Lonnie Franklin
The Grim Sleeper
The Thirst for killing may subside but it always just lingers below the surface. It was the 1980s in Los Angeles when Alleyways and dumpsters begin to unravel the grizzly resting places of female corpses; due to the consecutive similarities of each body found police linked each murder to the hands of one killer. One they would eventually name the Southside Slayer, with the increase of activity in the case the Southside Slayer was brought to the attention of news outlets around California upon further investigation detectives were able to identify a handful of additional killers as opposed to one main suspect making it difficult to link each murder to one case. At this time the detectives were able to identify four men involved in each case; these were four men that did not know each other, however, had a very similar style of killing at a very similar point in time. Louis Craine, Daniel Lee Siebert, Ivan Hill and Michael Hughes were all convicted of killing more than one victim; each by methods of strangulation and stabbing, however, the body of a particular victim named Deborah Jackson was eventually found I've been killed by another method one which didn't to any of the other killings this lead to investigators searching for an entirely different murderer. It would be two entire decades later when police were finally able to tie the murder of Deborah to a prime suspect the one who would eventually be known as The Grim sleeper. In 2007 a homeless man scavenging for food discovered the body of Janecia Peters who was found shot to death in left to decay in a garbage bag; it didn't take investigators very long to link the DNA of their most recent victim to previous slayings that had taken place a mere twenty years prior. The missing link eventually lead detectives to dub their unknown killer as The Grim sleeper due to the large break in between the slayings. A team consisting of 7 investigators were formed for the case specifically and together were titled the “800 task force”. Just after 4 months into the investigation, the 800 task force made headlines when they created friction between the police department and the public; keeping the killer a silent cause among the public for 23 years enraged residents across the city. Both the mayor of Los Angeles and the police chief had kept silent; never reaching out to families nor addressing the fact that a serial killer was still roaming the streets. With the abundance of headlines making way a woman named Enietra Washington came forward shortly after; stating that she had been close to death by the hands of the serial killer. She described her attacker as a thin well groomed African-American man in his early 30s who had persistently offered her a lift to a party she was supposed to attend that fateful evening; stating he had to make a quick stop at his uncle’s residence the two pulled over to the side of a quiet neighborhood where he got out of the car and made his way to the unknown house. It didn’t take long before her attacker made his way back into the car and eventually started an argument with the victim; he then pulled out a 25 caliber handgun shooting her in the chest. Once blacking out she had awoken to her attacker sexually assaulting her in the car while documenting the attack with a polaroid camera. It was moments after when she pleaded to be taken to the hospital for her serious injuries; to which he refused to in fear of getting caught for his actions, fortunately, however, she did escape. The LAPD would finally have their well-awaited breakthrough in 2010 when they're able to apprehend 52-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr as a prime suspect in their case with sufficient DNA evidence in their database police rightfully charge their main lead for 10 murders and one attempted murder from 1985 to 2007. Under further investigation, police were able to track Franklin's criminal record that mainly based around stolen property and battery charges in 1989. Unsuccessful in retrieving the identity of additional victims the LAPD release 180 photos of women found in Lonnie's house. To this day it’s still unknown as to whether or not all of the women in the photos were actually victims of the convicted serial killer. As time went on, however, investigators were eventually able to retrieve over 1000 images and several hundred hours of video footage in the house dating back 30 years; it was noted that Franklin had a keen interest in African American female spanning from young teenagers to older women it appear that the images were taken by the hands of the killer who often have the women nude, conscious or unconscious at times it was unknown if the women who appeared unconscious were either asleep or dead the effort to help identify additional females in the case has yet to be proven fruitful, however, their images are still available to the public.
Sources: Rob Dyke, Murderpedia
