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Police Still Working To Identify 33 Women From Photos Found In Grim Sleeper's Home
Lonnie Franklin, Jr. appears in court in 2010. (Photo by Al Seib-Pool/Getty Images)
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Lonnie Franklin, Jr., also known as serial killer the Grim Sleeper, has been sentenced to death, but police are still working to identify 33 different women featured in photographs found in the killer's home. Franklin, 63, was formally sentenced to death last week Wednesday by Judge Kathleen Kennedy, who told him, "What you've done is not justifiable under the laws of God or laws of man." He was previously convicted on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. However, police believe he may be responsible for as many as 25 murders between the 1970s and his arrest in 2010, including three murders he was not charged with and two missing women whose ID cards were found in his home.
Franklin most often targeted young, black women in South L.A. During the investigation, police found almost 1,000 photos of women and teens in Franklin's home, some of them seemingly unconscious or deceased, the Associated Press reports. Of those, police initially worked to identify 166 unknown women featured in the photos, and have since whittled that number down to 33.
Taking photos of his victims was part of Franklin's modus operandi. Some of the photos investigators found were of known victims, and survivor Enietra Washington testified that he used a Polaroid camera to take photos of her after shooting her in the chest. Another woman, only identified as Ingrid W. testified that Franklin and two other men had sexually assaulted her at knifepoint in 1974. One of the men, she told the court, took photos of her during the attack.
Franklin received his moniker, ’The Grim Sleeper,’ from a reporter as it was believed he took a long break from killing between 1988 and 2002. However, investigators believe he may never have actually stopped killing.
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