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Speaker 7: You are now listening to True Murder the most shocking
Speaker 7: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 7: written about them. Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, BTK Every
Speaker 7: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 7: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 7: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 8: Good Evening. In two thousand and six, Christine Pelisek broke
Speaker 8: the story of a terrifying serial killer who went on
Speaker 8: checked in Los Angeles for decades. Two years later, in
Speaker 8: a cover article for La Weekly, Pelisek dubbed him the
Speaker 8: Grim Sleeper for his long break between murders. The killer
Speaker 8: preyed on a community devastated by crime and drugs, and
Speaker 8: left behind a trail of bodies, all women of color,
Speaker 8: all murdered in a similar fashion, and all discarded in
Speaker 8: the alleys of Los Angeles. The case of the Grim
Speaker 8: Sleeper is unforgettably singular, but also tells a wider story
Speaker 8: about homicide investigations in areas beset by poverty, gang violence,
Speaker 8: and despair about how a serial killer could continue his
Speaker 8: grizzly work for two decades, in part due to society's
Speaker 8: lack of concern for his chosen victims, and about the
Speaker 8: power and tenacity of those women's families and the detectives
Speaker 8: who refused to let the case go cold. No one
Speaker 8: knows this story better than Pelisek, the reporter who followed
Speaker 8: it for more than ten years, based on extensive interviews, reportage,
Speaker 8: and information never really at least to the public. The
Speaker 8: Grim Sleeper captures the long bumpy road to justice in
Speaker 8: one of the most startling true crime stories of our generation.
Speaker 8: The book that we're featuring this seating is The Grim
Speaker 8: Sleeper The Lost Women of South Central with my special guest,
Speaker 8: journalist and author Christine Pelisek. Welcome to the program, and
Speaker 8: thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Christine Pelisek,
Speaker 8: well play here. Thank you very much for joining me.
Speaker 8: This is congratulations on as we mentioned in the introduction,
Speaker 8: ten years of some incredible journalism. Congratulations. Let's start to
Speaker 8: write in this because this is an incredible involved tale
Speaker 8: and of course we as we mentioned, covering twenty years.
Speaker 8: So let's start as you do in your book when
Speaker 8: you're speaking with coroner Assistant Chief Winter and you were
Speaker 8: a crime reporter for the LA Weekly and Alternative newspaper,
Speaker 8: tell us a little bit about your relationship with Chief
Speaker 8: Winter and what you were doing there in January two
Speaker 8: thousand and six, and you're a very very interesting conversation.
Speaker 9: Sure, I had gone to I was actually regular I
Speaker 9: regularly went to see him, you know, maybe once twice
Speaker 9: a week because I was a crime reporter at the
Speaker 9: La Weekly at the time, and I was always looking
Speaker 9: for stories to cover, and so I had been you know,
Speaker 9: dropping by his office, you know, once twice a week
Speaker 9: for you know, a year or two. And on that
Speaker 9: particular occasion when I went, he told me that his
Speaker 9: office was looking into a series of body dumps of
Speaker 9: women that were found in La County. And it was
Speaker 9: between the years two thousand and two and two thousand
Speaker 9: and six, and the women were found in alley's dumpsters
Speaker 9: all over LA County and there were thirty eight women
Speaker 9: and they were you know, mixture of white women, African
Speaker 9: American women, Hispanic women, and their corners investigators had gone
Speaker 9: to the death scenes and had noticed, you know, there
Speaker 9: were so many of these women. So they decided to
Speaker 9: put this task force together to look into it. But
Speaker 9: he told me that, you know, there were so many
Speaker 9: cases the corner's office, so they couldn't spend all their
Speaker 9: time doing it, so they only dedicated, you know, whenever
Speaker 9: they had a free moment to look into the cases
Speaker 9: to see if any of the cases were linked. And
Speaker 9: so he told me that, and I asked him at
Speaker 9: the time whether I could get the list and look
Speaker 9: into it, and he said no, And so it went
Speaker 9: on for months and months and months before he finally
Speaker 9: actually gave me this list, and so I ended up
Speaker 9: started I started looking into it to see if I
Speaker 9: could see any connections. And one of the things for
Speaker 9: him is that he tried to they tried to reach
Speaker 9: out to the law enforcement agencies, you know, La County
Speaker 9: Sheriff and you know, all the law enforcement agencies around
Speaker 9: La LAPD, et cetera. And you know, they didn't really
Speaker 9: want to pay attention to the corner, you know, because
Speaker 9: it's really the corners there too, you know, figure out
Speaker 9: the cause of death, whereas the LAPD detectives and the
Speaker 9: Lake County Sheriff they actually try to solve the cases,
Speaker 9: and so they didn't really want the corner involved in
Speaker 9: their you know, in their cases. So he ended up
Speaker 9: giving me this list and from there I ended up
Speaker 9: contacting all the different law enforcement agencies that were involved.
Speaker 9: There was a number of them, and I found that
Speaker 9: some of the cases weren't actually even homicides. Other ones,
Speaker 9: the case that had been solved it was like a
Speaker 9: guy that killed his girl friend, or you know, it
Speaker 9: was a girl who you know, was a drug overdose
Speaker 9: or something along those lines. But there were a lot
Speaker 9: of murders, and the bulk of them were murders of
Speaker 9: African American women in South Los Angeles. And so as
Speaker 9: I was going through and investigating, I came across a case.
Speaker 9: It was like this thirty seventh case on the list,
Speaker 9: and it was a girl named Princess Berth and you
Speaker 9: she was a fifteen year old runaway out of Inglewood,
Speaker 9: which is a city sort of just next to Los
Speaker 9: Angeles and near the La Airport. And so I ended
Speaker 9: up talking to the detective there. He took me a
Speaker 9: while before I actually was able to get a hold
Speaker 9: of them, and when I did, he actually told me
Speaker 9: that Princess's case was linked through DNA to a case
Speaker 9: in Princess's case, by the way, was two thousand and two,
Speaker 9: and her case was linked to a woman by the
Speaker 9: name of Valerie McCorvey. Who was killed in South Los
Speaker 9: Angeles in two thousand and three. She was thirty five
Speaker 9: year old mother of two and she was found dead
Speaker 9: in an alleyway. And he had told me that those
Speaker 9: two cases were linked to a series of murders that
Speaker 9: happened in South Los Angeles back in the eighties, and
Speaker 9: the killer had shot his victims with a twenty five
Speaker 9: caliber done to the chest, and so all the cases
Speaker 9: were linked. Well, the eighties cases were linked through ballistics
Speaker 9: to a twenty five caliber, and those cases in the eighties,
Speaker 9: there was seven of them, were linked through DNA to
Speaker 9: Princess's case and Valerie McCorvey's case, and so that's how
Speaker 9: I ended up finding out about it.
