Posts Tagged ‘ Los Angeles ’

Lonnie David Franklin Jr. Indictment Unsealed

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)

Prosecutors unsealed an indictment on Thursday charging an accused serial killer dubbed the “Grim Sleeper” with murdering 10 girls and women during a Los Angeles-area crime spree that spanned three decades.

The suspect, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 58, who worked as a neighborhood mechanic, has been jailed without bond since he was arrested outside his home on July 7, partly on the basis of DNA evidence linking him to the killings through genetic material of his son.

He is accused of shooting to death or strangling seven of his victims between August 1985 and September 1988 and three others between March 2002 and January 2007. The suspect was dubbed “the Grim Sleeper” because of a gap of more than 13 years between the killing sprees.

The girls and women he attacked ranged in age from 14 to 36, and many were prostitutes. Some were raped before they were slain. Their bodies were dumped in alleys and trash bins and covered with debris.

The indictment spares prosecutors the need for a preliminary hearing to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to take their case against Franklin to trial.

“The families of the victims should be accorded timely resolution of the allegations of the murders of their loved ones,” District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a statement.

Franklin is due in court April 4 for a pre-trial hearing.

Source

CNN Article

Link to an article about familial DNA.

Since 2008, California has allowed so-called familial DNA searches, in which investigators look for close-but-not-exact matches between DNA evidence collected at crime scenes and the state’s data bank of DNA collected from 1.3 million convicted felons. The method has a longer history in the United Kingdom, where it led to a conviction in a murder case in 2004. In Colorado, the only other U.S. state to allow it, the method led to a guilty plea in a car-theft case in Denver last year.

California allows familial DNA searches only for violent crimes in which the perpetrator is still believed to be a danger to society. Sims and Myers say they have run 10 searches so far. The first nine came up empty, including a 2008 search with DNA evidence from the Grim Sleeper crime scene. “We did not find anybody in the database who we thought was a potential relative,” says Sims.

However, a second search in April 2010 did turn up a potential match: a young man named Christopher Franklin who was convicted last year on a felony weapons charge. The DNA search, along with the dates of the murders cast suspicion on Christopher Franklin’s father. After an internal review of the evidence, investigators at the Bashinski lab notified the L.A. police, who followed the elder Franklin and eventually got a DNA sample from a discarded piece of pizza. Lonnie Franklin’s DNA matched DNA from the crime scenes, and police arrested him at his home last week.

 

I am not even going to try to state that I understand all the details of familial DNA searches. Even this article only seems to scratch the surface. Science is not my strongest subject.

I do know that it has been helpful in catching a few criminals.

Some people are against using familial DNA but I think in violent cases we, society, and the law must do everything to try to catch the offender. Law enforcement should be able to try new things, even if it is a little invasive. In violent, especially serial, murders the public has to give a little if they want law enforcement to be able to catch the criminal.

Serial killer photos

Grim Sleeper Unidentified Photos

2011
03/25
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Death
Death Penalty
Forensics
Killers
Rape
Serial Killers
The FBI
True Crime
United States True Crime
Unsolved Murder
TAGS




1 comment

Grim Sleeper Photos

Some of the Grim Reaper's Victims

Some of the Grim Reaper's Photos

I hate to just copy articles but I think this article says it all and this case and all these women are important enough to forget opinions and focus on facts only.

LAPD investigates 4 missing persons cases as a result of Grim Sleeper photos

Authorities say two of the women appeared in the photographs found in a search of Lonnie Franklin Jr.’s property. The two other cases surfaced as a result of the publicity surrounding release of the photos.

By Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times
January 7, 2011

Los Angeles police detectives said Thursday they are investigating at least four missing persons cases as a result of publicizing photos seized from the South Los Angeles property of Lonnie Franklin Jr., the Grim Sleeper serial slaying suspect.

The Los Angeles Police Department received hundreds of phone calls, e-mails and other tips last month after releasing about 180 photographs of unidentified women that were found in a trailer and garage belonging to Franklin.

Franklin, 57, is charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder — crimes that occurred in South L.A. and spanned three decades, prosecutors said. Franklin has pleaded not guilty.

Thus far, at least 53 women depicted in the photos have been identified by LAPD Robbery-Homicide detectives.

