Serial killer ‘Grim Sleeper’ goes on trial

By: 9 years ago

In this Feb. 6, 2015, file photo, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., appears at a hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court. More than 30 years since the bodies of young women started turning up in alleyways and garbage bins in south Los Angeles, attorneys are set to give opening statements Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in the long-awaited Grim Sleeper trial. Franklin Jr. has pleaded not guilty to killing nine women and a 15-year-old girl from 1985 to 2007 in one of the citys most notorious serial killer cases. AP File Photo

LOS ANGELES, United States—A former garbage collector and police mechanic accused of murdering 10 women in Los Angeles over the course of more than two decades has gone on trial after multiple delays.

Lonnie Franklin Jr., 63, who was given the moniker “Grim Sleeper” because of a 14-year gap in the murders between 1988 and 2002, was arrested in July 2010 after his DNA was connected to some of the victims.

But efforts to bring him to trial were repeatedly delayed by appeals and judicial wrangling.

Authorities say Franklin, whose trial began Tuesday, stalked the streets of South Los Angeles at a time when the neighborhood was plagued by an epidemic of crack cocaine.

Many of his victims were prostitutes and drug addicts who were shot or strangled to death, their bodies dumped in alleyways or trash bins. Some were raped before they were killed.

Prosecutors say Franklin took advantage of some of his victims’ addiction to crack to lure them to his backyard camper with money and drugs before killing them.

The youngest victim was 15 and the oldest 35. Officials have said they suspect Franklin is behind dozens more killings than the 10 for which he is on trial.

His attorneys have disputed the DNA evidence against him saying that the trial was by no means an open-and-shut case.

“We believe that before (the trial) is done, there will be a different story told than what the prosecution is stating,” defense attorney Seymour Amster told ABC News.

Franklin was found after the arrest of his son in 2008 for weapons and drug possession. A DNA analysis conducted on the son allowed investigators to follow a trail that led to the father, who was arrested in 2010 — 25 years after the first body was found.

The spree of killings was the subject of a 2014 HBO documentary by British filmmaker Nick Broomfield, who claims the Los Angeles police failed to properly investigate the murders as the victims were mainly drug addicts and prostitutes.

Franklin, described as a pleasant and friendly man by neighbors, has pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

He faces the death penalty if found guilty but no prisoner has been executed in California since a 2006 moratorium.

The trial is expected to last up to four months.