The Grim Sleeper
Hello Hello True Crime Club and welcome back to the blog! I want to take a second and issue a trigger warning, we are talking about sensitive material that may not be suitable for all viewers. ⚠️*PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION* ⚠️
Today we are discussing the case of Lonnie David Franklin Jr. or The Grim Sleeper.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was born on August 30th, 1952 and was raised in South Central Los Angeles, California. We don’t know much about his early childhood but what some sources say is that although there is no date given, Lonnie’s parents were in a head-on collision which lead to his mother being thrown from the vehicle, it was so serious doctors had to perform immediate surgery to reattach her left ankle and foot. We also know that he lived with his younger sister Patricia and his older half-brother Otis who was a child from Ruby’s previous relationship, he lived in Texas but spent all of his summers with them. Lonnie always seemed to be sick as a child, in the most literal sense. Lonnie suffered from migraines and suffered colds most of the year. He struggled with reading and writing in school, in an effort to help her son strive, Ruby hired a tutor when Lonnie was in 5th grade, but the tutors efforts did not avail and Lonnie continued to struggle in school. He struggled until he was able to transfer in high school to one with a ‘work study’ program.
He was given his first car at age 14 after his father had been teaching him to drive since the age of 12 and was allowed to drive around the neighborhood unsupervised and unlicensed. Lonnie was described as a flirt, a smooth talker and mesmerized girls with his extensive knowledge of cars and repairs. At the age of 14 he also lost his virginity to a girl named Kate who was his girlfriend of a year. Lonnie had started cycling a rumor about his second girlfriend who had moved away at the end of the school year that she had his baby, but as I mentioned, it was never proven a rumor nor was it proven the truth.
Today South Central Los Angeles ranks safer than Hollywood and Chinatown in crime, but in the 1990s, it was highly associated with crime. At 21 years old Lonnie had enrolled in the U.S. Army. He was employed through the army as ‘kitchen supervisor’ and ‘resident cook’ and he was ranked ‘Specialist Fourth Class’ ; he received an award in 1973 for ‘Best Mess’ for 3rd and 4th quarters in 1972. He received few disciplinary actions (when he went AWOL when returning from leave in 1972, which he claimed he missed his flight due to caring for his mother who had just been into a car accident). As a result, he was demoted in rank. He was stationed in Germany, however it did not help with his discipline in the least bit. He was given a dishonorable discharge on July 24, 1975, this was after having been released from prison. Franklin was also married to Slyvia and shared two children with her.
Lonnie’s criminal record dates back to age of 16, in 1969 he was arrested for auto theft but also charged with burglary and firearm offenses. In 1993 and 2003 he received 2 charges for possessions of stolen property. In 1997 he was arrested for misdemeanor battery and in 1999 he was charged with misdemeanor assault
The Grim Sleeper had many different known aliases, most given to him by the press or the public such as ‘The Southside Slayer’ and ‘The 25 Auto Killer’. Before he had these terrifying nicknames, he was a garbage collector during the times of his killings for the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation. He previously had also worked as a mechanic and worked on the 77th Street police station often. He was also known as having a wide variety of talents assisting in handyman work and strived in car repairs.
The Grim Sleeper targeted African-American women ages vary from teens to mid-thirties. Some of them were sex workers, but all of them were picked up forcefully or solicited, they were raped, photographs were taken of their bodies with a Polaroid camera, then he would shoot them in the chest using a Titan FIE .25 -caliber semi-automatic pistol. Most of his victims also had traces of cocaine in their systems. However after his 14 year hiatus he would murder the women by strangulation after raping them and the only other time we see use of the murder weapon is with Janecia Peters.
Henrietta Wright was 35 years old when she was found shot twice and wrapped in a blanket and covered with a mattress in an alley near West Vernon Avenue on August 12th 1986.
Barbara Ware was a 23 year old who was found shot once in her chest and once in her body and was dumped under a pile of trash on January 10, 1987.
Bernita Sparks was 26 years old when she went out to the grocery store and never returned. Her body was found in a trash can covered in trash. She had been found shot, strangled and beaten on April 15th 1987.
Mary Lowe had left home on October 31st 1987 to go to a party and had never returned home, her body was found in an alley in the Western Vernon area, the same place that Henriette Wright had been found.
