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THE GRIM SLEEPER SERIAL KILLER CASE 2

The Grim Sleeper Serial Killer Case

RUNNING HEAD: THE GRIM SLEEPER SERIAL KILLER CASE 1

THE GRIM SLEEPER SERIAL KILLER CASE 3

Introduction

The case in that is to discuss in this paper is about a serial killer by the name Lonnie David Franklin Jr., commonly known as Grim Sleeper. He was accused of series of murders and injuries to the people of Los Angeles, California from 1988 to 2007. In his earlier stages of life, he served in the armed forces until his discharge in 1975 for failing to meet the expected code of conduct as a member of the disciplined forces. The Grim sleeper committed the crimes so smartly that it took the police over 20 years to arrest him and bring him to book. The arrest finally took place in 2010 (Sher & Karlinsky, 2010).

Investigation

In the late 1980's several women were found murdered in the south of California thus raising an alarm that the killing was abnormal since it had not been witnessed before in the region. The women led by Margret Prescott formed a women union known as the black women count which they used to pressurize the police to do a thorough investigation and discover the person behind the killings in the region. Because of the case of drug and prostitution which was rampant in that area the matter was considered not to have involved a human being. Further investigation later revealed that the serial killings were committed by one person whom they nicknamed the Southside slayer since the offense was done in the south and could only be done by somebody comes from the south (Chow-White & Duster, 2011).

Several murder cases were unresolved since they had no leading end and could not be associated with anyone through the detective means. The Grim Sleeper was had to get because he took long breaks between the murders he committed thus was not easy to predict and track him. In 2007 Jenecia peters were found killings, and a task force of six detectives was formed to try and reveal the identity of the killers. With broad investigation, the DNA investigation linked the killing of peters to other eleven unresolved cases of murder that had taken place in the past years. The following year a reward of $500,000 was offered to anybody who could help the police with the lead information that could rise to the arrest of the serial killer. At this point, the killer was nicknamed Grim Sleeper by the Los Angeles weekly (Steinhauer,2010).

In 2009 another fleet of murder occurred, and one person by the name Enietra Washington survived. For the first time, the identity of Franklin was revealed by the survivor of the attack. The description matched that of Franklin who had been suspected previously, but the police could not find facts to link him with the fleet of murder in south Los Angeles. The police took the initiative to arrest him to try and get some facts that could incriminate him based on the link from Washington (Dolan, Rubin & Landsberg, 2010).

Arrest

On July 2010 a 57 year old man Lonnie Franklin was reported by the Los Angeles daily to have been arrested for being a suspect of serial killings in South Los Angeles. His arrest was led by the revelation of Washington who was a murder survivor and the DNA analysis which pointed at him as the prime suspect in the serial murders. The police could not get a similarity in DNA between the sample from the crime scene and that of Franklin. However, his son who had been convicted of holding weapons without permission was linked to the DNA found thus giving a familiar relationship to the police (Sher & Karlinsky, 2010).

An undercover police officer was used to get facts that could lead to the arrest of Franklin. The police officer pretended to be a waiter to get the sample from his fingers to test its similarity to what the police had already obtained from the crime scene. The DNA analysis is done after the samples were gotten it matched those that were with the detectives (Miller, 2010). Franklin had previously been convicted of other crimes which include robbery, battery, and assault where he served in jail for the stolen property. More investigation was mounted to reveal more on the group that grim sleeper operates with. Photos and the videos were found in the house, but the police could not exactly determine whether they were victims of Franklin’s actions or friends, but it was clear that Franklin was a serial killer from the evidence gathered so far (Leonard, 2010). The police also discovered that the suspect did not operate alone but had undercover group members who helped him to commit the fleet of murder around California. He was accused of eleven counts of murder and one injury but the Mystery still remained on who killed the other people whose cases were still unresolved (John, 2013).

Several nude photos mainly black women were retrieved from Franklin’s apartment both at conscious and unconscious state. The photos were later released to the public to help in the identification and get more information about their whereabouts. In addition to the eleven cases, six more cases were added to his suit thus bringing the total of possible murders by the Grim Sleeper to be seventeen (Gloudemans, & Shamaprasad, 2015).

Evidence

The fleet of the killings finally came to an end when he was arrested and detained as the more in-depth investigation was going on to get more information. One of the evidence which was clear and led to the arrest of the accused was the DNA analysis. The DNA analysis linked Franklin to at least eleven cases of killings in Los Angeles. Most of the killings were done to the black women, and at the same time, the photos of the women found in Franklin's house were also black. The accused could not tell precisely the use of the pictures in his home and where they were captured. The images showed women who were conscious and later at unconscious state indicating that something must have happened to them in the presence of the holder of the photos (Fox, et al., 2018). 

