A month ago, Lonnie David Franklin Jr was convicted of the murder of nine women and one teenage girl in Los Angeles. The murders took place between 1985 and 2007 with an apparent 14-year gap between deaths at one point, which earned him the moniker the “Grim Sleeper.”
The 63-year-old was sentenced to death by a jury on all ten murder counts, which will become formalized at a later hearing. The BBC reports:
Prosecutors said Franklin stalked vulnerable young black women before shooting or strangling them.
He began by targeting drug addicts during LA’s crack cocaine epidemic.
He was also convicted of the attempted murder of an 11th victim who survived being shot, raped and pushed out of a car in 1988...
Franklin was eventually caught after detectives began working on the final killing in 2007 when DNA from his son, who was in prison, showed similarities to genetic evidence found on some of the victims.
The connection was confirmed when a detective went undercover as a pizza parlor worker at a birthday party attended by Franklin, taking utensils and pizza crusts that linked him to the bodies.
Though there are only ten confirmed murders, dozens of photos of unidentified black women were found at Franklin’s home and shared with the public in 2010 in hopes of stirring up info on any potential unknown victims.
Image via AP.