Who is Grim Sleeper?
Lonnie Franklin Jr Bio – Wiki
Grim Sleeper known as Lonnie Franklin Jr was a Convicted serial killer, has died on death row in California’s San Quentin State Prison. He was responsible for at least ten murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California. He was also convicted of rape and sexual violence. Grim Sleeper was born on 30 August 1952 in Los Angeles, California. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles, California.
He was arrested in 2010 after years of pressure from local activists, and a cold case task force used DNA evidence to connect him to the murders.
Age
He has died at the age of 67.
Grim Sleeper Wife, Children
He survived by his wife, Sylvia Franklin, and two children Christopher and Franklin.
Conviction & Charge
Franklin, a former mechanic and garbage man, was convicted in 2016 of the murders of nine women and a teenage girl in Los Angeles from 1985 to 2007. After a three-month trial, he was sentenced to death.
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, he was found unresponsive in his cell at San Quentin and pronounced dead.
Franklin’s moniker derived from what authorities believed was a break of more than a decade in his killings. He was convicted of murdering seven women from 1985 to 1988; the others were killed from 2002 to 2007.
on July 24, 1975, after having been released from prison for his conviction of gang-raping a 17-year-old girl in Stuttgart, West Germany.
Franklin and two other servicemen stationed in Stuttgart stopped to ask directions from the teen then offered her a ride home. When she accepted, they put a knife to her throat, drove her to a field and repeatedly raped her. She was able to fake interest in Franklin and asked for his phone number which she gave to the police once she made her way to the hospital. During the gang rape photographs were taken by one of the rapists – as was the case with the women Lonnie Franklin raped and murdered.
In 1989, he was also convicted of two charges of theft, one charge of misdemeanour assault, and one charge of a battery. He served time for one of the theft charges.
Grim Sleeper Victims
The known killings began in 1985 in South Los Angeles. The “Grim Sleeper” apparently took a 14-year hiatus after his last known crime in 1988 and the murders then resumed in 2002 (leading to the epithet by which he is known), but this history may be only an accident of the evidence collected. The last confirmed slaying was in January 2007. All of his victims were found outdoors, often in alleys a short distance from downtown Los Angeles.
All but one of his victims were black women. One of his suspected victims was a black man.[32] Many of his victims were prostitutes. One witness recalls that Franklin frequently brought prostitutes into his home. He shot all of his victims with a .25 calibre gun. Franklin took many photographs of nude women and kept the records in his garage.
Trial
On July 7, 2010, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, was arrested. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged him with ten counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, and special circumstance allegations of multiple murders in the case.
After a lengthy pretrial discovery[41] and several delays, the trial opened on February 16, 2016. Closing arguments began May 2, 2016, and the jury began deliberating May 4, 2016.
The jury convicted Franklin on all counts on May 5, 2016. On June 6, 2016, the jury rendered a verdict of death. On August 10 the Superior Court sentenced Franklin on each count, naming the individual victims.
Death Cause
On March 28, 2020, Franklin was found unresponsive in his cell and was pronounced dead at 7:43 p.m. His cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy; however, there were no signs of trauma.
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