Officers responded on January 30th, 1988 to a call for an unresponsive female. She was found with a napkin over her face with the word “AIDS” written on it. She was later identified as 22 year old Lachrica Jefferson.
Alicia Alexander was 18 years old when she was found in an alley near Western Avenue after going to the grocery store. She was found relatively close to Henrietta and Mary.
35 year old Valerie McCorvey was found deceased by strangulation and sexual assault on July 11th, 2003.
Deborah Jackson was a 29 year old cocktail waitress, living in a city that was rampant with crime, vicious killings, and widespread drug use. She was found on August 10th, 1985 near West Gage Avenue in the Vermont-Slauson area (pictured below). She was shot 3 times in the chest and was the first KNOWN victim of The Grim Sleeper. After her autopsy was done, law enforcement was able to connect the murder weapon of Deborah Jackson to seven other killings of sex workers in the area. However at this time, the sex worker killings had been dubbed victims of ‘The Southside Slayer’ and at this time, they did not know that these two people were one in the same. The last victim of The Grim Sleeper at this time was Margette Washington, who was attacked but miraculously survived in November of 1988. Margette would go on to be able to give an accurate description of not only her killer but the vehicle as well. But they did not catch him, he disappeared.
We see a trend that after Lonnie was made aware that there was a survivor, the killings ceased for 13-14 years. The case was cold and law enforcement wasn’t finding new evidence to try and find this killer on the loose. However in March of 2002, a 14 year old runaway who had resorted to prostitution, Princess Berthomieux was found dead after her disappearance on December 21st, 2001. However, she was strangled and not shot, unlike his previous victims. Lonnie would go on to kill again in 2003 and 2006-2007. Investigators were able to in 2007, link DNA to her body from prior murder investigations done that were dubbed The Grim Sleeper killings. In 2009, DNA was able to be partially linked to Lonnie’s son, DNA had been partially extracted from a slice of pizza, a fork, a napkin, drinking glass and cake crumbs that an investigator disguised as a busboy picked up after trailing Franklin. DNA was able to be connected through his son due to his criminal background of firearm and drug offenses.
On July 7th of 2010 Lonnie was arrested and held on the evidence of his DNA being linked to The Grim Sleeper murders. Lonnie had been charged with 10 confirmed victims of The Grim Sleeper murders and the attempted murder of Margette Washington. LAPD released a large collection of over 1,000 photos along with several hundreds of hours of video recordings. found in Lonnie’s residence on December 16th, 2010. Through the photographs found, they were able to identify Janecia Peters who was the last known victim of this time. Janecia Peters was 25 years old when her body was found dumped in a trash bag and was found to be deceased to a gunshot to the back. She was found almost 2 decades to the day by a homeless man collecting cans from a dumpster. They found many photos in Lonnie’s residence that connected him to 3 other women who were marked “Missing” over the years. 2 of the missing women’s photo’s were among the 1,000 recovered. Along with their photographs confiscated, they found one of the victims driver’s license and another ‘missing’ victim's high school ID. In the freezer of Lonnie’s home law enforcement also found two images of Janecia in an envelope, almost like a trophy bag. Unfortunately, through all of the pictures, 35 of the women are still unidentified. Along with the photographic evidence, 10 guns were also recovered which matched the bullet that struck Peters.
During the trial Lonnie stayed straight faced and emotionless. There were no outbursts from family members, they were there to purely sit in silence and hope for justice. Alicia’s older brother Donnell attended every single day of the trial alongside his father in place of his sister who had been a victim of The Grim Sleeper’s murders. Prosecutors have spent more than 2 months laying out the evidence and the case in general. Prosecutors stated that “In multiple murders, Franklin allegedly picked up women who were on the streets using drugs or *sex working*, sexually assaulted them, shot them at an angle from the driver’s seat, and dumped them in an alley covered them up with mattresses, debris, or trash cans. Two of the victims were strangled to death”.
He was found guilty of the murders of: *This part is a repeat of what you have read. I’m using this as a way to ensure these victims are remembered* It is important to bring these names to light because while they were happening, they did not receive nearly enough, if any, media attention.
Henrietta Wright was 35 years old when she was found shot twice and wrapped in a blanket and covered with a mattress in an alley near West Vernon Avenue on August 12th 1986.
Barbara Ware was a 23 year old who was found shot once in her chest and once in her body and was dumped under a pile of trash on January 10, 1987.
Bernita Sparks was 26 years old when she went out to the grocery store and never returned. Her body was found in a trash can covered in trash. She had been found shot, strangled and beaten on April 15th 1987.
Mary Lowe had left home on October 31st 1987 to go to a party and had never returned home, her body was found in an alley in the Western Vernon area, the same place that Henriette Wright had been found.
Princess Berthomieux was found dead after her disappearance on December 21st, 2001.
Officers responded on January 30th, 1988 to a call for an unresponsive female. She was found with a napkin over her face with the word “AIDS” written on it. She was later identified as 22 year old Lachrica Jefferson.
Alicia Alexander was 18 years old when she was found in an alley near Western Avenue after going to the grocery store. She was found relatively close to Henrietta and Mary.
35 year old Valerie McCorvey was found deceased by strangulation and sexual assault on July 11th, 2003.
Deborah Jackson was a 29 year old cocktail waitress, living in a city that was rampant with crime, vicious killings, and widespread drug use. She was found on August 10th, 1985 near West Gage Avenue in the Vermont-Slauson area (pictured below). She was shot 3 times in the chest and was the first KNOWN victim of The Grim Sleeper.
He was found guilty of the murders of 9 women and a teenage girl over the course of 20 years on May 5th 2016. On June 6th he was sentenced to the death sentence and August 10th Los Angeles Superior Court sentenced him to death for each of the ten victims. However, later we learn that he could have been responsible for not only the death of his friend Thomas Steele but also 14 to 100 unsolved murders of ‘Jane Does’. During the trial, after the death sentence is announced, the families of the victims are able to speak to Lonnie, they ask him why he chose to attack their family members. Lonnie doesn’t loose his innocence, but he never does look at the board of photos found in his home. He never once made contact with the things he had done.
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was found unresponsive on March 28th, 2020. He was pronounced dead at 7:43 PM and the cause of death is still not clear, but there were no signs of trauma. Sources state that law enforcement is currently awaiting the conduction of the autopsy. His burial details are unknown. He died at 67 years old in the midst of serving his life sentence in San Quentin Prison in California.
Here’s a story that was not much recorded on, it isn’t in either of the big documentaries of this case and was reported, but he was never charged in the abduction nor the rape of Ingrid W. (Her last name has been censored in all articles for privacy)
April 17th 1974 around 12:30AM a girl named Ingrid W. was 17 and was walking to the train station from her boyfriend’s house when 3 U.S. Army soldiers pulled up alongside her in a Fiat, 2 of them stepped out of the car to ask for directions. Before she could assist with directions, one of the men grabbed her, threw her into the backseat of the car and piled in on her. One of them held a butcher knife to Ingrid’s throat and said “I’ll kill you” and despite Ingrid’s first language not being english, she recalls knowing exactly what he meant. At which time they pulled into an empty field and ordered Ingrid to undress and took turns raping her, this process was photographed as well as the photos of the cut they made in her stomach. She stayed compliant for 6 hours in hopes that it would save her life.They loaded her back up into the vehicle, drove her back to the train station and released her. Upon informing the police, the police did not believe what Ingrid was telling them was the truth and then realized that the description that Ingrid gave them about the 3 abductors, matched the same description of the three men reported earlier for the attempted abduction of an 18 year old girl an hour before. Ingrid had then set up a date with the driver of the abduction and was under police surveillance which informed her to drop a handkerchief when she saw him approaching, when the police approached him, the man did not react however stayed in compliance. His demeanor was calm, even after they found a knife on his person that would carry a misdemeanor charge, he remained calm and compliant. This man was later identified as Lonnie David Franklin Jr.
Thank you for taking the time to read our blog edition of our true crime fixes. We post sporadically but to be honest, it will probably be more here. Any questions, comments, concerns or suggestions of cases you'd like us to cover?
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Resources that allowed me to fully research this topic:
https://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/franklin-lonnie-victims.htm
https://homicide.latimes.com/post/debra-jackson/
https://criminalminds.fandom.com/wiki/Lonnie_David_Franklin
https://allthatsinteresting.com/grim-sleeper
https://homicide.latimes.com/post/bernita-sparks/
https://homicide.latimes.com/post/grim-sleeper-killings-janecia-peters-25-2007/
https://homicide.latimes.com/post/barbara-ware/
https://laist.com/news/the-grim-sleepers-earliest-known-vi
Podcasts: The Grim Sleeper
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