Speaker 8: You talk about the one survivor that you knew at
Speaker 8: that time, and her name was Anetro Washington, and she
Speaker 8: was shot, raped and left for dead. Tell us a
Speaker 8: little bit more about this South Side Slayer task Force,
Speaker 8: and we can't get into all the missteps or won't
Speaker 8: say missteps, but false leads and all the other people
Speaker 8: that were looked at and investigated in in terms of
Speaker 8: no avail. So let's talk about a little bit about
Speaker 8: that South Side Slayer Task Force.
Speaker 9: Okay, well, back in the eighties, there was a lot
Speaker 9: of women getting murdered. I mean, at the time, there
Speaker 9: was a huge crack of the epidemic all over the US,
Speaker 9: you know, mostly in the big cities, and La was
Speaker 9: one of the cities that was just you know, destroyed
Speaker 9: by the crack epidemic as well as like gang warfare,
Speaker 9: and you know, there was just a lot of drug
Speaker 9: dealing et cetera going on back in the eighties, and
Speaker 9: there was a lot of women getting murdered. You know,
Speaker 9: over that decade, there was hundreds of African American women
Speaker 9: that were found dead. And at the time, the police
Speaker 9: they started looking into the murders back in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 9: and they actually thought it was the work of one killer,
Speaker 9: and so they actually dubbed this. They started a task
Speaker 9: force and they called it the South Side Slayer task Force,
Speaker 9: and they called the alleged killer the suicide Slayer, and
Speaker 9: they thought that it was one person and responsible for
Speaker 9: all these murders of women in South Lost Angelis. But
Speaker 9: it turned out that it was more than one killer.
Speaker 9: There was actually six serial killers operating at the same
Speaker 9: time in South Los Angeles and so but at first
Speaker 9: you know, they thought it was this one guy, even
Speaker 9: though like the ways that the women died were different,
Speaker 9: like some like the Grim Sleeper killer, he you know,
Speaker 9: shot the women in the chest, whereas some of the
Speaker 9: other women were strangled, other ones were stabbed. So why
Speaker 9: they thought that the cases were lengthd I'm not I
Speaker 9: don't know, I'm thinking because they didn't really know a
Speaker 9: lot about serial killers at the time, even though there
Speaker 9: were in Richard Ramirez was you know, active in nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty five. You know, so there were some serial killers,
Speaker 9: the Hillside strangler and things along those lines. But you know,
Speaker 9: so for whatever reason, they thought it was one But
Speaker 9: as they got this task force together and they had
Speaker 9: like forty or fifty detectives, you know, working from La
Speaker 9: County sheriff ONLYPD, and they realized that there was actually
Speaker 9: more than one killer, and they actually did. They were
Speaker 9: able to catch two, you know, back in the eighties,
Speaker 9: and the other ones weren't caught until the LAPD started
Speaker 9: its cold case unit in the early two thousands, and
Speaker 9: then you know, a few other serial killers were unearthed
Speaker 9: because of it, including Lonnie Franklin Junior, the Grim Sleeper.
Speaker 8: You talk about in the book and I think this
Speaker 8: is very important to why you were so persistent and
Speaker 8: why you were so important to this investigation in this
Speaker 8: in this story, and hence the book tell us a
Speaker 8: little bit, as you do in the book, about your
Speaker 8: background living in Ottawa, Canada, and your reaction when you
Speaker 8: came to Los Angeles and some of the things that
Speaker 8: you saw. What was your overall reaction and impression.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean I came from Outawa, which you know,
Speaker 9: there's not exactly there's not very many you know, in Ottawa.
Speaker 9: So when I moved to Los Angeles, I you know,
Speaker 9: I was kind of surprised just how many murders there
Speaker 9: were and just how little you know, the media and
Speaker 9: people knew about them. I mean, in Ottawa, if you
Speaker 9: had a murder, i mean, everybody knew, it was on
Speaker 9: the front page of the newspapers. Whereas here, you know,
Speaker 9: so many people were getting killed and really no one
Speaker 9: knew about them. And I just found that like extremely tragic.
Speaker 9: And in this case with the women, I mean, there
Speaker 9: was barely you know, except for the families, like they
Speaker 9: were really the only ones that seemed to care at
Speaker 9: the fact that these women were killed. I mean, back
Speaker 9: in the age I mean there was coverage, for sure
Speaker 9: of it, but I mean we didn't know who these
Speaker 9: women were. And you know, when you compare it to
Speaker 9: some of the cases out there, you know, when you
Speaker 9: had like Natalie Holloway, I mean, everybody knows who Natalie
Speaker 9: Holloway is and what happened to Natalie Holloway. But you know,
Speaker 9: with these women, no one knew about them, and so
Speaker 9: I really wanted to find out more about the case.
Speaker 9: Number one. I wanted to you know, I was hoping
Speaker 9: that the case would be solved, but I also wanted
Speaker 9: to give the women a voice and let people know
Speaker 9: who they were. And they weren't just you know, discarded,
Speaker 9: like you know, Lonnie discarded as victims like trash, and
Speaker 9: you know, I wanted people to know who they were.
Speaker 9: So that's kind of, you know, part of the reason
Speaker 9: why I, you know, got involved with it.
Speaker 8: You also talk about the really the main focus of
Speaker 8: this is self Central, and you talk about the incredible
Speaker 8: amount of murders in Los Angeles, but you say over
Speaker 8: half of those occur in this much much smaller area
Speaker 8: comparatively self central. So tell us a little bit about
Speaker 8: self Central and the characteristics of it. For those people
Speaker 8: that don't know before we talk about Deborah Jackson.
Speaker 9: Sure, South Los Angeles is a community sort of just
Speaker 9: not too far away from down to Los Angeles, and
Speaker 9: it was back in the eighties. It was predominantly African American,
Speaker 9: you know, middle middle, lower class, you know, income, lower
Speaker 9: income families. And at the time when these serial killers
Speaker 9: were actually working in Los Angeles, like they were working
Speaker 9: within like a fifty one square mile area and they
Speaker 9: were sort of all hunting the same spot. And this place,
Speaker 9: you know, in the eighties, I mean, it was just
Speaker 9: ravaged by crack cocaine, drive by shootings. It was the
Speaker 9: start of gangs. So a lot of the gangs, like
Speaker 9: the Bloods and the crips and all of them were
Speaker 9: you know beginning, you know, around that time, and you know,
Speaker 9: causing you know, huge disturbances and killing people. You know,
Speaker 9: So at the time it was like a very very
Speaker 9: like violent place, and you know, so it made it
Speaker 9: sort of easy for a serial killer to work and
Speaker 9: not get caught because the police were so focused on
Speaker 9: you know, you stop, like the gangs and you know,
Speaker 9: the drive by shootings and the drug war that they
Speaker 9: weren't really paying attention to these serial killers that were
Speaker 9: killing women and dumping their bodies in these alleys.
Speaker 8: Now you talk about Deborah Jackson, and she has three children,
Speaker 8: and she had her first child at fourteen, and so
Speaker 8: you talk about this tragic life, but you get to
Speaker 8: know everybody here and you get the incredible access to
Speaker 8: these people, so you not only put a face on it,
Speaker 8: but really an incredible story behind from the information you gather.
