CA Serial Killer "Grim Sleeper" (Lonnie Franklin ARRESTED!)
Mtnmom:
Cops Hunt for 'Grim Sleeper' Serial Killer
LOS ANGELES (Feb. 25) - They have a sample of his DNA, a description from a survivor and a $500,000 reward, but detectives investigating the city's most notorious serial killer have hit a wall.
On Wednesday, they released a recording of a 1987 emergency call in hopes of tracking down the man dubbed the "Grim Sleeper," who has killed at least 11 times in nearly a quarter century.
It's a long shot, that's for sure," said Detective Dennis Kilcoyne. "I am hoping a couple people call us. ... Maybe that will lead us to something."
Kilcoyne heads a squad of seven Los Angeles homicide detectives who for nearly two years have been assigned exclusively to the case. The killer most recently struck Jan. 1, 2007, and his first known victim was in 1985.
Police have pored over investigative files from all the killings and are now focusing on the January 1987 slaying of Barbara Ware, a 23-year-old with a history of prostitution who was found shot to death in a South Los Angeles alley.
A man saw a blue-and-white van dump her body. He called police with his account and gave the license plate number of the van. Within about an hour, police had tracked the van to its registered address at a church.
"The engine was still warm to the touch," Kilcoyne said.
Several congregants were inside the now-defunct Cosmopolitan Cathedral but no one seemed to know anything.
"Then the trail stops there," said Kilcoyne. "It sounds like it was a pretty good road map for the investigation at the time and it just fizzled out."
Kilcoyne and his men hope to track down former churchgoers or even someone who knows the voice on the emergency call.
On the two-minute call, a man described to a dispatcher how he'd seen someone drop the body off from the van, then throw a gas tank on top of her. He said he didn't see the man driving the van.
"I'd like to report a murder — a dead body or something," the caller said. "He threw her out ... the only thing you can see out is her feet."
When asked for his name, the caller declined.
"I know too many people," he said, then hung up.
Kilcoyne is accustomed to promising leads turning cold.
Six victims were found with the killer's DNA on them but a search of prisoner databases came up blank. Detectives went on to ask the California Department of Justice to run a DNA search that sought possible matches to the killer's relatives. It was the first time the controversial search was carried out in the U.S., Kilcoyne said.
"It didn't produce an answer," Kilcoyne said. "Nothing."
The suspect kills by gunshot or strangulation, in some cases both, usually after some kind of sexual contact. Ten victims were women, all were black and several were prostitutes. The bodies were all found outside, usually in dirty alleyways a few miles south of downtown.
The $500,000 award offer is thought to be the biggest ever in the city. Billboards announcing the offer loom over streets near where the victims were found.
"We still have no idea who this guy is," Kilcoyne said. "We've got a half-million-dollar reward out there on billboards and no one calls."
The killings were featured on "America's Most Wanted" and dozens of tipsters called detectives after the case was first made public last year, but leads went nowhere.
The first round of killings happened at a time parts of the city were suffering from extreme violence and many young women fell prey to newfound addictions of crack cocaine and other drugs.
Police Chief William Bratton assembled Kilcoyne's squad in June 2007 after the death of the killer's most recent known victim, 25-year-old Janecia Peters, who was found shot to death in a trash bin in a graffiti-tagged alley.
"We realized we've got a serious problem," Kilcoyne said. "This guy is still out there."
Because of the race of his victims, critics faulted the Police Department for not investigating the killings sooner and said the city was disinterested in the case.
Porter Alexander, 68, whose youngest daughter, Monique Alexander, was killed in 1988, said police initially seemed reluctant to investigate her death because there were signs she may have been involved in prostitution.
"They didn't show any strong concern," he said. "If I didn't call, I didn't get a call."
Police don't know why the killer took a 14-year hiatus. The gap led the LA Weekly newspaper, which first wrote about him, to dub him the "Grim Sleeper."
One description of the suspect exists — from a woman who survived an attack in 1988. She recalled him driving an orange Pinto and offering her a ride to her sister's house.
After exchanging some lighthearted banter, she agreed to the driver's offer. He had chiseled features, a low afro and wore a black polo shirt. He would now be in his late 40s to early 60s.
Shortly after she got in the car, she said, he shot her. "I woke up in the dark, I was in the middle of the street," said the woman, whose number was provided by police. She asked not to be named because she is the victim of a crime.
http://news.aol.com/article/grim-sleeper-serial-killer/357528
Mtnmom:
Grim Sleeper a nightmare for LA
On New Year's Day, 2007, a homeless man rummaging for bottles and cans in a dumpster off Western Avenue in South Los Angeles - the notoriously neglected home of many of the megalopolis's poorest blacks and Latinos - made a grisly discovery.
