Grim Sleeper Awakes to DNA Evidence

As reported by KTLA, Lonnie Franklin Jr., 57, the retired auto mechanic whose DNA has tied him to the "Grim Sleeper," pleaded "not guilty "to 10 charges of murder.

In a Los Angeles courtroom a shackled Franklin was mostly silent, only speaking to answer procedural questions, and his attorney entered his pleas for him. He is being held without bail.

Family and friends of Franklins, and his victims, came to the hearing.  

Franklin was arrested in his South Los Angeles home on July 7 due to DNA linking him to10 murders.  As the "Grim Sleeper's" crime spree occurred over two decades, investigators are working to tie him to dozens more. It has been a 25 year investigation.

Prosecutors are contemplating whether or not they will seek the death penalty. Superior Court Judge Hilleri G. Merrit contends that the trial may take up to three years to complete.

Louisa Pensanti, a private attorney working on Franklin's case for free, states that she has  experience with multiple murder cases.  She took the case over from the public defenders and plans on building her own team of lawyers.  Their first order of business will be to go through almost 10,000 pages of documents Franklin's prosecutors have turned over to her.

A new and somewhat controversial forensic method, "Familial" DNA searching, was used by investigators to look for close DNA matches from relatives as the suspect's DNA isn't in their database.

In Franklin's case, his son's DNA sample was available, from an unrelated case, and found to resemble DNA found on the victims.  Then detectives used a discarded cup of Franklin's to make the link.

After 1988, the "Grim Sleeper" earned his nickname as he didn't commit any further murders until 2002.  His last known crime was on January 1, 2007. Franklin was on disability for the same 14 year period, as reported by a law enforcement source.

Franklin had worked as a car attendant for the LAPD, the sanitation department and as a private mechanic.

All of the victim's bodies were either shot and/or strangled and left out in alleyways.  Many were also victims of some kind of sexual contact, ten were women and several were prostitutes.

One male victim, Thomas Steele, shot in 1987, was either a friend of another victim or may have possibly figured out who the murderer was.

Franklin served jail time for felony convictions in both 1993 and 2003.

In 1988 a surviving victim described the "Grim Sleeper" as about 20 years old, black, 5'8" to 5'10", 160 pounds, trim hair, pockmarked face, soft-spoken and articulate.  Police took that description and aged it to what the "Grim Sleeper" would look like today.

Police also released a 1987 emergency call recording that eventually led them to the body of Barbara Ware, a 23 year old prostitute found shot to death in a South Los Angeles alley.

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