Speaker 8: Tell us a little bit about Deborah Jackson.
Speaker 9: Well, Deborah was the first known victim of the Grim Sleeper.
Speaker 9: She was a cocktail waitress and lived with her girlfriend
Speaker 9: in Lost in South Los Angeles. And you know, she
Speaker 9: had three kids when she was quite young and had
Speaker 9: moved out to Los Angeles because of her grandmother was
Speaker 9: living out here, and so she moved out and she
Speaker 9: actually worked in me She was actually like a hairdresser
Speaker 9: and she did braids and things like that. And then
Speaker 9: she ended up getting a job at a nightclub in Inglewood,
Speaker 9: and so you know, she worked, you know, nights, and
Speaker 9: she had lost her kids for I guess she had
Speaker 9: lost them for a few years. She had issues with
Speaker 9: drugs and so the kids were in foster care. But
Speaker 9: at the time of her death. She was actually trying
Speaker 9: to get her kids back and was like within days
Speaker 9: of reuniting with her children when she was murdered, and
Speaker 9: she was kind of she was last seen she was
Speaker 9: at a friend's house and then she left to go
Speaker 9: back to her place. Her and her girlfriend at the
Speaker 9: time got into a fight, and so she ended up
Speaker 9: staying the night over at a really good friend's house,
Speaker 9: and then she was going back up to her old
Speaker 9: apartment to a neighbor's house to give this woman twenty
Speaker 9: dollars that she owed her and she never made it back,
Speaker 9: and so the police suspect that she was probably hitch hiking,
Speaker 9: and then she was picked up by Lonnie Franklin and
Speaker 9: then he killed her and then you know, tossed her
Speaker 9: body in an alleyway.
Speaker 8: Now it's interesting too that the police, of course follow
Speaker 8: up every lead, but very early on, and not to
Speaker 8: beat up on police or anything, but it's just the
Speaker 8: story of what happens with her friend, Beatrice, and how
Speaker 8: they treat her with this death, this former really good friend.
Speaker 9: Well, yeah, I mean they thought Beatrice was the killer,
Speaker 9: you know what I mean, Because I mean in cases
Speaker 9: where you have you know, they always look for murders.
Speaker 9: You know, you always look at the person you know
Speaker 9: that you know, like whoever they're dating or you know,
Speaker 9: husband to wife. And so she was suspect, you know,
Speaker 9: she was suspect number one, and I mean they thought
Speaker 9: it was her up until the time that Henrietta Wright
Speaker 9: was killed like a year later. I mean, you know,
Speaker 9: they looked at you know, Beatrice and you know, figured
Speaker 9: it with her, and I mean, you know, they they
Speaker 9: grilled her and all this other stuff and thought she
Speaker 9: was lying and the whole nine yards and so they
Speaker 9: were fixated on it, you know, and looked for the gun.
Speaker 9: You know, they knew she was killed by a twenty
Speaker 9: five caliber. They weren't able to find a gun, but
Speaker 9: she was like the prime suspects. And it really wasn't
Speaker 9: until Henrietta was killed that they thought, oh, geez, maybe
Speaker 9: it wasn't you know, maybe it's not her, and so
Speaker 9: they moved on. And then at that point, when Henrietta
Speaker 9: Wright was murdered, a woman came out of the woodwork
Speaker 9: and basically said that it was her boyfriend who was responsible.
Speaker 9: And so then they completely focused on on.
Speaker 6: That, you know.
Speaker 9: So I mean there was a lot I was talking
Speaker 9: to a detective and he was telling me that I
Speaker 9: told you a couple of detectives, but this one guy
Speaker 9: in particular had said that, you know, back you know,
Speaker 9: when they were working, like it was seventy seventh Division
Speaker 9: LAPD station that was handling you know, the bok of
Speaker 9: these murders, and I mean there was like eight detectives
Speaker 9: handling like one hundred and thirty hundred and forty cases.
Speaker 9: And you know, on the weekend, they'd have two detectives
Speaker 9: working you know, four, five, six, seven, you know, sometimes
Speaker 9: eight cases. So they'd work on something for twenty four
Speaker 9: hours if they were lucky, and then they'd get another
Speaker 9: case that they'd have to work on. So they never
Speaker 9: had time, like, they hardly had time to follow up.
Speaker 9: And when they did have time to follow up, it
Speaker 9: could be like weeks later, you know, when everything had
Speaker 9: gone cold.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 9: So they were having a hard time, and then they
Speaker 9: were saying that the Parker Center, which was kind of
Speaker 9: police headquarters, they weren't getting a lot of support from them,
Speaker 9: you know, so they were kind of doing it on
Speaker 9: their own. And you know, they worked, you know, twenty
Speaker 9: four hours a day sometimes, but it just wasn't enough
Speaker 9: and the money you know, that Parker Center like headquarters
Speaker 9: was getting, was not going to South Los Angeles, you know.
Speaker 9: So it was a huge issue, you know, and it
Speaker 9: didn't matter if the homicide detectors actually wanted to solve
Speaker 9: the cases. They just weren't there, weren't the resources. And
Speaker 9: one detective told me he was like half the time
Speaker 9: he didn't even have like would rush around and he'd
Speaker 9: make these little notes. But they do these investigative reports.
Speaker 9: You're supposed to have, like, you know, when there's a homicide,
Speaker 9: you're supposed to have these investigative reports and put everything
Speaker 9: in like everybody you interviewed and whatever. You're supposed to
Speaker 9: do it in a timely manner, so you know, so
Speaker 9: the next person who looks at the case will have
Speaker 9: the notes and whatever. And some of these detectives were
Speaker 9: telling me that sometimes it would take weeks before they'd
Speaker 9: actually write these investigative reports, you know, and they'd have
Speaker 9: to do it for memory and they'd forget details, and
Speaker 9: you know, it was a real mess and it made it,
Speaker 9: you know, solving these cases really hard. And I think
Speaker 9: that when somebody would turn around and say, hey, so
Speaker 9: and so did it, I think they jumped on it,
Speaker 9: you know, and that's what they did in some of
Speaker 9: the cases unfortunately, you know, So you know, there was
Speaker 9: people that were arrested when they had nothing to do
Speaker 9: with it. And you know, as you know, there was
Speaker 9: one case there was an LA County sheriff they believed
Speaker 9: was responsible, you know, because they found a nine millimeter
Speaker 9: in his car, not a twenty five caliber, but a
Speaker 9: nine millimeter and you know, he was charged and it
Speaker 9: wasn't until ballistics you know, basically exonerated him that you know,
Speaker 9: but even you know, years later, people still believe that
Speaker 9: he had something to do with it, you know. And
Speaker 9: it turned out, you know, he died in two thousand
Speaker 9: and three, sort of in between Princess and Valerie, and
Speaker 9: you know, it was impossible for him to be the
Speaker 9: killer unless he was killing from the grave. So you know,
Speaker 9: it was pretty it was really hard. So it was
Speaker 9: a real combination of things going on, you know, factors
Speaker 9: you know, going on back then that made it very
Speaker 9: difficult to solve these cases.