Lying amid the trash, near a Christmas tree, was a black plastic rubbish bag. It covered a young black woman, naked but for a gold pendant. She had been shot in the back.
Police identified her as Janecia Peters, 25. The murder of a young black woman aroused little reaction, beyond family grief, as violent death in South LA is common and often unsolved. Indeed, Peters' murder was first misreported as a stabbing.
But this death was different. Late last month the Los Angeles Police Department stunned the megalopolis by revealing that Peters was the latest victim of the most prolific serial killer in California's bloody history.
The killer, dubbed the Grim Sleeper, has committed at least 11 murders since 1985; 10 black women raped and shot and one black man shot.
Disturbingly, he appears to have halted his grisly spree in 1988, after eight murders, only to re-emerge in 2002, then to disappear between 2003 and 2007.
In May 2007, following DNA analysis - the killer left traces of DNA on his victims' breasts - detectives finally concluded a serial killer was stalking their city.
"The day those tests came in, we realised we had a serial killer on our hands who has been active for 23 years," said LAPD Detective Dennis Kilcoyne, who heads the team of seven full-time investigators. Formed last May, the unit operated covertly until recently.
They have their work cut out. Their quarry may have killed others in what is at least a 23-year murder spree. Thirty-three cold cases - unsolved homicides - on LAPD files show similarities to the Grim Sleeper's known victims.
The news that a killer was in their midst provoked anger in South LA where residents asked why they were not warned earlier. "Leaving us out of the loop about something so important boggles the mind," said Bernard Parks, a former LAPD chief, who now represents South LA on the council.
Police say they had to walk a tightrope. Publicity would warn the public and might solicit tips but it could also alert the killer. However 18 months after the LAPD formed its task force, police seem no closer to catching the killer.
The biggest problem, says LAPD Chief of Detectives Charlie Beck, is the victims "all had some connection to high-risk street activity" - prostitution, drugs, or both - and warnings didn't "prohibit them from their activities".
The world's oldest profession is also one of the deadliest in LA where street prostitution is illegal. Beck rejects complaints police might have acted swifter had the murders occurred in a wealthy, white area. "That's nonsensical. There aren't any street prostitutes in Bel Air."
Besides assembling a team, the city has offered a $50,000 reward per victim and up to $500,000 for all the known cases - the largest reward ever offered by the city.
Porter Alexander, whose daughter Alicia was found dead in 1988 after she went to a local store, spoke at a press conference this month when the city posted its reward. "We hope they bring this menace to a halt," he said. "I know someone out there knows something or has seen something."
Little is known publicly about the suspect. The only witness, an unidentified black woman who survived a 1988 attack, says a black man in his mid-30s with short hair picked her up in an orange Ford Pinto, then raped and shot her in the chest. Amazingly, she persuaded him to let her jump from his car. This is the last known attack before 2002.
"Everything dried up," said Kilcoyne. "Detectives ran out of clues. They got on to other things."
At the time the Grim Sleeper murders were viewed as isolated crimes. But retrospective analysis shows striking similarities in his modus operandi. Besides selecting blacks, the killer shot his victims in the chest with the same .25 handgun.
Moreover, the female victims had all been found on or near Western Avenue, a long north-south boulevard through South LA. As for the only male victim - Thomas Steele, 36, found shot dead in the middle of an intersection - Beck says he "may have had some involvement with the prostitution business".
Based on the 1988 attack Beck says "we're looking for a male black, probably in his mid-50s". He cautions that this profile is vague as the witness was, and is, traumatised.
In 2001 Parks, then LAPD chief, instructed detectives to re-examine cold case murder books - over 9000 unsolved homicides dating back to 1960 - using new DNA technologies.
Four years later LAPD Detective Cliff Shephard found a match between Valerie McCorvey, 35, killed in 2003, and Princess Berthomieux, 14, killed in 2002 - both strangled and dumped near Western - and a preserved DNA sample taken from Lowe, killed in 1987.
When Peters was killed, and DNA linked her to the other murders, the LAPD quietly formed its task force. As is usual when hunting serial killers police also consulted profilers.
This may be of little value because, says Beck, the Grim Sleeper "may be outside the parameters of a 'typical' serial killer". Instead, the killer is likely to be a "regular customer who occasionally kills prostitutes. But not all prostitutes".
The biggest mystery, other than the killer's identity, is why he apparently stopped killing between 1988 and 2001, and between 2003 and 2007, although his bloody footprint may be linked to other cold cases from this period.