The second count of evidence came from the woman who positively identified the accused as the one who shot them although other died, she survived. The positive identification added weight to the case thus limiting the chances of the accused escaping the punishment. Most of the killings targeted the black women which Washington happened to be one of them (John, 2013).

Court proceedings

The charges were read a first time, but the accused was not to confirm whether guilty or not. On the second hearing, the accused denied the allegations are prompting the trail to be made against him so that both parties can present their sides for the jury to determine the hearings.

Franklin was accused of the murder of 10 women in South Los Angeles and injuring one who later on came to testify. This case was brought forward by a team of prosecutors from the state agencies. They intended to bring the accused to book so that justice could take its course and be an example to those with the character like Franklin. The evidence that was table could not be quickly be dismissed by the defense attorney (Dolan, Rubin & Landsberg, 2010).

On the defense side led by an attorney, Amster Seymour accused the prosecutors of building a false case against the accused. He claimed that the evidence gathered did not link to him directly but to a family DNA classification which meant a relative of the accused could have committed the murders. He requested the jury to examine the case in depth since one of the close relatives could be behind the killings and not Franklin since the evidence on DNA was from the family lineage and not him as a person. He raised that there was DNA that was found in other crime scenes which pointed to other people thus it was possible that the wrong person was being accused of the murders (Myers, et al., 2011).

After all the presentation from the prosecutors and the defense, the jury found the accused guilty of ten accounts of murder and one attempt of murder on one Washington Enietra. According to the survivor, the accused took her to his house where he raped and later shot her, but she escaped with bullet wounds. The defense attorney also failed to clarify how the nude picture of Miss Washington was its way into the accused house if not by himself taking it there. The DNA on the ten accounts of murder matched those of Franklin. Finally, the gun found in the accuser’s premises also paired with the one that was used in the murders. The accused was found guilty of the ten accounts of murder and the attempt of murder (Chow-White & Duster, 2011).

Sentencing and Correction

The Supreme Court looked at all the cases and sentenced the accused of the murder of a total of nine women and a girl for no apparent reason. Franklin was sentenced to death for the crimes committed. The Supreme Court judge said the sentencing is not for vengeance for the murders committed, but to set examples for others who are still in the same practice of killing others. With the death sentence, it will send fear to those who are outside and are still in the same practice as Franklin (Chow-White & Duster, 2011).

Conclusion

For well over twenty years, the police department in Los Angeles worked tirelessly to solve a series of murders. Because the killer suspect took an apparent 14-year long hiatus between 1988 and 2002, he was dubbed by the media as the “Grim Sleeper.” Grim Sleeper proved to be the persistent. He targeted women who were drug addicts or prostitutes and often dumped their naked bodies alongside roads or in the trash. Many of the women were initially listed as Jane Does. The deaths drew little, if any, media attention. In a long and protracted criminal proceeding, Franklin was later found guilty in May of 2016 on ten counts of murder and one case of attempted murder, and was sentenced to death. Despite being sentenced only for ten murders, police have indicated that it is possible that he murdered as many as twenty five women (Gloudemans, & Shamaprasad).

References

Chow-White, P. A., & Duster, T. (2011). Do health and forensic DNA databases increase racial disparities? PLoS medicine, 8(10), e1001100.

Dolan, M., Rubin, J., & Landsberg, M. (2010). DNA leads to arrest in Grim Sleeper killings. Los Angeles Times.

Fox, J. A., Levin, J., & Fridel, E. E. (2018). Extreme killing: Understanding serial and mass murder. Sage Publications.

Gloudemans, M., & Shamaprasad, N. (2015). Current Issues in Forensic DNA Applications.

John, E. E. (2013). Maryland v. King: Policing and Genetic Privacy. Ohio St. J. Crim. L., 11, 281.

Leonard, J. (2010). Authorities Missed A Chance to Catch Grim Sleeper Suspect. Los Angeles Times.

Miller, G. (2010). Familial DNA testing scores a win in serial killer case.

Myers, S. P., Timken, M. D., Piucci, M. L., Sims, G. A., Greenwald, M. A., Weigand, J. J., & Buoncristiani, M. R. (2011). Searching for first-degree familial relationships in California's offender DNA database: Validation of a likelihood ratio-based approach. Forensic Science International: Genetics, 5(5), 493-500.

Sher, L., & Karlinsky, N. (2010). New Technique of Using Family’s DNA Led Police to ‘Grim Sleeper’ Suspect. ABC News. Retrieved May, 31, 2013.

Steinhauer, Jennifer. (2010). “Grim Sleeper” arrest fans debate on DNA use. New York Times, 8.