alicia Alexander - Another victim killed while going to the shops. The 18-year-old's body was also found in an alley near Western Avenue.
December 21, 2001: Princess Berthomieux - The end of the 14-year hiatus. DNA on the 14-year-old's body matched those of previous killings.
July 11, 2003: Valerie McCorvey - The 35-year-old had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
January 1, 2007: Janecia Peters - 25-year-old was shot in the back and her body was dumped in a rubbish bag.
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Grim Sleeper Serial Killer Trial Begins;
FULL MOVIE;
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