Detectives theorise he may have been abroad or out of the state. He may have been in prison but not had his DNA taken.
Currently, hopes are focusing on a "familial search" comparing the killer's DNA with a state database that may include relatives. If his familial DNA emerges in a search of over 1 million DNA profiles, police might be able to identify the Grim Sleeper.
It can't be done soon enough for people in South LA. The Grim Sleeper has been quiet for 20 months. The race for a familial DNA match is made urgent by the fear that the killer is biding his time waiting to strike again.
KNOWN VICTIMS
These are the victims and the dates they disappeared or were found.
* Debra Jackson, 29 - August 10, 1985.
* Henrietta Wright, 35 - August 12, 1986.
* Thomas Steele, 36 - August 14, 1986.
* Barbara Ware, 23 - January 10, 1987.
* Bernita Sparks, 25 - April 15, 1987.
* Mary Lowe, 26 - November 1, 1987.
* Lachrica Jefferson, 22 - January 30, 1988.
* Alicia " Monique" Alexander, 18 - September 11, 1988.
* Princess Berthomieux, 14 - March 19, 2002.
* Valerie McCorvey, 35 - July 11, 2003.
* Janecia Peters, 25 - January 1, 2007.
doubledecker:
I have also researched this case somewhat. Is anyone else here researching this case? If so I would like to discuss and have info I can add to the board.
Nut44x4:
3/20/2009
'The Grim Sleeper': A Dozen Black Victims, Two Decades, No Suspect
The LAPD is staking it's claim as the most inept police department in the country.
In nearly two decades, 11 or more people have been murdered by the same man, with the police department nearly powerless to stop it.
Recently, an emergency call from 1987 was released in hopes of getting a lead on L.A.'s most notorious serial killer, dubbed the "grim sleeper" for the significant time lapse in between his killings. The killer has been at large since 1985, despite a $500,000 reward and samples of his DNA on file. As far as the police know, all of his victims have been black.
So what's taking so long? ...
The man on the call gave the license plate number of the van and police eventually located the vehicle at a church. "Then the trail stops there," said Kilcoyne. "It sounds like it was a pretty good road map for the investigation at the time and it just fizzled out." Here, a billboard advertises a reward for information on the killer, who has murdered at least 11 times in nearly a quarter century. (Note: Please disable your pop-up blocker)
On Wednesday, police in Los Angeles released a 1987 emergency call in the hopes of finding an elusive serial killer known as the "Grim Sleeper." The two-minute call was made by a man who told police he saw a blue-and-white van dump the body of 23-year-old Barbara Ware, seen above.
Ware, who had a history of prostitution, was found shot to death in a South Los Angeles alley. Here, from left, Captain Denis Cremins, Detective Dennis Kilcoyne and Chief William Bratton stand behind a photo of the van described in the call.
The man on the call gave the license plate number of the van and police eventually located the vehicle at a church. "Then the trail stops there," said Kilcoyne. "It sounds like it was a pretty good road map for the investigation at the time and it just fizzled out." Here, a billboard advertises a reward for information on the killer, who has murdered at least 11 times in nearly a quarter century.
Journalists gather near a reward poster displaying some of the killer's victims. Kilcoyne and his men hope to track down former churchgoers or even someone who knows the voice on the emergency call. "We still have no idea who this guy is," Kilcoyne said. "We've got a half-million-dollar reward out there on billboards and no one calls." (Source: AP)
The suspect kills by gunshot or strangulation, in some cases both, usually after some kind of sexual contact. Ten victims were women, all were black and several were prostitutes. The bodies were all found outside, usually in dirty alleyways a few miles south of downtown. The Associated Press
The biggest lead the police have is a call from a man who says he saw a body being thrown out of a van. Unfortunately, the caller couldn't identify the driver and declined to identify himself.
Six victims were found with the killer's DNA on them but a search of prisoner databases came up blank. Detectives went on to ask the California Department of Justice to run a DNA search that sought possible matches to the killer's relatives.
http://www.newcriminologist.com/article.asp?nid=2134
Nut44x4:
Bound Together by the Grim Sleeper
L.A. family of serial killer's victims meet at long last
By Christine Pelisek
Published on May 06, 2009 at 6:25pm
It was a warm Saturday morning in April when two unmarked Los Angeles Police Department cars pulled into the parking lot of the Freewill Missionary Baptist Church in South Los Angeles.
Armed with trays of sandwiches, cans of soda, and small bags of Ruffles potato chips and Doritos, several serious-looking detectives dressed in business attire made their way into the church’s kitchen.
It wasn’t a typical police investigation.
