The "Grim Sleeper" was a serial killer who terrorized the South Los Angeles community for more than two decades. Between 1985 and 2007, the killer is believed to have murdered at least ten people, mostly young women who were involved in the sex trade. The killer earned the nickname "Grim Sleeper" because of the apparent hiatus in his murders between 1988 and 2002.
In 2010, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) arrested Lonnie Franklin Jr. for the murders after linking him to the crimes through DNA evidence. Franklin was eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Grim Sleeper case was controversial for a number of reasons. One of the main criticisms was the LAPD's handling of the case, particularly the fact that it took them so long to apprehend Franklin. Many people in the community accused the police of not taking the killings seriously because the victims were mostly poor, African American women who were involved in the sex trade.
There were also accusations that the LAPD had suppressed evidence in the case, including a number of photographs that were found in Franklin's possession. These photographs depicted women who were believed to be potential victims of the Grim Sleeper, and some of them were eventually identified as victims.
The release of the photographs sparked outrage in the community, with many people feeling that the LAPD had failed to protect the women in the photographs and had not done enough to catch the killer. The case also shed light on the issue of violence against sex workers, and the ways in which society often fails to recognize and address this issue.
Ultimately, the Grim Sleeper case serves as a reminder of the importance of holding law enforcement accountable and of the need to take all cases of violence, particularly those against marginalized communities, seriously. It is a tragic example of how systemic biases and neglect can have devastating consequences for victims and their families.
'Grim Sleeper' photos: 4 missing persons cases opened, 53 women identified
The man told the dispatcher the van's license plate was 1PZP746, and police located it about 30 minutes later at the now-defunct Cosmopolitan Cathedral. Pelisek was told by an aide that the chief was "too busy to comment. Franklin is accused of killing women from 1985 to 1988 and from 2002 to 2007. The city's failure to involve the families, she believes, stems from the fact that "they are poor little black girls. In 1985, the first of many victims was found in an alley, having been shot three times. He last struck on Jan. Police say Franklin was linked to the crimes using a relatively new and controversial forensic technique known as 'Familial' DNA searching.
LAPD releases photos in ‘Grim Sleeper’ killer case
One picture, tagged No. Franklin worked as an attendant working on LAPD cars in 1981, and then later worked in the sanitation department. Kilcoyne said detectives have received nearly 200 tips on the women's identities through phone calls, messages to their tip line and e-mails. In a different case, Huntington Beach detectives in March were inundated with hundreds of phone calls and e-mails after they released more than 100 photos discovered in serial killer Rodney Alcala's storage locker after his 1979 arrest. A new team picked up the case after the killings began again. For that reason, the LAPD opted to release closely cropped versions of the images that show the women's faces.
"Grim Sleeper" Update: Pictures Released by LAPD Spark Four Missing Persons Cases
We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. Police also have said they suspect Franklin in the death of a man who may have discovered he was a killer. It was difficult to tell if any of the photos, some of them multiple shots of the same women, contained any evidence of a crime, Beck said. The stills are closely cropped to show little more than the women's faces. Ballistics and DNA tests later tied evidence from that killing to six other killings in Los Angeles.