Almost thirty years after the first “grim sleeper” killing, the man found guilty by a Los Angeles jury may face the death penalty. He was convicted of 10 murders and one attempted murder, of a would-be victim who got away.
Jurors capped off three months of what one report characterized as “gruesome testimony” by cops and families of the serial killer’s victims by finding former police officer Lonnie Franklin Jr. guilty on all counts.
The penalty phase of the trial will begin next Wednesday. Prosecutors are not hesitating to seek Franklin’s death.
The so-called “grim sleeper” serial killer was named because of the long pauses between killings to let the trail go cold, something that Franklin would have known about as a police officer. He was finally collared in 2010 due to a stray DNA link.
Deputy district attorney Beth Silverman told the jury that Franklin began his slow motion crime spree at “the perfect place and time for a serial killer to roam the streets of Los Angeles really without detection,” with the implication that times have changed and so has forensic science.
