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Pizza slice helped link suspect to Grim Sleeper serial killings
07.08.2010
01:30 am
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Speaking of ‘Law & Order’—as you do—certainly the above headline, taken from the LA Times, would qualify as a one-sentence high concept for the show. It’s practically a one-sentence short story.

Los Angeles police detectives used a piece of discarded pizza to help build their case against a man accused of being the Grim Sleeper serial killer, sources told The Times.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, was arrested at his home in South Los Angeles on Wednesday morning after police said they made DNA matches linking him to the killings of 11 people over the last three decades. Prosecutors said they have charged Franklin with 10 counts of murder, noting that he is eligible for the death penalty.

Franklin is a former city trash collector who at one time worked as a vehicle mechanic at an LAPD station, sources said.

“He’s the neighborhood mechanic” said neighbor Eric Robinson, 47. “He volunteers at the park. A very good man. His daughter just graduated from college, I believe. He’s a good mechanic, worked out of his garage. I’ve been here since 1976; that’s how long I’ve known him. I’m not pretty shocked, I’m all the way shocked.”

The killings went on since the 1980s and the Grim Sleeper killer has been tied to the homicides of ten women and one male. A survivor who was shot and raped in 1988 described her attacker as black, in his 20s, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, about 160 pounds, soft-spoken and articulate, with neatly trimmed hair and a pockmarked face.

The Grim Sleeper’s victims were all black and most were hookers or drug addicts. The murders stopped in 1988 and picked up again from 2002 to 2007.

Pizza slice helped link suspect to Grim Sleeper serial killings (Los Angeles Times)

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.08.2010
01:30 am
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