The confidential affair was invitation-only. The six detectives and two captains chose the church as neutral ground. They wanted as many of the invited as possible to show up, and worried that asking them to a police station might keep some away. Guests trickled into the dining hall, signing in before taking seats at two large cafeteria-style tables covered with pink-and-white tablecloths. Fake red roses and “Reward!” posters stacked next to the salt-and-pepper shakers added an unintentional but slightly morbid feel.
By 11:15 a.m., most of the 25 guests had arrived. A pastor welcomed them, asking them to join hands with the LAPD detectives in prayer. The group ranged in age from 5 to 65. They were strangers in almost every way but one: Several of them recognized one another because they’d recently been on the TV news in Southern California.
The guests were the families of the 11 victims of the Grim Sleeper, the longest-operating serial killer, ever, west of the Mississippi. And all of those gathered this day had lost a daughter, sister, aunt or mother. Little did they know that a few weeks later, in a development that seemed to highlight their shared heartache, police would arrest another long-elusive serial killer, the Westside Rapist, believed responsible for more than 25 killings during the 1970s and ’80s. According to police, in a story broken in the Los Angeles Times on April 30, John Floyd Thomas Jr., a 72-year-old state worker’s-compensation insurance adjuster, is now behind bars, linked by his own DNA to five cold-case Westside Rapist slayings.
DNA testing is also how the families pray police will catch the Grim Sleeper. As with alleged murderer Thomas, they hope, the LAPD or some other police force will eventually take a swab from the mouth of a man who matches the Grim Sleeper’s profile.
The Alexanders last saw their 17-year-old daughter Monique — a friendly teenager who had started to hang around with a bad crowd — 22 years ago when she walked out the front door on her way to the corner store. Sitting near them at the church meeting was a woman who was just a toddler when the body of her mother, Henrietta Wright, was found in an alley south of 2514 W. Vernon Ave.
Across the table from them sat stylishly dressed Larina Corlew, whose stepsister Barbara Ware was shot once in the chest and found in a heap of trash. A few seats from her was LaVerne Peters, who last spoke to her 25-year-old daughter Janecia about moving in with a friend, shortly before the beautiful young woman was found dead in a Dumpster on January 1, 2007, by a homeless man looking for recyclables.
“This has affected a lot of lives,” Los Angeles Police Department detective Dennis Kilcoyne told the families. “We have several generations of people here.... If you want it or not, you are connected.”
The killer, dubbed the Grim Sleeper by L.A. Weekly because he took a 13-year break before bizarrely resuming his slayings, began his awful crime spree on a warm August night in 1985 when the body of cocktail waitress Debra Jackson was found in an alley near West Gage Avenue, shot in the chest three times with a small-caliber pistol.
In total, DNA testing and ballistics matching have linked the Grim Sleeper to the deaths of 11 people, the most recent being Janecia Peters, found slain on the first day of 2007.
The roundtable discussion marked the first time that victims’ family members and detectives met at once to talk about the 10 women and one man murdered almost exclusively along, or near, a section of Western Avenue in South Los Angeles. The Weekly was invited to attend the meeting by the victims’ families, who conducted an impromptu vote to ask the newspaper to sit in.
Victim Barbara Ware’s stepmother, Diana, had asked detectives to bring the families together in the hopes of jogging old memories that might offer clues to police. Did any of the victims know each other? Is there some common thread yet to be recognized by investigators that the family members might unearth once brought together?
Ware, a woman with a persuasive personality, says she told the LAPD detectives, “‘Maybe there is some connection between the families,’ and [Det. Kilcoyne] said he would see if he could set it up.”
“We need your help,” Kilcoyne said matter-of-factly to them. “We don’t have a market on good ideas. If we did, he would have been caught 24 years ago.”
There were plenty of questions from the victims’ relatives. Are the killings ritualistic in some way? Why did he take a 13-year break before resuming his killings a few years ago?
“We can’t discount anything,” answered an amiable Kilcoyne, as the other five serial-killer task-force detectives listened intently to the spirited discussion.
Do the detectives believe the killer is still out there?
Kilcoyne couldn’t be certain. “We don’t have crystal balls.... The worst-case scenario is he is driving around ... or he could have died two years ago.”
“Did he move?” asked Barbara Ware’s aunt, Sherry, saying, “Maybe he went away for a while and is killing somewhere else.”
Family members and detectives theorized about who the mystery caller was, his deep voice recorded in January of 1987 as he told an LAPD dispatcher that he had just observed a man dumping a body from a van. The body turned out to be Ware.
