Grim Sleeper Suspect caught

For well over two decades, the killer had eluded police. His victims, most of them prostitutes in South Los Angeles, had lived on the margins of society, and their deaths left few useful clues aside from the DNA of the man who had sexually assaulted them in the moments before their death.

Over 25 years, the “Grim Sleeper” killed 10 people. Now, police have the man they believe to be responsible for the serial killings in custody. Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested today, after new DNA evidence linked him to the “Grim Sleeper” murders.

Franklin Jr., 57, is being charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. The Associated Press reports that if Franklin Jr. is convicted, he will be eligible to receive the death penalty.

The killings, which mainly involved black women who were linked to drug addition or prostitution, occurred between 1985 and 2007.

The arrest occurred after Franklin Jr.’s son was arrested and swabbed for DNA. Police used a new DNA technique, called familial DNA search, to link Franklin Jr. to the “Grim Sleeper” killings.

District Attorney Steve Cooley said that this is the first time that the familial DNA technique has been used successfully in California.

A sweep of state prisons in 2008 failed to come up with the killer or anyone related to him. Then, last Wednesday, came startling news: A second "familial search" of prisons had come up with the identity of a convict whose DNA indicated that he was a close relative of the serial killer suspected of killing at least 10 women and one man.




Working through the Fourth of July weekend, LAPD detectives drew up a family tree of the man, then began analyzing all the men on it. Were they the right age? Did they live near the murder scenes? Was there anything in their background to explain why the serial killer had apparently stopped killing for 13 years, then resumed in 2003?

From that painstaking process, according to LAPD officials who requested anonymity, one man, the prisoner's father, emerged as a likely suspect. A team of undercover officers was sent to follow him, and they came up with evidence, in the form of a discarded slice of pizza, by which to analyze his DNA. On Tuesday, they confirmed that the DNA matched that of the suspect in the serial killing rampage.

On Wednesday morning, one week after the DNA match of the state prisoner, police turned up at the South L.A. home of Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, and arrested him without incident, authorities said.

Prosecutors later charged him with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, apparently stemming from the assault on the only victim who is known to have survived.

As word of the arrest spread across South Los Angeles, a contradictory picture of Franklin emerged.

Franklin was a garage attendant at the LAPD's 77th Street Division station in the early 1980s, according to sources. He worked as a garbage collector for the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation during the years that the first eight killings occurred, beginning with the death of Debra Jackson, 29, on Aug. 10, 1985, and ending with the death of Alicia "Monique" Alexander, 18, on Sept. 11, 1988.

Franklin has at least three prior convictions, two for felony possession of stolen property in 1993 and 2003, one for misdemeanor battery in 1997, and one for misdemeanor assault in 1999, according to court records. He was sentenced to a year in jail for the first stolen property charge and 270 days for the second one.

On a tidy street of single-family homes in South Los Angeles where Franklin lived for decades, residents described him as a kind and compassionate neighbor who volunteered in the community, helped elderly residents of the block and fixed their cars for free.

"A very good man. His daughter just graduated from college, I believe," said Eric Robinson, 47. "He's a good mechanic, worked out of his garage. I've been here since 1976 — that's how long I've known him. I'm not pretty shocked, I'm all the way shocked."

Dante Combs, 27, said he visited Franklin last week to ask him to install a timing belt on his car.

"You needed your car fixed, he'd do it dirt cheap. He'd help you out however he could, cut your grass, put up your Christmas lights," Combs said as he stood behind the yellow crime tape that sealed off Franklin's block. "He helped all the elderly on the block."

"As far as I know, he couldn't be this man," Combs added. "Then again, you never really know a man."

But in the afternoon, family of Grim Sleeper victims began arriving on the block. Many of the killings occurred not far from Franklin's home, and the family members said they needed to come to his home to bear witness.

"She was found on Western and 92nd, in a dumpster," Diane McQueen, 55, said as she stood behind the crime tape, clutching a funeral program for Janecia Peters, the last victim attributed to the serial killer. "It hit my family real hard. I had lost hope this day would come. I feel a lot of joy it did at last."

"I wanted to see what his house looked like, what his neighborhood looked like, the place where he grew up," Donnell Alexander, 47, brother of victim Alicia "Monique" Alexander. " It was curiosity. What I found was that it wasn't far from where I grew up. His neighbors looked like the people I see every day. They weren't aliens. And he wasn't hiding in the community. "

In announcing the arrests, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley praised the LAPD and the California Department of Justice, which carried out the DNA "familial search" after Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown approved the use of the relatively new tool.

Only California and Colorado have formal policies that permit the use of software to look for DNA profiles of possible relatives of a suspect.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 51, was arrested today in connection with the killings of at least 10 young women. The victims were all black and most were drug addicts or prostitutes who were also sexually assaulted.

We never gave up on this investigation, not for one minute," said LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. "Our detectives worked relentlessly following up on every lead they received.

Their hard work has resulted in today’s apprehension of this vicious killer. I am hopeful that the hard work of these men and women will bring some closure to the families who tragically lost loved ones during the last 23 years.”