Though the press has failed to mention it, I have word that at least 3 women from the porn industry had been involved with Lonnie Franklin Jr. [pictured] aka The Grim Sleeper. More in the next post.
from www.latimes.com - Los Angeles police said Monday they have tentatively identified 21 of the roughly 160 women whose pictures were released last week in an effort to determine whether there were additional victims linked to the alleged Grim Sleeper serial killer.
After identifying the women, police removed their pictures from the LAPD's website. One picture was of Janecia Peters, 25, who was fatally shot on New Year's Day 2007 and was among the victims Lonnie Franklin Jr. has been charged with killing, police said.
The identification of Peters in the group of photos was first reported in the Daily Beast. Members of Peters' family were unable to attend a meeting in which LAPD detectives allowed the victims' relatives to view the pictures before they were made public. Det. Dennis Kilcoyne said the department has since apologized to the family.
Franklin has been linked to Peters through DNA evidence. Other slayings in the three-decade series of killings have been linked through a combination of DNA evidence and ballistics.
Authorities also removed eight other photographs from the website after determining the women pictured were also in other photos.
Kilcoyne said detectives have received nearly 200 tips on the women's identities through phone calls, messages to their tip line and e-mails.
Two of the women whose identities have been confirmed had died of natural causes years ago, police said. Investigators also identified several missing persons in the group of photos and video stills, but Kilcoyne said it was not clear if they were potential victims.
Franklin is accused of sexually assaulting and killing 10 African American women in South L.A.
He has pleaded not guilty and is in custody awaiting trial. During his arrest in July, authorities found about 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video footage of women. Some of the images appeared to be innocent snapshots, but many showed the women in various states of undress and in sexual poses.
Detectives feared that some of the women may have been killed and set out to identify them. Some of the material, which was reviewed over the last several months, dated back to the 1980s and included video and digital camera images, Polaroids, conventional prints and undeveloped film.
The decision to release the photos drew criticism from Franklin's attorney, Louisa Pensanti, who said some of the images were of 18 relatives or friends of her client's. She also accused the police of tainting potential jurors.
Prior to releasing the photos, Kilcoyne said detectives asked Franklin's wife to review the images in order to identify family and friends. She declined to help, Kilcoyne said.
Police said they were sensitive to the harm and embarrassment the release of the photographs could cause women who never told their family or friends about the encounters. In the end, however, they decided that the need to identify the women outweighed the potential harm. The Times decided to publish the photographs for similar reasons.
Background From Wikipedia: Grim Sleeper is the nickname for an alleged serial killer in Los Angeles, California, believed to be responsible for at least 10 murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles since 1985. The attacker was dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" because he supposedly took a 14-year hiatus from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002.
On July 7, 2010, a suspect, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, was arrested. Los Angeles County District Attorney, Steve Cooley, charged him with ten counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, and special circumstance allegations of multiple murders in the case.
After police discovered several dead women in alleyways and dumpsters in South Los Angeles, California during the mid-1980s, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and police began investigating the murders setting up the "Southside Slayer" task force.
At the time, the police thought that the murders were committed by one person labelled the "Southside Slayer". Eventually, the LAPD and the Sheriff's detectives realized that several serial killers were murdering women and it was a difficult task for the detectives to decide which murders were linked.
In May 2007, the murder of Janecia Peters, 25, was linked through DNA analysis to 11, possibly 12, unsolved murders in Los Angeles, the first of which occurred in 1985. The "800 Task Force" was then formed, consisting of seven detectives.
After a four-month investigation, the LA Weekly investigative reporter Christine Pelisek broke the news of the secret 800 Task Force, the linking of Peters' killing to a string of murders going back 23 years, and the fact that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief William Bratton had been silent on the killer's existence.
The mayor and chief never issued a press release nor warned the South Los Angeles community of the killer's continuing activities. In some cases, the alternative newspaper was the first to inform the families that their daughters had long been confirmed as victims of a serial killer.
In August 2008, the LA Weekly had an extensive interview with the sole survivor of the Grim Sleeper's attacks, providing several details.
