‘Grim Sleeper’ Serial Killer Convicted of 10 Murders Across Los Angeles

‘Grim Sleeper’ Serial Killer Convicted of 10 Murders Across Los Angeles
Jack Phillips
5/5/2016
Updated:
5/6/2016

The serial killer known as the “Grim Sleeper,” believed to be responsible for at least 10 murders in Los Angeles since 1985, was convicted.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., a former police garage attendant and garbage collector, was found guilty for the murders, becoming one of California’s worst serial killers. The deaths spanned between 1985 and 2007. A gap of more than 13 years earned him the “Sleeper” nickname.

Lonnie Franklin Jr. appears in Los Angeles Superior Court during closing arguments of his trail on May 2, 2016, in Los Angeles. The “Grim Sleeper” serial killer trial is coming to a close in Los Angeles after months of testimony. Franklin is charged with killing nine women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and 2007. They were shot or strangled and their bodies dumped in alleys and trash bins in South Los Angeles and nearby areas. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)
Lonnie Franklin Jr. appears in Los Angeles Superior Court during closing arguments of his trail on May 2, 2016, in Los Angeles. The “Grim Sleeper” serial killer trial is coming to a close in Los Angeles after months of testimony. Franklin is charged with killing nine women and a 15-year-old girl between 1985 and 2007. They were shot or strangled and their bodies dumped in alleys and trash bins in South Los Angeles and nearby areas. (Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool)

The Los Angeles Times reported that the jury spent a day and a half on deliberations before finding Franklin guilty on 10 counts of murder in the killings of nine young black women and one 15-year-old girl. He was found guilty on one count of attempted murder in 1988. They were fatally shot or strangled and dumped in South Los Angeles during the crack cocaine epidemic. Some were prostitutes and most had cocaine in their systems.

The trial will now go to the penalty phase, starting May 11, CNN reported. Franklin faces the death penalty for his crimes.

Prosecutors said that two more women, including one he was convicted of raping and another he tried to kidnap in Germany while he was in the Army, might testify in the penalty phase.

In the trial, prosecutors described him as a sexual predator who killed his victims and then dumped their bodies.

“He did it over, and over, and over, and over and over, and over,” Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman said, reported CNN. “All of the murders in this case are first degree. They are all willful. They are all deliberate. They are all pre-meditated.”

A defense lawyer claimed a “mystery man” was the killer, though the prosecutor said that theory was fabricated.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
twitter
Related Topics