The so-called “Grim Sleeper” killer was found guilty in May of murdering 10 women over the period of 20 years. He came to be called the Grim Sleeper.
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A California serial killer known as the “Grim Sleeper” should be put to death, a Los Angeles jury recommended Monday, capping a case that has played out over three decades, according to reports from the Los Angeles Times And other news outlets. She had been strangled and shot.
The verdict must be formerly upheld by a judge at a sentencing hearing in August.
The court heard Franklin had committed crimes dating back to the 1974 kidnapping and gang rape of a 17-year-old girl in Germany while he was in the USA military.
Franklin remained stoic Monday in the courtroom as the decision on sentencing was announced, the Times reported. “It’s a long time coming”.
A detective posing as a busboy at a pizza parlor later collected utensils and crusts from Franklin while he was attending a birthday party.
His defence team advanced the theory that a “mystery man” was responsible for the murders, but prosecuting lawyers slammed this as a far-fetched fiction.
Today the jury recommended that Franklin receive the death penalty. Franklin was arrested in July 2010 after his DNA was connected to some crime scenes.
Although there was an apparent gap in murders between 19898 and 2002 earning Franklin the nickname of “Grim Sleeper”, authorities now say they don’t think he ever stopped his murder spree. Prosecutors also introduced evidence tying Franklin to four additional deaths of women between 1984 and 2006, the district attorney’s office said.
The survivor who Franklin was convicted of attempting to murder helped prosecutors establish the killer’s modus operandi.
Enietra Washington described getting a lift from Franklin in his orange Ford Pinto and then having him shoot her in the chest while she sat in the passenger seat.
Investigators found a photo of Washington, bleeding and partially naked behind a wall in Franklin’s garage.
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He was also convicted of the attempted murder of an 11th victim who survived being shot, raped and pushed out of a auto in 1988, reports say. Photographs of some Franklin’s victims – hundreds of photographs – were found in Franklin’s home, police said.
