She has since identified Franklin as her assailant. 25 caliber handgun and sexually assaulted before escaping. 25 caliber handgun seized from Franklin’s home the day he was arrested.Ī woman alleged to be a surviving victim of Franklin is expected to be a star witness against him.Įnietra Washington was shot in the chest with a. Prosecutors say they have tied Franklin to the killings with physical evidence, including saliva collected from bodies, and ballistic matches between slugs recovered from crime scenes and a. The LAPD has been both criticized for failing to alert the community sooner that there was a serial killer on the prowl (before Franklin was identified by name) and heralded for doggedly pursuing the case once the more recent slayings were discovered.Įvidence in the case will span three decades of policing in Los Angeles: From the murderous, crack-fueled 1980s, during which at least two serial killers were operating in South L.A., to the relative calm of the 2000s and the creation of an LAPD cold case unit charged with taking fresh looks at unsolved slayings, to the modern era of advanced DNA testing.
The case has already spawned a documentary about Franklin, an “official” website and a made-for-TV movie about a local reporter whose stories for the LA Weekly drew attention to the case. The defense reserved its opening statements until after the prosecution completes its list of witnesses, at which point the defense will begin presenting its side to the jury. “All tested positive for cocaine, except one,” Silverman said of the autopsies. … Some were missing their underwear.”Īll bodies were “Jane Does” when first discovered, and relatives had to identify them later. “Most of them were in various states of undress,” she said in her opening statement. Victims were taken from a murder scene, and their bodies were dumped in alleys and trash bins, concealed by garbage or mattresses, the prosecutor said. Silverman told the jury Tuesday that the murders “followed a pattern.”Ī case with a lot of notoriety This is the reward poster provided by the LAPD for the Grim Sleeper.
The trial is expected to last two to three months, said Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, the lead prosecutor on the case. “All I can say is stayed tuned,” said the lawyer, Seymour Amster. His attorney has promised a vigorous defense of the man neighbors described as friendly, helpful and reliable. The killings for which Franklin is charged came in spurts that were 13 years apart, resulting in the nickname “the Grim Sleeper” for the period of apparent inactivity.įranklin, 63, has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. (Credit: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times)įranklin, a former garbage collector and police garage attendant, was charged with killing one girl and nine women ranging in age from 15 to 35 over a span of three decades.
appears in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Grim Sleeper suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr. faced a jury Tuesday in a downtown courtroom. Thirty years after the first of the Grim Sleeper serial killer victims was found fatally shot and discarded in a South Los Angeles alley, Lonnie David Franklin Jr. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.