Los Angeles County Superior Court Kathleen Kennedy imposed the death sentence recommended in June for Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 63, by a jury.
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The exasperated judge said the two seemed to have a vendetta against each other and she feared World War III would break out in her courtroom.
Franklin claimed his early victims amid the violent crack cocaine epidemic that overtook Los Angeles and other USA cities in the 1980s and 1990s. As a outcome of this lack of serious investigations, they were only believed to be random murders instead of a serial killer’s job.
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.
To each of Alexander’s inquiries, Franklin, who has denied involvement since his arrest and during trial, reportedly said softly, “I didn’t do it”.
He never spoke loud enough for her to hear.
– Janecia Peters, 25, shot in the back and found naked inside a sealed plastic trash bag in a trash bin in an alley in South Los Angeles on January 1, 2007.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. stands in court during his arraignment on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in Los Angeles Criminal Court July 8, 2010.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman of the Major Crimes Division and Deputy District Attorney Marguerite Rizzo of the Forensic Science Section prosecuted the case.
Prosecution lawyers had described him as “completely irredeemable” and a “psychopathic, sadistic serial killer who takes joy in inflicting pain on women and killing them”. During the trial, his attorneys sought to raise doubts about DNA evidence and suggested another “mystery man” was behind the killings.
Franklin was convicted of murdering nine women and a girl, though prosecutors say they believe he is linked to as many as 25 murders.
He targeted vulnerable young black women over 20 years in the inner city of Los Angeles.
During the sentencing hearing Franklin became agitated when a victim’s relative said she had been friendly with him. Enietra Washington said she remembered Franklin climbing on top of her and a camera flashing as she lost consciousness.
In his house, police found a gun used in killings and Polaroids of some victims, including one of Washington in which she was partly topless and bleeding from her gunshot wound.
Franklin was connected to the crimes after a task force that re-examined the old cases discovered that DNA from Franklin’s son, which was in a database because of an arrest, showed similarities to genetic evidence found on some of the “Grim Sleeper” victims. It was of a man whose DNA had been entered into the system and it revealed that this man was related to the Grim Sleeper killer.
She said she’ll rest easier knowing he can’t harm anyone.
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The state has more than 740 inmates on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