Speaker 8: Yeah, very understandable. Wild goose chases like you just mentioned
Speaker 8: that you write in the book where it seems like
Speaker 8: that they've got a really good, reasonable suspect here based
Speaker 8: on circumstantial evidence. So and it leads to nothing. You
Speaker 8: talked about Henrietta Wright. She was thirty four, mother of five,
Speaker 8: and she was found in August nineteen eighty six in
Speaker 8: an alley tell us they do a link, They say,
Speaker 8: in the same twenty five caliber gun is used to
Speaker 8: kill Deborah Jackson. What else was similar the similar methodology
Speaker 8: or signature that was left at that crime scene.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean they were all found like they were.
Speaker 9: She was. You know, both of them are shot with
Speaker 9: a twenty five caliber. Both of them were shot with
Speaker 9: The gun was was close range, you know, with almost
Speaker 9: a contact wound, right, and all his victims are pretty
Speaker 9: much you know, had clothes on. Some of them had
Speaker 9: you know, you know, shirts pulled up, her pants pulled
Speaker 9: down kind of thing. But I mean all of them
Speaker 9: were found in the alleyways. You know, all of them
Speaker 9: were found, you know, within a few miles of each other.
Speaker 9: You know, Deborah Jackson had you know, she was missing
Speaker 9: for longer, so so you know when they found her,
Speaker 9: you know, she was you know, absolutely bloated. But the
Speaker 9: similarities were, you know, basically the gun and how it
Speaker 9: was shot. It looked like the killer was shooting, was
Speaker 9: driving and then using his right hand and you know,
Speaker 9: basically reaching over to the passenger in the passenger seat
Speaker 9: and then shooting the person in the chest. Because the
Speaker 9: wounds were almost exactly the same spot, like downward, you know,
Speaker 9: looking you know, so it looked like it was somebody
Speaker 9: you know, in a passenger side sort of leaning over
Speaker 9: and having contact and then shooting. Right now, to talk.
Speaker 8: About certainly you talk about this very very interesting thing
Speaker 8: that haunts this entire investigation for years is January tenth,
Speaker 8: early nineteen eighty seven and another alley and an anonymous call. Oh,
Speaker 8: tell us what that call was.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So what happened was Barbara Ware was killed, uh,
Speaker 9: January tenth, nineteen eighty seven. And what happened was the
Speaker 9: LAPD dispatch got a call from somebody who basically was
Speaker 9: calling in that they saw a dead body or something
Speaker 9: in an alleyway and the caller a mail basically tells
Speaker 9: a dispatcher that, you know, somebody they saw somebody like
Speaker 9: take the body out of a blue and white van
Speaker 9: and actually gave the the license plate number of the
Speaker 9: van and said, you know, the person like dumped the
Speaker 9: body out and then you know, put a gas tank
Speaker 9: on top of the person and then drove off. And
Speaker 9: so this was just after midnight, and so the lapd
Speaker 9: you know, went to the alleyway and actually found Barbara
Speaker 9: Ware underneath a gas tank and there was like garbage
Speaker 9: thrown on top of her. And they actually traced the
Speaker 9: van with the license plate number to this Cosmopolitan Church
Speaker 9: which was on nearby Normandy which was in like Normandy Avenue,
Speaker 9: which wasn't like actually that far away. And so they
Speaker 9: go to the scene and they found Barbara Ware actually
Speaker 9: had curlers in her hair, and they found a multicolored
Speaker 9: curler in the parking lot. And so they go there
Speaker 9: and they go to the church and actually, which surprised them,
Speaker 9: they get there and it's after midnight or whatever. They
Speaker 9: realized that there's people actually in the church at the time.
Speaker 9: So they go into the church and they also the
Speaker 9: van was there. I forgot to mention the van was
Speaker 9: actually there. So they touched the van and they realized
Speaker 9: the van's warm and everything. So they think, okay, well
Speaker 9: the killer you know, drove the van, you know, parts
Speaker 9: of it that the Cosmopolitan Church and either went in the
Speaker 9: church or took off. So they end up knocking on
Speaker 9: the door and there's like three women in there and
Speaker 9: a couple of kids, and they're having like a overnight
Speaker 9: slumber party. And this cosmopolitan church had these you know,
Speaker 9: late night services, and some of the people actually lived
Speaker 9: there were some family members you know that were kind
Speaker 9: of poor and lived actually at the church, and on
Speaker 9: that particular night, they were actually having a slumber party,
Speaker 9: and so the police ended up bringing them down to
Speaker 9: the station and they actually thought there was like one
Speaker 9: kid who was like twenty one, twenty two and another
Speaker 9: one that was sixteen, and they kind of honed in
Speaker 9: on the kids and did you know, gunshot residue tests
Speaker 9: on their hands, you know, to see if you know,
Speaker 9: one of them, you know, had killed Barbara Ware and
Speaker 9: it ended up being it was like, it ended up
Speaker 9: being like a complete like red herring. And the police
Speaker 9: later learned, you know, decades later, when the LAPD started
Speaker 9: its eight hundred Task Force and you know, eventually arresting
Speaker 9: Lonnie Franklin and everything, that it was Lonnie Franklin that
Speaker 9: actually made that call, which was you know, very you know,
Speaker 9: very interesting, you know, but it was a real like
Speaker 9: it really you know, send the detectives off in a
Speaker 9: different direction. And actually when the detectives started the eight
Speaker 9: hundred task worth, you know, they actually tracked down some
Speaker 9: of the cosmopolitan church members to try to find out
Speaker 9: if you know, any of these guys were involved. And
Speaker 9: they actually went to Macon, Georgia, and there was a
Speaker 9: guy who was like a pastor, you know, one of
Speaker 9: the guys that was involved in the church, one of
Speaker 9: the ministers. They actually he was buried in the front
Speaker 9: lawn of this other like pastor's home, and they actually
Speaker 9: you know, took a sample, like they went in and
Speaker 9: they actually exhumed the body and took a sample and
Speaker 9: tested it with the crime scene evidence to see if
Speaker 9: he was the killer. And he wasn't. But you know,
Speaker 9: so they went you know, it was a real red herring,
Speaker 9: you know, to go down that route. And they still
Speaker 9: actually the detectives actually never found out why Lonnie Franklin
Speaker 9: actually you know, chose to give that you know, like
Speaker 9: you know, that license plate number. They still don't know
Speaker 9: because I mean, as far as they could tell, he
Speaker 9: wasn't a member of the church, and nor was his wife.
Speaker 9: So whether he ended up having a beef with somebody,
Speaker 9: you know, they don't know or if he happened to
Speaker 9: just be driving by, but they don't believe that he
Speaker 9: actually took the van because the family, like the church member,
Speaker 9: said that they had driven the you know, the van
Speaker 9: pretty much all night, but there was a period where
Speaker 9: they were praying and everything. But it wasn't during the
Speaker 9: time where you know, the van was used, you know,
Speaker 9: in the murder of Barbara Ware. So it's a real
Speaker 9: puzzle even to this day exactly why he chose the
Speaker 9: cosmopolitan church.
