Grim Sleeper

Lonnie David Franklin Jr. (August 30, 1952 – March 28, 2020), better known by the nickname Grim Sleeper, was an American serial killer who was responsible for at least ten murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California from 1984 to 2007.

He was also convicted for rape and sexual violence.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was born on August 30, 1952, and grew up in South Central Los Angeles.

He married and had two children.

He was given a dishonorable discharge from the United States Army in July 1975, after being released from prison for his conviction of gang-raping a 17-year-old girl in Stuttgart, West Germany, in April 1974.

Franklin and two other servicemen stationed in Stuttgart stopped to ask directions from the teen and offered her a ride home.

When she accepted, they put a knife to her throat, drove to a field, and repeatedly raped her.

She was able to feign interest in Franklin and asked for his phone number, by which police identified him.

During the gang rape, photographs were taken by the rapists—as Franklin would also later do with the women he raped and murdered.

In the mid-1980s, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) became aware of an apparent serial killer targeting black women who were chronic drug users and street sex workers.

The killer, dubbed the "Southside Slayer," was believed to be responsible for stabbing and strangling at least 13 sex workers between 1983 and late-1985.

At one point, the murders were colloquially known as the "Strawberry Murders" ("strawberry" being slang for a woman who exchanges sex for drugs).

Prescod contrasted the apparent lack of police interest in the South Central murders with the significant attention given to the investigation of Richard Ramirez, the serial killer dubbed the Night Stalker who targeted women in upscale areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco between June 1984 and August 1985.

Prescod accused the LAPD of indifference to the deaths of women who were poor, black, drug users, and sex workers, which the LAPD denied.

In September 1985, the LAPD described the case at a press conference and asked for tips from the public.

Following the press conference, the LAPD was heavily criticized for their failure to alert the South Central community to the possibility of a serial killer earlier.

Activist Margaret Prescod and other community activists held weekly protests outside of the LAPD's headquarters in an effort to pressure the department into forming a task force to investigate the murders.

The first known murder in this series was the murder of Debra Jackson in August 1985, which was linked to the August 1986 murder of Henrietta Wright by forensic firearm examination.

By January 1986, 15 murders had been linked to the case.

More detectives were added to the joint LAPD-LASD investigation, which had become known as the Southside Slayer Task Force, but by 1986 the case was still under investigation.

Prescod formalized her group of activists as a community group called the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders and in March 1986 pressured the Los Angeles City Council to increase the reward money they were offering for information on the killings from $10,000 to $25,000.

By late-1986, conflicting modus operandi and suspect descriptions caused the investigators to doubt their original theory of a single killer being responsible for all of the murders.

Evidence suggested that several serial killers – possibly four or more – were murdering women in South Los Angeles.

The Southside Slayer Task Force began downsizing in 1987 due to the lack of results relative to the expense and manpower being used.

Task-force commander Lt. John Zorn told the Los Angeles Times in December 1987 that "the flow of clues is almost non-existent at this point."

Over the following years, it was found that serial killer Louis Craine committed at least two of the so-called "Southside Slayer" murders, and serial killers Michael Hughes, Daniel Lee Siebert, Chester Turner, and Ivan Hill committed at least one each.

In addition, some of the murders may have been committed individually by the women's pimps or clients, unrelated to any serial killer.

Franklin earned his nickname when he appeared to have taken a 14-year break from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002.

The murders of Judith Simpson, Cynthia Walker, and Latanya Johnson, all committed with a 9mm pistol in late 1988, were also investigated by the Southside Slayer Task Force.

Sheriff's Detective Rickey Ross was arrested for the murders after being found with drugs and a sex worker in a vehicle that had a rusted 9mm Beretta semi-automatic pistol in the trunk.

Ross was charged with the murders after his gun was forensically linked by the LAPD to the bullets from the murders.

He was released after independent forensic analysis found it unlikely that Ross' gun was the murder weapon.

All three of those murders remain unsolved.

One particular group of killings, which were linked by common elements including the use of a .25 caliber firearm, remained unsolved and unaccounted for by any other known serial killer.

In 1989, Franklin was convicted of two charges of theft, one charge of misdemeanor assault, and one charge of battery.

He only served time for one of the theft charges.

In July 2010, Franklin was arrested as a suspect, and, after many delays, his trial began in February 2016.

On May 5, 2016, the jury convicted him of killing nine women and one teenage girl.

On June 6, 2016, the jury recommended the death penalty, and on August 10, 2016, the Los Angeles Superior Court sentenced him to death for each of the ten victims named in the verdict.

On March 28, 2020, Franklin was found dead in his cell at San Quentin State Prison.