A garbage collector convicted of the “Grim Sleeper” killings that terrorised southern Los Angeles for more than two decades was sentenced to death on Wednesday (Aug 10).
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During the three-month trial featuring the testimony of more than 60 witnesses, prosecutors portrayed Franklin as a sexual predator who killed his victims, then dumped their bodies in alleys and dumpsters in South Los Angeles, all within a few miles of his home. Judge Kathleen Kennedy chose to formally uphold the jury’s preference rather than to sentence Franklin to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sure enough, they had finally found the Grim Sleeper killer and earlier this year, Lonnie Franklin was convicted of all 10 counts of the Grim Sleeper murders.
Franklin faces the death penalty when he is sentenced for the murders of nine women and a teenage girl. Franklin “sat stoically” as the sentence came down, the newspaper’s reported. “He routinely manipulated others to achieve his goal: doing evil”, they said in a written submission.
“I’d like for Mr. Franklin to turn around and face me”, she said, according to the Times.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life”, he told Vivian Williams, who said he knew who she was. Mary Alexander, gripped the podium when she asked him why he murdered her 18-year-old daughter.
“Your loved one, your daughter, your sister, your mother, your friend is still gone”, she said.
“I want you to stop it”, she blurted at one point.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. was sentenced in Los Angeles County Superior Court after emotional family members of his victims spoke about the pain they had endured for decades.
But deputy district attorneys Beth Silverman and Marguerite Rizzo countered that “a death sentence is clearly warranted based on the evidence and the law”.
“The defendant is a serial killer who intentionally targeted victims who were easy to exploit”, they said in a written submission before the sentencing. After each name had been read, the judge told Franklin Jr., that he would suffer the penalty of death. Most of the women were fatally shot at close range, though two were strangled and two were shot and choked.
Franklin, 63, was also convicted of the attempted murder of Enietra Washington, who was shot in the chest and pushed out of a moving vehicle. He was dubbed the “Grim Sleeper” because of a gap between killings attributed to him. Seven women were killed between 1985 and 1988, and three more were killed between 2002 and 2007.
Although he was arrested in July 2010 after investigators connected his DNA to some of the victims, appeals and judicial wrangling repeatedly delayed efforts to bring him to trial. The bullet that was extracted from her helped to tie up the ballistic evidence.
There is a better than good chance that Franklin could have taken his Grim Sleeper persona all the way to his grave if it weren’t for his son who got pinched for a crime and put into the system.
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An undercover officer posed as a waiter at a local restaurant and collected a pizza crust left behind by the suspect.