Speaker 8: You talk about you write about mid January nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 8: the South Side slayer investigation had stalled, and it was
Speaker 8: talk about cutting back manpower on the town force. They
Speaker 8: had spent a lot of money ninety five thousand dollars
Speaker 8: a month on overtime, very expensive, all kinds of clues.
Speaker 8: Then you also had the pressure from the public and
Speaker 8: especially as you write about Margaret Prescott, the Black Coalition
Speaker 8: fighting back serial murders. And then you talk about March
Speaker 8: twenty ninth, nineteen eighty seven and another self central woman
Speaker 8: found dead and again shot with a twenty five caliber pistol.
Speaker 8: Tell us a little bit about what they find and
Speaker 8: if they can progress in this investigation with this case.
Speaker 9: No, I mean it was the same, you know, it
Speaker 9: was the same thing, you know. I mean, they they
Speaker 9: you know, I think that the detectives were just you know,
Speaker 9: and also too, I mean some of the cases, they
Speaker 9: were all handled by some detectives were handling the case
Speaker 9: and then it would move over. And at by that
Speaker 9: point it was the LAPD Robbery Homicide unit that had
Speaker 9: taken over the case. Once Barbara Ware was killed, the
Speaker 9: case was actually transferred over to robbery homicide because they realized,
Speaker 9: well they probably realized beforehand, but they realized that the
Speaker 9: cases were linked. And so a couple of other detectives
Speaker 9: from Robbery Homicide, which is like the elite you know
Speaker 9: unit of the LAPD that handles like serial killer cases
Speaker 9: and high profile cases, they actually took over the case
Speaker 9: and so they started investigating the case. You know. But
Speaker 9: you know, once again, you know, they you know, had
Speaker 9: issues and you know Margaret Prescott, I mean she had
Speaker 9: press conferences all the time, you know, and I mean
Speaker 9: it was interesting because the police would give out, you know,
Speaker 9: as much information as you know, I mean, they didn't
Speaker 9: give out a lot of information. They didn't want to
Speaker 9: give out, you know, what was going on in their investigation.
Speaker 9: And actually it wasn't until much later that the press realized.
Speaker 9: And even then, like it wasn't even like completely confirmed
Speaker 9: really that you know, Lonnie Frank England, like these twenty
Speaker 9: five caliber killings were the work of a serial killer.
Speaker 9: You know, so they just had you know, it didn't
Speaker 9: matter for them. I mean, it was just so difficult
Speaker 9: for them to solve it. So everything that they tried
Speaker 9: to do, it just didn't work out very well.
Speaker 8: You also talk about this interesting pain in this entire story,
Speaker 8: this informant named Shelley Brown again July sixth, and she's
Speaker 8: crucial in this story, I guess in putting it off
Speaker 8: the rails July sixth, nineteen eighty seven. What does she
Speaker 8: tell police about Henrietta's killer?
Speaker 9: Now, Well, what happened was Shelley Brown, was that Shelley
Speaker 9: she was in trouble for another crime, and she had
Speaker 9: told the police that she had seen she was at
Speaker 9: a hotel with this guy named Dennis Paintney and another
Speaker 9: guy they call him Pinky, and another guy named let Loose,
Speaker 9: and they're at a motel room with a woman who
Speaker 9: she said was Henrietta, right, And that they were partying,
Speaker 9: you know, doing coke and everything at this hotel room.
Speaker 9: She was in one room and Henrietta was allegedly in
Speaker 9: another room, and she said she heard a fight. She
Speaker 9: looked out the window. Henrietta Wright goes running out the
Speaker 9: you know, running out of the door. The two guys
Speaker 9: end up chasing down Henrietta. Right, they jump her, you know,
Speaker 9: one of the guys shoots Henrietta right. She says, she
Speaker 9: claims that she saw it. You know, they dragged her,
Speaker 9: you know, body dumped it and then took off and
Speaker 9: the whole bit. And so the cops like jumped on it.
Speaker 9: And they actually had a preliminary hearing, like Dennis Well
Speaker 9: Pinky Dennis Pintney, he was actually arrested and they had
Speaker 9: a preliminary hearing, which is basically a hearing where you
Speaker 9: show the proceeders will show evidence to see if there's
Speaker 9: enough evidence basically to take something to trial. And so
Speaker 9: they had this and she actually testified. So Shelley Brown
Speaker 9: actually testified and said, yes, I saw him, and this
Speaker 9: is what happened and all this other stuff. And so
Speaker 9: he was sitting in jail, you know, waiting for his
Speaker 9: trial and then all of a sudden, she comes forward
Speaker 9: like months later and tells one of the robbery homicide
Speaker 9: detectives that she lied and that it wasn't you know, Pinky,
Speaker 9: it was actually her other boyfriend, a guy named Jimmy Lewis.
Speaker 9: And so she said Jimmy Lewis basically told her to
Speaker 9: lie and to finger Pinky, and she did it because
Speaker 9: he had threatened, allegedly threatened her and that he was
Speaker 9: going to kill her and her family and everything like that.
Speaker 9: So then she completely changed her story and blamed it
Speaker 9: on Jimmy Lewis, and so the cops focused their attention
Speaker 9: on Jimmy Lewis. And so, you know, I mean, this
Speaker 9: happened on you know a few times you know in
Speaker 9: the in the investigation where you know, people were saying, oh,
Speaker 9: it could be so and so, like in the Bernina
Speaker 9: Sparks case, a woman came forward and said that she
Speaker 9: thought for another guy who she saw, you know, fighting
Speaker 9: with Bernica Sparks on the night that she died, and
Speaker 9: so they focused on him and it turned out he
Speaker 9: had nothing to do with it as well. So there
Speaker 9: was you know, there was quite a few you know,
Speaker 9: guys thrown in in jail for at least, you know, temporarily,
Speaker 9: and sometimes longer, you know, because they were fingered in
Speaker 9: these crimes that they didn't commit.
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Speaker 8: You move on to a woman named Lucretia Jefferson, and
Speaker 8: you just point out briefly about the difference in how
Speaker 8: they can handle cases like Karen Toshima, which was killed
Speaker 8: who was killed in Westwood, so a more upscale by far,
Speaker 8: and there was an uproar. What was the media response
Speaker 8: to Lucretia Jefferson, which is demonstrative.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean there was no there was no response.
