Lonnie Franklin, the Los Angeles serial killer known as “The Grim
Sleeper” has been sentenced to death for the murders of ten women
between 1985 and 2007.
A former rubbish collector who at one point was mechanic for the
LAPD, Franklin targeted addicts and prostitutes in his long but sporadic
killing spree, claiming victims who ranged in age from 15 to 35. The
women were all shot or strangled, and their bodies dumped in alleyways
close to Franklin’s home in South LA.
Some of the victims’ family members wept as Superior Court Judge
Kathleen Kennedy read out the death sentences. Others repeated “Amen”
after each one, the Los Angeles Times reported. Franklin sat silent and impassive.
The sentencing came at the climax of a hearing at which 17 relatives
of the victims read statements to the court. Laverne Peters, whose
25-year-old daughter was killed in 2007 and her body left in a rubbish
bin, said Franklin had treated her “like she was trash,” adding: “My
hope is that he spends the rest of his glory days in his jail cell,
which will become his trash bag.”
Franklin claimed his early victims amid the violent crack cocaine
epidemic that overtook Los Angeles and other US cities in the 1980s and
1990s. Police failed to connect the slayings at the time, in part
because at least three serial killers were active in South Los Angeles
during the same period. Franklin proved to be particularly elusive,
earning his sinister nickname because his murders appeared to cease
between 1988 and 2002.
Police finally closed in following DNA advances in the 2000s. When
Franklin’s son Christopher was arrested on firearm and drugs charges,
his DNA proved a match for that found on several of the victims.
Franklin was arrested at last in July 2010.
One of dozens of witnesses at the three-month trial was Enietra
Washington, 57, who testified that he had sexually assaulted and shot
her, snapping her picture with a Polaroid camera before he dumped her
from his vehicle during the attack in 1988. Franklin was also found
guilty of Ms Washington’s attempted murder.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, prosecutors linked Franklin
to five further killings. Police believe he may have murdered as many
as 25 women in total.
Independent
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