'Grim Sleeper' serial killer sentenced to death in Los Angeles

Former rubbish collector Lonnie Franklin was convicted of the murders of 10 women, but police believe he may have killed more than twice that many

Franklin remained impassive throughout the sentencing, as he had for the duration of his three-month trial ((AP))

Lonnie Franklin, the Los Angeles serial killer known as “The Grim Sleeper” has been sentenced to death for the murders of ten women between 1985 and 2007.

A former rubbish collector who at one point was mechanic for the LAPD, Franklin targeted addicts and prostitutes in his long but sporadic killing spree, claiming victims who ranged in age from 15 to 35. The women were all shot or strangled, and their bodies dumped in alleyways close to Franklin’s home in South LA.

Some of the victims’ family members wept as Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy read out the death sentences. Others repeated “Amen” after each one, the Los Angeles Times reported. Franklin sat silent and impassive.

The sentencing came at the climax of a hearing at which 17 relatives of the victims read statements to the court. Laverne Peters, whose 25-year-old daughter was killed in 2007 and her body left in a rubbish bin, said Franklin had treated her “like she was trash,” adding: “My hope is that he spends the rest of his glory days in his jail cell, which will become his trash bag.”

Franklin claimed his early victims amid the violent crack cocaine epidemic that overtook Los Angeles and other US cities in the 1980s and 1990s. Police failed to connect the slayings at the time, in part because at least three serial killers were active in South Los Angeles during the same period. Franklin proved to be particularly elusive, earning his sinister nickname because his murders appeared to cease between 1988 and 2002.

Police finally closed in following DNA advances in the 2000s. When Franklin’s son Christopher was arrested on firearm and drugs charges, his DNA proved a match for that found on several of the victims. Franklin was arrested at last in July 2010.

One of dozens of witnesses at the three-month trial was Enietra Washington, 57, who testified that he had sexually assaulted and shot her, snapping her picture with a Polaroid camera before he dumped her from his vehicle during the attack in 1988. Franklin was also found guilty of Ms Washington’s attempted murder.

During the sentencing phase of the trial, prosecutors linked Franklin to five further killings. Police believe he may have murdered as many as 25 women in total.