'Grim Sleeper' killed 5 more women, jury is told by prosecutor in penalty phase of his trial
A Los Angeles jury convicted Lonnie David Franklin Jr. of 10 first-degree murder counts last week. When the same jury began hearing testimony Thursday in the penalty phase of his trial, a prosecutor told them that the so-called “Grim Sleeper” had killed five additional women.
Although the defendant was not charged in those cases, Judge Kathleen Kennedy ruled the evidence was admissible to help the jury determine whether Franklin, 63, should get life or death. However, she urged deputy district attorney Beth Silverman not to discuss the five killings, because the evidence could present an issue during a likely appeal, reports the Associated Press.
Silverman said prosecutors had debated the question, but she decided to present information about the five slayings to the jury because it was important to surviving family members. Franklin was not charged in the deaths of the five women because it would have further delayed a murder case that took six years to get to trial, she said.
The gun that killed two of the five additional victims was found in Franklin’s garage after his 2010 arrest, Silverman said, as well as ID cards for two more missing women and photographs of one of them.
Defense lawyer Seymour Amster said the government doesn’t even know for sure that the two missing women are dead. “There’s no evidence of a violent crime,” he said. “It was the crack epidemic … anything could have happened.”
The Los Angeles Times (sub. req.) and Reuters also have stories about the sentencing phase, which is expected to last about one month.
The 10 murders for which Franklin was convicted took place over a period of decades that included a significant gap in which there were no known killings. Hence, the then-unknown culprit was given the moniker the Grim Sleeper. However, authorities have said in recent years that Franklin likely committed other homicides. One of the five uncharged slayings that Silverman is presenting as evidence in the penalty phase occurred within what authorities had thought was the hiatus period.
Family members of the 10 victims testified Thursday.
Porter Alexander, the father of Alicia Alexander, who was killed in 1988, said he still has her belongings at the family home, the LA Times reports. “Because she’s not gone,” he said, then paused, “from my heart.”
