Evidence in the case spanned three decades of policing in Southern California, from the murderous, crack-fueled 1980s, during which at least two serial killers were operating in South Los Angeles, to the creation of an LAPD cold-case unit and the modern era of advanced DNA testing.
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“On the inside I know you’re broken and you’re hurting just like all of us”, she said, adding she would pray for him.
Franklin sat upright and attentive throughout the trial, rarely speaking with his lawyers and showing no emotion as the verdicts were read. I miss her very much.
Los Angeles Superior Judge Kathleen Kennedy sentenced the “Grim Sleeper” to death during the hearing on August 10, 2016.
Relatives also delivered statements at the hearing, including one from a mother whose daughter was among the “Grim Sleeper” victims.
“I’m still battling that”, Alexander said.
Franklin nodded and turned back to the judge. The then-unknown killer apparently fell dormant for years.
A picture of Washington, shot and bloodied was also found, as was the weapon that killed Janecia Peters, and also, Sharon Dismuke found in 1984 at a gas station, which confirms that there may be way more unidentified victims than previously thought.
Several of the women Franklin targeted worked as prostitutes or had drug habits. Numerous women were initially listed as Jane Does.
Authorities ultimately linked the slayings through ballistic and genetic evidence, although identifying the DNA proved hard for investigators.
It did not take long for investigators to pick up the trail of the man’s father, Lonnie Franklin, and tail the man wherever he went.
He was arrested and charged in July 2010 after DNA collected from pizza crusts and napkins at a birthday party linked him to more than a dozen crime scenes. The Times has previously reported that police had urged the state to look for DNA matches that could be related to the killer, and got approval from Jerry Brown, who was California’s attorney general at the time.
A search of Franklin’s home on 81st Street – not far from the South L.A. corridor where numerous victims’ bodies were found – turned up a.25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. A month earlier, it had convicted him on 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
One the “Grim Sleeper’s” victims did not perish and testified against him. Most were shot at close range, though two were strangled and two were both strangled and shot. Franklin proved to be particularly elusive, earning his sinister nickname because his murders appeared to cease between 1988 and 2002.
Nearly three decades after the attack, Washington told prosecutors Franklin’s modus operandi and declared on the trial.
Amster filed a motion asking for a new trial, arguing that Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman had committed prosecutorial misconduct and influenced the jury.
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“I find that the aggravating circumstances do so substantially outweigh the circumstances of mitigation as to warrant death – and that the jury’s verdict imposing the death penalty is fully supported by the law and the evidence presented at this trial”. A woman testified that Franklin, as a U.S. Army private stationed overseas, was one of three assailants who gang-raped her in Germany in 1974.
