LOS ANGELES — A former Los Angeles trash collector was convicted Thursday of 10 counts of murder in the “Grim Sleeper” serial killings that targeted poor, young black women over two decades.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. showed no emotion as the verdicts were read and family members who had wondered if they would ever see justice quietly wept and dabbed their eyes with tissues in the gallery.
“We got him,” exclaimed Porter Alexander Jr., whose daughter Alicia, 18, was shot and choked. Her body was found under a mattress in an alley in September 1988. “It took a long time. By the grace of God it happened. It’s such a relief.”
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty during the second phase of trial scheduled to start May 12.
Franklin, 63, was also was found guilty of one count of attempted murder for shooting a woman in the chest and dumping her body from his orange Ford Pinto two months after Alexander’s killing. The survivor, Enietra Washington, provided a link to seven previous slayings and was a key witness at trial.
The killings from 1985 to 2007 were dubbed the work of the “Grim Sleeper” because of an apparent 14-year gap after Washington’s shooting, though prosecutors now think he never rested and there were other victims during that span.
The crimes went unsolved for decades and community members complained that police ignored the victims because of their race and the fact some were prostitutes and drug users.
Much of the violence unfolded during the nation’s crack cocaine epidemic when at least two other serial killers prowled the area then known as South Central.
The 10 victims, including a 15-year-old girl, were fatally shot or strangled and dumped in alleys and garbage bins. Most had traces of cocaine in their systems.
The cases were reopened after the last killing when a task force was assigned to revisit cases dozens of officers failed to solve in the 1980s. The team compiled ballistics evidence and DNA testing that hadn’t been available at the time of the first killings.
Franklin, a onetime trash collector in the area and a garage attendant for the Los Angeles Police Department, had been hiding in plain sight, said Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman.
He was connected to the crimes after DNA from a son, collected after a felony arrest, showed similarities to genetic material left on the bodies of many of the victims.
An officer posing as a busboy retrieved pizza crusts and napkins with Franklin’s DNA while he was celebrating at a birthday party.
It proved a match with material found on the breasts and clothing of many of the women and on the zip tie of a trash bag that held the curled-up body of the final victim, Janecia Peters. She was found Jan. 1, 2007, by someone rifling through a dumpster who noticed her red fingernails through a hole in the bag.
Silverman described the victims as sisters, daughters and mothers who suffered frailties but had hopes and dreams.
Defense lawyer Seymour Amster challenged what he called “inferior science” of DNA and ballistics evidence. During his closing argument, he introduced a new theory: a “mystery man with a mystery gun and mystery DNA” was responsible for all the killings. He said the man was a “nephew” of Franklin’s who was jealous because his uncle had better luck with women, though he offered no supporting evidence or any name.