Speaker 9: I mean she was killed at the you know, on
Speaker 9: the same day as you know, Karen Tashima and Karin
Speaker 9: Tishimo was killed in Westwood by a gang member, and
Speaker 9: it was huge. I mean it was the media was
Speaker 9: all over it. I mean, the politicians, I mean, the
Speaker 9: story went national her death. You know, Westwood's the really
Speaker 9: ritzy area in you know, Los Angeles, and you know,
Speaker 9: you don't get a lot of crimes right by UCLA,
Speaker 9: and you know, very rarely is there, you know, at
Speaker 9: the time, anyway, very rarely. You know, any crime was
Speaker 9: mostly students around there, and Karen was walking with her
Speaker 9: boyfriend and got shot by there was a gang. There
Speaker 9: was a fight between two gangs and she ended up
Speaker 9: getting shot, and so it was just you know, there
Speaker 9: was you know, a lot of money put into it,
Speaker 9: there was a lot of resources putting into it, and
Speaker 9: all this other stuff. But you know, Lucretia Jefferson died
Speaker 9: and you know, it didn't make the news at all.
Speaker 9: And she was killed. Her body was found in South
Speaker 9: Los Angeles and actually La County Territory in Lenox and
Speaker 9: it didn't make the news at all.
Speaker 8: Let's talk about Alicia Monique as she went by, Alexander.
Speaker 8: She's eighteen years old. She was born in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 8: and you've got to know her parents, Mary and Porter,
Speaker 8: and they were right following along and at the trial
Speaker 8: right to the very end almost And anyway, let's talk
Speaker 8: about a little bit about Monique, Alexander and then after
Speaker 8: the witness that the first witness that gets a look
Speaker 8: at the sleeper's vehicle.
Speaker 9: Oh right, okay, Yeah, Monique was like an eighteen year
Speaker 9: old girl. I mean, she was, you know, the love
Speaker 9: of her father's life. I mean, you know, he just
Speaker 9: doted on her. She was the youngest of the family
Speaker 9: and Porter, her father, you know, he worked in the
Speaker 9: post office and her mother worked and her mother had
Speaker 9: a couple of children from a previous relationship, and she
Speaker 9: met Porter and Porter was you know, in the military,
Speaker 9: and they lived in South Los Angeles and you know,
Speaker 9: they're just a really good family, you know. And she
Speaker 9: had two brothers that just doated on her. Well, she's
Speaker 9: three brothers that doted on her, and another older sister
Speaker 9: that doated on her. And she was excelled in school.
Speaker 9: She did really, really well. She was really into horseback riding.
Speaker 9: She was really into figure skating, and her father, like
Speaker 9: anything that she wanted to do, you know, the father
Speaker 9: put her into horseback riding. Yes, she owned horses himself,
Speaker 9: had her you know, taking figure skating lessons. And she
Speaker 9: was this precocious, like really decent kid who loved people,
Speaker 9: and she'd always her parents would always say that she'd
Speaker 9: always bring friends home and you know, if they were
Speaker 9: having problems with their family, she'd ask her parents if
Speaker 9: they could stay over the you know, for the night.
Speaker 9: And so she was always feeding people and she loved everybody,
Speaker 9: and you know, that was just sort of her personality.
Speaker 9: And just before she died, actually she was dating this
Speaker 9: guy named Ronnie Lewis, and you know, she was, you know,
Speaker 9: really madly in love with him. He was older, he
Speaker 9: was married and had a couple of kids, but was
Speaker 9: separated you know at the time, and you know, she
Speaker 9: was hoping to have you know, future with him, and
Speaker 9: I know, I mean I spoke to him and he
Speaker 9: just still breaks down, you know when he talks about her.
Speaker 9: I mean, he adored her. He just you know, she
Speaker 9: was just this wonderful kid. And she started getting involved
Speaker 9: in drugs like about a year or so, you know,
Speaker 9: before she died. And you know, even though you know,
Speaker 9: she came from this you know good you know background
Speaker 9: and everything, and I mean her father was trying to
Speaker 9: do everything in order to you know, get her sort
Speaker 9: of away from you know, that kind of life. But
Speaker 9: you know, at the time, it was just so unbelievably prevalent.
Speaker 9: You know, it was just it affected everybody, and she
Speaker 9: fell victim to drugs. And on the night that she died,
Speaker 9: I mean, she saw her dad. Her dad was like
Speaker 9: on the couch and she kind of and she woke
Speaker 9: them up and told him she was going to the
Speaker 9: store and asked him if he wanted anything, and he said, no,
Speaker 9: you know, and so she left and she was you know,
Speaker 9: last scene she was at a store and one of
Speaker 9: the neighbors actually saw her getting into a orange colored Pinto.
Speaker 9: And the Pinto became pivotal because Mary Lowe, one of
Speaker 9: the other victims, was also seen getting into a orange Pinto,
Speaker 9: and Amitria Washington, the sole survivor in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 9: in November, told police that her killer, i mean, her
Speaker 9: attacker was driving a orange Pinto. And Monique was found
Speaker 9: in September of eighty eight and in Nitria was attacked
Speaker 9: November eighty eight, and so that Pinto ended up becoming
Speaker 9: you know, sort of you know, a big piece of evidence,
Speaker 9: you know, for them to you know, try to find out,
Speaker 9: you know what, you know, who this person was and
Speaker 9: all this other stuff. And of course they never were
Speaker 9: able to find the Pinto and all that stuff, but
Speaker 9: there was definitely, you know, they made an effort to
Speaker 9: try to track down the Pinto, but they never, you know,
Speaker 9: were able to do it. But you know, Monique went
Speaker 9: by her her family called her moo and moo cow,
Speaker 9: and you know every day of the hearings, I mean,
Speaker 9: the hearings went on for six years after Lonnie was caught,
Speaker 9: and her parents went to every single one of them.
Speaker 9: You know, maybe they missed one if they weren't feeling well,
Speaker 9: but they were there the entire time, from like the
Speaker 9: beginning to the end. And when I talked to Porter,
Speaker 9: when I found out about the case and two thousand
Speaker 9: and six, you know, I interviewed him and it was like,
Speaker 9: you know, Monique had died the day before. I mean,
Speaker 9: he blamed himself and it was just, you know, he
Speaker 9: was just in tears. You know, it's like literally that
Speaker 9: she died the day before. He you know, he never
Speaker 9: got over it, and you know he'll never get over
Speaker 9: what happened.
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Speaker 8: talking about Nietria, Washington, and it was this. They said
Speaker 8: that this was a big break for them to have
Speaker 8: this live victim that also saw the orange Pinto. But
Speaker 8: also they learned quite a bit about his m O
Speaker 8: and his signature, and a lot about the Grim Sleeper
Speaker 8: himself and how he operated. Tell us what they did
Speaker 8: find out, and especially interesting about the reference to the polaroids.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, what happened was Nitria was walking down the street.