She described him as "a black man in his early 30s [...] He looked neat. Tidy. Kind of geeky. He wore a black polo shirt tucked into khaki trousers." She also described him as a "thin, neat, polite and well-groomed African-American guy."
He owned "an orange Ford Pinto with a white racing stripe on the hood." "[I]t looked like a Hot Wheels [toy] car," the survivor recalled. He offered her a ride. After she refused, "He told me, ‘That is what is wrong with you black women. You think you are all that.'" He was persistent. After some banter back and forth, she got into his car.
She "was impressed by the car’s interior. The gear-shift handle was memorable, pimped out with a ping-pong-sized marble ball. The inside was all-white, with white diamond-patterned upholstery." When she mentioned a party, he deftly invited himself and she said he was welcome to come. He then said that he needed to stop briefly at his uncle's house:
"They wound through residential roads in his sporty car, ending up on a street whose name she did not take note of. The polite stranger parked outside a mustard-colored house partly obscured by hedges, got out, walked up to the house, briefly talked to someone inside, and returned about 10 minutes later."
They began arguing, when "He suddenly pulled a small handgun out of a pocket on the driver’s side of the Pinto, and shot her in the chest as he drove along the residential streets." The killer apparently documented his attacks with a Polaroid camera: "She blacked out, but was startled awake by the bright flash of the camera. The man had taken her picture and sexually assaulted her. She remembers grabbing at him, and the two struggled. She pleaded to be taken to a hospital. He refused. Despite her half-conscious condition, she’s almost certain he told her he couldn’t take her to a hospital because he didn’t want to get caught."
In late August 2008, the same week the Weekly broke the sole survivor's story with information on the Grim Sleeper's body count of 13 victims, an aide to Police Chief William Bratton said he was too busy to comment on the case.
In early September 2008, officials in Los Angeles announced that they were offering a $500,000 reward to help catch the killer, who has murdered at least 10 women and one man in two sprees over the past 20 years.
On November 1, 2008, a story about the "Grim Sleeper" appeared on the television program America's Most Wanted. The program stated that the killer was most likely a black male but did not want to rule out anyone.
On February 25, 2009, for the first time, Chief Bratton held a press conference regarding the case at which police formally gave the killer the "Grim Sleeper" nickname chosen by L.A. Weekly. Bratton then released a call from the 1980s made to a 911 operator in which a man reports having seen a body, which later turned out to be a victim of the Grim Sleeper, getting dumped by the killer, with a detailed description and license plate number of a van connected with the now-closed Cosmopolitan Church.
On December 16, 2010, the Los Angeles Police Department released 180 photos of women found in Franklin's home. Police officials released the images after unsuccessful attempts to identify the individuals, possibly additional victims.
"These people are not suspects, we don't even know if they are victims, but we do know this: Lonnie Franklin's reign of terror in the city of Los Angeles, which spanned well over two decades, culminating with almost a dozen murder victims, certainly needs to be investigated further," said Chief Charlie Beck of the LAPD. In all, investigators found over 1,000 photos and several hundred hours of video in the home.
The images show mainly African American women of a wide age range, from teenagers to middle-aged and older, often nude. Police believe Franklin took many of the pictures, which show both conscious and unconscious individuals, and date back up to 30 years.
The photos were released in an effort to identify the women with the help of citizens.
The killings began in 1985 in South Los Angeles, California. The Grim Sleeper took a 14 year hiatus after his last murder in 1988 but began murdering again in 2002. His last confirmed murder was in January 2007.
All of his victims were found outdoors, a few miles from downtown Los Angeles.
All but one of his victims were black females. One of his suspected victims was a black man.
Many of his victims were prostitutes. One witness recalls that Franklin would frequently bring prostitutes into his home. The Grim Sleeper would have sexual contact with victims before strangling or shooting them.
He would shoot all of his victims with a .25 caliber gun. Franklin took several photographs of nude prostitutes and kept them in his garage. It is believed that the Grim Sleeper killed one of his suspected victims, Thomas Steele, because Steele knew about his history of murders. Another possibility is that Steele was friends with one of the Grim Sleeper's victims.