And what about the easily recognizable, pimped-out orange Pinto or Pinto-like car with its white marble gear-shift knob and white interior — the car the killer was driving when he raped and shot sole survivor and eyewitness, Enietra Margette, before that orange car seemed to simply vanish from the streets of Los Angeles?
At one eerie point in the luncheon, victim Lachrica Jefferson’s aunt Yvonne Bell, who lived on Western Avenue between 1982 and 1987, insisted “I remember that car.” The 55-year-old Bell, a friendly former custodian for the U.S. Air Force, also felt sure that, “I recognize some of the [photos of the dead] girls ... but it is too late now” to piece together why.
Monique Alexander’s father, Porter, who was wearing a black buttoned-up shirt, black jeans and cowboy boots, wanted to know how the Grim Sleeper could have evaded justice for more than two decades after murdering his teenage daughter, who loved sports and horseback riding.
“He never has committed crimes and never been in the military,” Alexander theorized, as to why the Grim Sleeper’s DNA, which has been found at several crime scenes, does not match anyone’s DNA in any known crime database. “If you can’t attach something to him, you can’t find him. He knows how to protect himself.”
Kilcoyne told the families that all eight of the early victims were connected ballistically, by bullets showing the exact same striations and marring, meaning they were shot by the same gun. That same gun was used against sole survivor Enietra Margette, who was saved after ER workers dug a matching bullet from her chest. Among the eight older murder cases, DNA was recovered from three crime scenes, and that cold-case DNA was ultimately matched to fresh DNA taken from the three recent murders, committed after a 13-year gap.
“We have 10,000 [unsolved] murder cases in our archives,” Kilcoyne said, indicating the vast nature of the job police have faced. “If your cases weren’t connected by this serial killer, very possibly [they would] be archive cases and never looked at – collecting dust in a storage area.”
Detectives were dealt a setback in December when a search of DNA databases, in hopes of determining the killer’s real name by finding near-matches that indicate a male family member, came up empty. Apparently, none of the killer’s brothers or father have genetic profiles in the existing databases.
“Will you retest the familial DNA?” asked Peters. To the relief of family members, Kilcoyne said state Attorney General Jerry Brown’s testing lab plans to search the criminal database for new clues every six months.
“Is there a time limit on the task force?” queried Peters.
“There is no hint of that,” said Kilcoyne. “This is on the front burner of [Chief William J.] Bratton. He is not going to say, ‘We will give up for [the next] 10 years and it will be someone else’s problem.’”
As the families sipped soda and nibbled on potato chips and sandwiches stuffed with ham and turkey, Kilcoyne explained that when he realized, in 2006, that the long-dormant Grim Sleeper had struck again, LAPD was “in the reluctant stage” about alerting the public and media. However, the story broke in L.A. Weekly last fall. The resulting media coverage has led to hundreds of new clues, and serial-killer task-force detectives have ruled out dozens of suspects and have swabbed the mouths of more than 50 men to collect DNA, none of which has matched.
The ideas from the public are sometimes helpful, but also absurd. “Someone asked us to look at Dodger players,” said Kilcoyne. “We are checking every little clue that is coming our way.... Cops are not off-limits. They have been looked at and will continue to be looked at.”
In one instance, detectives followed a potential suspect for days before he dropped a cigarette butt, which police grabbed and analyzed for a DNA match. In another case, a woman flew to California from another state, convinced her ex-husband was the Grim Sleeper. “She was so adamant,” said Captain Denis Cremins. “As it turned out, we eliminated him through DNA.”
Alexander, father of victim Monique, feels certain that “He is a smooth type of person.... He knows how to handle himself in the street.” Unless “DNA is extracted,” he says, it will be difficult to catch him.
Cremins urged the families not to become cynical or give up hope. “Guys like [Ted] Bundy, they had one flaw — arrogance. Give us that one opportunity. That’s our job, to be there when he makes that mistake.... This guy will slip up.”
“The fortunate part is we have [his] DNA,” added Kilcoyne. “We have a profile ... and that day will come when we will know who he is and have a match to his face.” Kilcoyne is among many in law enforcement who believe “It will be the science that will put this guy in jail.... Sooner or later we are going to get a call.”
By 2 p.m., the families slowly began to trickle out. The pastor ended the three-hour meeting, not with a prayer, but with a gentle joke acknowledging the pain these families have been through. “This is the start of something,” he said. “The meeting was done decently and orderly. It could have gotten ugly up in here.”
http://www.laweekly.com/2009-05-07/news/bound-together-by-the-grim-sleeper/3
The above report is 3 pages long...I have posted all of it, but there are many photos at the link within the 3 pages.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page