Speaker 9: She had just stopped at this little liquor store, and
Speaker 9: she noticed this orange pinte and the orange Pinto you know,
Speaker 9: had like the racing stripe along the side of it
Speaker 9: and everything, and she was into cars, and so she
Speaker 9: kind of noticed it. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: this guy's you know, just says to her like hey,
Speaker 9: you know, just says a few words to her. She
Speaker 9: kind of ignores them, and she starts walking away, and
Speaker 9: he actually, you know, drives up to her and you know,
Speaker 9: starts talking to her, and you know, basically, you know,
Speaker 9: tries to have like little bits of conversation with her
Speaker 9: or whatever, and you know, she kind of ignored him
Speaker 9: or whatever, and then he kept on rambling on, and
Speaker 9: then she decided, you know whatever, he seemed harmless enough,
Speaker 9: so she started you know, talking to him, and then
Speaker 9: you know, he asked her where she was going, and
Speaker 9: she was going to a party. And then you know,
Speaker 9: he offered to give her a ride, and she you know,
Speaker 9: said no. And finally, you know, she said, like, one
Speaker 9: of the things that struck out stuck out to her
Speaker 9: was the fact that he seemed really harmless, you know,
Speaker 9: and she kind of thought he looked like he was
Speaker 9: dressed like in kind of a mechanics outfit, you know,
Speaker 9: and then thought that, you know, it's kind of nerdy,
Speaker 9: you know. And he wasn't like a threat to her,
Speaker 9: you know, she didn't feel threatened in any way like
Speaker 9: he seemed kind of, you know, just sort of oh shucks,
Speaker 9: you know, charl I'll give you a ride, and you know,
Speaker 9: can I hang out with you? You know, So she
Speaker 9: wasn't like afraid of him at all, and so you know,
Speaker 9: she didn't have she didn't have to go very far,
Speaker 9: and so she thought, Okay, he seems harmless enough or whatever.
Speaker 9: So she gets in the car with him and they
Speaker 9: started draw and then he tells her that he wants
Speaker 9: to stop at his uncle's house, you know, to pick
Speaker 9: up some money, and it's on the way and whatever.
Speaker 9: So she was like sure, whatever, and so he you know,
Speaker 9: sort of pulls over. He goes to eighty first and Western,
Speaker 9: just this house just on the corner, and pulls in
Speaker 9: and she's in the car and she basically said, you know,
Speaker 9: I'm only going to wait, you know, five ten minutes,
Speaker 9: and if he doesn't come back, she's going to get
Speaker 9: out and walk off. And so he goes off, and
Speaker 9: he goes it's a white house, and then he goes
Speaker 9: to the side of the house and looks like he's
Speaker 9: talking to somebody. And then he comes back, you know,
Speaker 9: five minutes later, and he drives off and he only
Speaker 9: went which is really interesting. He only drove like about
Speaker 9: a block and then turned right. And she said that,
Speaker 9: you know, his demeanor had completely changed. He went from
Speaker 9: being like real friendly to all of a sudden being
Speaker 9: like really nasty. And then he called her the name Brenda,
Speaker 9: and he started saying, like, you know, what, are you
Speaker 9: dogging me? For Brenda, and she was like, what are
Speaker 9: you talking about, Like, I'm not my name's not Brenda,
Speaker 9: and you know, he kept saying, you know, your dogging
Speaker 9: me and all this other stuff, and you know, she
Speaker 9: was trying to like explain, like what are you talking
Speaker 9: There was apparently there was a prostitute by the name
Speaker 9: of Brenda that you know, sort of walked the street,
Speaker 9: you know, the streets around that area. So she thought,
Speaker 9: actually she might have he might have mistook her for,
Speaker 9: you know, Brenda the prostitute, and so she said that
Speaker 9: within like a second of them, you know, sort of
Speaker 9: arguing that, he just like pulled a gun out and
Speaker 9: he just shot her in the chest and she didn't
Speaker 9: really you know, know what was happening at first. And
Speaker 9: she said that when she finally kind of realized what
Speaker 9: was going on, like she started saying, like what do
Speaker 9: you what's going on?
Speaker 7: My god?
Speaker 9: You know, like you have to take me to the hospital,
Speaker 9: and he's like, you know, no, I'm not going to
Speaker 9: do it, and then she said she blacked out and
Speaker 9: at one point she woke up and he was on
Speaker 9: top of her like sexually assaulting her, and she said
Speaker 9: she she passed out again. And woke up to that
Speaker 9: the zing like of a polaroid and like the flash
Speaker 9: of a polaroid, and he had taken a photo of her,
Speaker 9: and she sort of went in and out of consciousness,
Speaker 9: and then at one point she remembers him like pulling
Speaker 9: over and then you know, getting out and like sort
Speaker 9: of pushing her out of the car and then driving off,
Speaker 9: and so you know, she was able to you know,
Speaker 9: tell police that you know, this was sort of you know,
Speaker 9: this is exactly what happened, that you know, he was
Speaker 9: taking you know, a photo of her. She didn't know
Speaker 9: how many, but she remembered distinctly that it was like
Speaker 9: a polaroid camera. And so after she went I mean
Speaker 9: she was she actually staggered like four or five blocks
Speaker 9: to her friend's house. Like how she was able to
Speaker 9: do that with a bullet to the chest, you know,
Speaker 9: GODALONEI no, but she actually made it to her friend's
Speaker 9: house and like banged on the friend's door, and the
Speaker 9: friend actually wasn't home, and so she kind of fell
Speaker 9: into a fetal position, and the friend came home like
Speaker 9: ow later and found her there and ended up you know,
Speaker 9: calling for an ambulance, and she was put into one
Speaker 9: of those pressure suits because she had lost so much
Speaker 9: blood and was like rushed to the hospital and she
Speaker 9: almost died, and she was like, you know, within you know,
Speaker 9: seconds or minutes of dying or whatever. But once she
Speaker 9: was okay, you know, she was able to take the
Speaker 9: detectives to the place where you know, he stopped and
Speaker 9: he said he was stopping to you know, see his uncle.
Speaker 9: And so they actually went to the house. But the
Speaker 9: house was owned by a guy named Othus White, like
Speaker 9: this older man, and so they knew that Othus White
Speaker 9: obviously wasn't the killer because she described the guy as
Speaker 9: somebody in his thirties, sort of like a medium build,
Speaker 9: short hair, you know, with a pockmarked face. So she
Speaker 9: was able to you know, you know, they were able
Speaker 9: to get more of a description, you know, of of him.
Speaker 9: And then they knew because of what happened with Monique,
Speaker 9: the yarnge pinto that you know, this is the same guy.
Speaker 9: So they knew, you know, they were looking for a
Speaker 9: thirty year old, you know, African American guy with medium bill,
Speaker 9: with a pockmark s face, you know who you know,
Speaker 9: like to use polaroid cameras. So but still, I mean
Speaker 9: that was still like a needle in a haystack, you know,
Speaker 9: trying to track down, you know, somebody fitting that description.
Speaker 9: But you know, they were certainly able to you know,
Speaker 9: finally they actually had somebody who saw you know, saw
Speaker 9: the killer. So you know, unfortunately it didn't really you know,
Speaker 9: it didn't work out in the end until years later.