At least 79 photos have been removed from the LAPD website after relatives, friends or the women in them contacted police to confirm their identities.

LAPD officials would not discuss details of the four missing persons cases other than to say they dated back to the early 1990s. Two of the missing women appeared in the photographs found in Franklin’s possessions, and the two other missing person cases surfaced as a result of the publicity surrounding release of the photos, police said.

“We know who they are. They can’t be located. They haven’t been seen in a substantial amount of time,” said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who is spearheading the investigation.

In addition to the missing women, police are examining at least 30 unsolved killings for any links to Franklin.

At the time of Franklin’s arrest in July, authorities found about 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video of women.

Some of the images appeared to have been innocent snapshots, but many showed women in more risque poses. The materials spanned several decades, dating back to the 1980s, and included video and digital camera images, Polaroids, conventional prints and even undeveloped film.

The primary motivation for releasing the images was to find out whether the women were alive and well, Kilcoyne said. But detectives also have received more than 200 tips that ultimately could prove important to prosecuting Franklin, he said.

Franklin’s attorney, Louisa Pensanti, was critical of the LAPD for releasing the photos and said more than a dozen of the women were relatives or friends. Pensanti returned a call but did not immediately comment on the case.

Los Angeles Times

I hope that more of these women are identified. Please take a look at the LAPD site here. The police are updating the photos and removing those that are identified so even if you took a look before peek again.

2011
01/08
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Death
Forensics
Killers
Missing People
Serial Killers
True Crime
Unsolved Murder
TAGS











Leave a comment

Grim Sleeper aka Lonnie David Franklin Jr Photos

“These people are not suspects,” Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said of the photos. “We don’t even know if they are victims. … We certainly do not believe that we are so lucky or so good that we know all of the victims. We need the public’s help.”

Serial killer photos

Grim Sleeper Unidentified Photos

Beck also cautioned the public that some of the photos are decades old, and that the women “will have changed, aged.”

The Los Angeles Police Department has tentatively indentified five of the dozens of women found in photos discovered on the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer’s property.

The photos show women ranging from teenagers to others who look as if they’re in their 60s. Some are smiling, others appear to be unconscious.

Doan said that all of the 160 images will remain on the L.A.P.D. website for now.

“We’ll take them down if we’re satisfied that the individual has been possibly identified,” he said.

Los Angeles Police homicide detective Dennis Kilcoyne said various area police websites have recieved over 8 million hits since the photos were made public on Thursday, and the department has recieved hundreds of phone calls.

“Our best wish is that we get a phone call from each and every one of the them and that everyone is OK,” he said.

Detectives also encouraged any of the women who are still alive to come forward and explain how they came to be photographed.

Franklin, a 57-year-old mechanic, was charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder in July in the “Grim Sleeper” case. He is accused of murdering 10 young women between 1985 and 2007 in South Los Angeles.

When detectives searched Franklin’s home and surrounding property, they found more than 1,000 photos and hundreds of hours of home video footage in his procession.

“It’s a long period of time that he’s been taking pictures,” Kilcoyne said.

Authorities working on the case said they had been trying to identify the women in the images for months.

The cluster of killings stopped in 1988, but 14 years later police said they linked new murders to the same man. The nickname “Grim Sleeper” came from the long lull between killings. The most recent murder happened in January 2007.

Photos Here

Source

Story Source

Update: as of 12/21/10 29 people have been identified.

Los Angeles police detectives say they have tentatively identified about 29 of the 160 women whose photos were found in the home of a man suspected of being the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer.
Detectives said Monday that they were able to remove 29 photos from the collection posted online. They say the majority of the women in the photos are alive and well. A few have died from natural causes and a few are missing persons.
The LAPD website where the photos were posted got thousands of hits and police were inundated with phone calls, emails and other tips.
Last week, police released 180 images that were taken from photographs or home video found in suspect Lonnie Franklin Jr.’s home and garage.

Source

2010
12/18
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Death
Killers
Missing People
Serial Killers
The FBI
True Crime
Unsolved Murder
TAGS











Leave a comment

Center For Disease Control

If you're ready for a zombie apocalypse, then you're ready for any emergency. emergency.cdc.gov
%d bloggers like this: