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Jury convicts LA serial killer “The Grim Sleeper” of ten murders

 

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He became known as The Grim Sleeper and he is one of the most notorious serial killers in California history. On Thursday, a Los Angeles jury convicted Lonnie Franklin, Jr. of ten murders that spanned nearly thirty years. He was convicted of murdering one little girl and nine women in a spree that experts believe happened between 1985-2007.

The media called him The Grim Sleeper because he seemed to have “slept” for 13 years between killings. Most of the time, experts say, when there is a gap in time with regard to serial killers it is, usually, because they have begun to murder somewhere else, are in prison, or are dead. The jury took two days to reach their guilty verdict. Franklin, Jr. was unemotional as the jury foreperson read their verdict to the court.

The penalty phase will now commence where the jury must decide on the death penalty or not. Two other women who Franklin had attacked and survived may be brought in to testify against him during the penalty phase of the trial. Franklin, Jr. had worked as a garage attendant and as a garbage truck driver in Los Angeles according to court records.

LA Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman exhorting the jury in her closing argument. "He did it over and over and over..."

LA Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman exhorting the jury in her closing argument. “He did it over and over and over…”

The trial lasted three months and the prosecution’s case was based solely on DNA evidence. It linked Franklin, Jr. to the murders in the 1980’s when DNA profiling did not exist at that time. The case was built on saliva found on victim’s breasts and ballistics evidence. Franklin, Jr.’s mode was to kill the victims and then move the bodies and usually dispose of them in dumpsters.

One woman, Enietra Washington, survived an attack in 1988 and testified during the trial. She said that Franklin had convinced her to get into his Ford Pinto. After she agreed, Franklin shot her and she remember a flash of light going off before she passed out. Franklin just shoved her body out of the car and took off. Police later found photos of Washington behind a wall in his house along with photos of dozens of other women that they believed may have been his future targets.

Photos of what investigators believed may have been future victims were found in Franklin's home

Photos of what investigators believed may have been future victims were found in Franklin’s home

Deputy District Attorney, Beth Silverman, exhorted the jury in her closing argument as she said, “He did it over and over and over…all of the murders in this case are first degree. They are all willful. They are all deliberate. They are all premeditated.”

After years of tireless investigation, investigators finally got a DNA match on a convicted felon whose father was Franklin. The investigators hatched a plan to follow Franklin and somehow get a DNA sample from him. After having a pizza at a local restaurant, an undercover officer pretended to be a waiter and grabbed the pizza crust that Franklin had left behind and they had their DNA match.

Silverman concluded that Franklin was ” a serial killer hiding in plain site.”

PHOTO CREDITS: The Associated Press / Rick Loomis