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Los Angeles man guilty in 10 ‘Grim Sleeper’ serial killings

Lonnie Franklin Jr. appears in Los Angeles Superior Court during closing arguments of his trail Monday, May 2, in Los Angeles. (Mark Boster / Associated Press)
By Brian Melley and Amanda Lee Myers Associated Press

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 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.