A serial killer in California has been convicted of 10 counts of first degree-murder and one count of attempted murder.
Lonnie Franklin Jr, 63, targeted young vulnerable women in south Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007. The murders were dubbed the “grim sleeper” killings because of a 14-year gap in the violence between 1988 and 2002.
The victims’ bodies were dumped in alleys and bins in south Los Angeles, some were naked, some were covered with rubbish. Most of the women had been shot in the chest, others were strangled.
The “Grim Sleeper” killings were investigated by as many as 30 detectives during the 1980s, but they exhausted leads within a few years.
A special squad of detectives was assembled after the most recent known “Grim Sleeper” killing, the June 2007 shooting of Janecia Peters, 25, whose body was found inside a rubbish bag.
Police arrested Franklin in July 2010 after his DNA was connected to more than a dozen crime scenes.
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