Speaker 8: But you mentioned the police officer Ricky Ross from the
Speaker 8: La County Sheriff's Office that was brought in here and
Speaker 8: initially has gone this nine millimeters. They said it was
Speaker 8: a match. But you also say that after the the
Speaker 8: charges were dropped against Ross after a thorough investigation, they
Speaker 8: basically the murders which would not even be attributed to
Speaker 8: the Grim Sleeper. Yet the murder stopped. And so tell
Speaker 8: us how and when this entire case was came back
Speaker 8: from the dead.
Speaker 9: Well after Netria was attacked in November nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 9: there was no other cases that were linked to you know,
Speaker 9: the Grim Sleeper, and so basically throughout you know, the
Speaker 9: end of the eighties and all through the nineties up
Speaker 9: until two thousand and two, you know, there was no
Speaker 9: you know, there was no cases that were linked to him,
Speaker 9: and the detectives at the time, like they moved on,
Speaker 9: you know, you know, one of them retired and another
Speaker 9: one you know, just started working on other cases. And
Speaker 9: it really wasn't until like the LAPD started this cold
Speaker 9: case unit in the early two thousands to look at
Speaker 9: some of these old cases, you know, back dating back
Speaker 9: to like the sixties, you know. So they had this
Speaker 9: grant from the California Apartment of Justice to look at
Speaker 9: this old you know, crime scene evidence in murder and
Speaker 9: rape cases. And so a detective, one of the detectives
Speaker 9: that was in the cold case unit actually remembered, you know,
Speaker 9: the series of murders that happened in the eighties, you know,
Speaker 9: you know, the work of the Southside Slayer and the
Speaker 9: work of the twenty five caliber killer, the Grim Sleeper
Speaker 9: actually was known as the twenty five caliber killer back then.
Speaker 9: And so he ended up looking into the cases and
Speaker 9: you know, started putting in the DNA, like getting the
Speaker 9: lab to you know, looking at the evidence to see
Speaker 9: if there was any you know, like rape kits or
Speaker 9: anything left and then have those kits tested to see
Speaker 9: if there was any DNA, and if there was any DNA,
Speaker 9: they would upload it into the and you know, like
Speaker 9: the CODIS data bank like the local state, and then
Speaker 9: the felon you know, databank to see if the killer
Speaker 9: was actually in any of these data banks, which would
Speaker 9: mean that the killer had been in prison, because in
Speaker 9: these data banks, it's all you know, everyone that's in
Speaker 9: there has committed selmies and are in prison basically, And
Speaker 9: so they started he started doing that, and so he
Speaker 9: put in you know, for this testing, and then all
Speaker 9: of a sudden, you know, he started getting all these hits.
Speaker 9: You know, So these cases, you know, Princess Bertha Mew
Speaker 9: and Valie McCorvey were then linked to a number of
Speaker 9: the cases in the eighties, and not all the cases
Speaker 9: were linked through DNA because some of the women were
Speaker 9: so badly decomposed that they weren't there was no DNA.
Speaker 9: They knew they were linked because of the ballistic testing,
Speaker 9: but they weren't able to confirm a DNA match because
Speaker 9: of the fact that of the decomposition. So they started
Speaker 9: seeing that, you know, he started seeing like, oh my god,
Speaker 9: you know, these cases you know, are linked, and I
Speaker 9: mean he knew about the ballistics matches and whatever, and
Speaker 9: so they started an investigation, you know, looking into into it.
Speaker 9: And so of course the cases were uploaded into the
Speaker 9: data bank because they were looking to find you know,
Speaker 9: hoping that the killer was in jail or had them swabbed,
Speaker 9: you know, for his DNA in the past, but no,
Speaker 9: he wasn't. So they knew that the killer, it was
Speaker 9: the same killer because he was leaving a saliva on
Speaker 9: most of the women's breasts, but they didn't have a
Speaker 9: name because he wasn't in that Sellen data bank. So
Speaker 9: they you know, they had that pro you know, that
Speaker 9: was the big problem. So you know, they had to
Speaker 9: like basically they started investigating, and they started looking back
Speaker 9: at you know, getting the murder books, you know, back
Speaker 9: from the eighties and looking at all the suspects and
Speaker 9: then surreptitiously, you know, like following around suspects trying to
Speaker 9: get DNA and so you know, that's what you know,
Speaker 9: the detective you know that started working on the case
Speaker 9: is doing because he went back and you know, went
Speaker 9: back to like Jimmy Lewis, one of the suspects in
Speaker 9: the eighties, and went back and found out that you know,
Speaker 9: some of the other suspects, like one of them had
Speaker 9: been in jail for one hundred and twenty seven or sorry,
Speaker 9: was sentenced one hundred and twenty seven years and went
Speaker 9: in prison at the end of the eighties, you know,
Speaker 9: end of the eighties. So he obviously wasn't the killer.
Speaker 9: And then another one of the ones that they suspected
Speaker 9: he was dead. He got killed in a shootout with
Speaker 9: a armed truck driver, you know, so they knew it
Speaker 9: wasn't him, you know, So he was combing through the
Speaker 9: murder books, you know, trying to find, you know, any
Speaker 9: witnesses or anyone, you know, any suspects that they could
Speaker 9: you know, try to get a DNA swab from.
Speaker 8: Yeah, you're talking about detective Shepherd, very very tenacious and
Speaker 8: important to this case and to this story. You talk
Speaker 8: about also that in two thousand and seven, Genesia Peters
Speaker 8: pregnant at nineteen. You talk quite a bit about her
Speaker 8: in her life, and she's found on New Year's Day
Speaker 8: in a dumpster. Tell us a little bit about what again,
Speaker 8: is there a link and what does Cliff Shepherd do
Speaker 8: with that information?
Speaker 9: Well, what happened was Geneva Peters was killed on January first,
Speaker 9: two thousand and seven, and so the detectives had, you know,
Speaker 9: had known for a couple of years about this link,
Speaker 9: and all of a sudden the killer struck again. January first,
Speaker 9: two thousand and seven, Jeania Peters was found in a
Speaker 9: dumpster by a homeless guy looking for recyclables on New
Speaker 9: Year's Day. And she was in a plastic a big,
Speaker 9: huge black plastic garbage bag and you know, tied up
Speaker 9: with a twist, you know, a twist tie in the
Speaker 9: whole nine yards and the guy, he thought, you know,
Speaker 9: it was a can of you know, a bunch of recyclables,
Speaker 9: actually made a hole in the bag and you know,
Speaker 9: a hand comes out of the bag and you know,
Speaker 9: he jumps out of the garbage dumpster and rushes off
Speaker 9: and calls the police. And so the police came and
Speaker 9: they found her. You know, they actually were able to
Speaker 9: They brought the entire dumpster to the corner's office and
Speaker 9: you know, she was her body was processed and everything
Speaker 9: like that, and so they were you know, the criminalists
Speaker 9: looked for DNA and this incredibly smart criminalist actually swabbed
Speaker 9: the twist tie on the garbage bag and so it
Speaker 9: was all put in, you know, like the DNA. And
Speaker 9: she was found nude in this garbage bag, and they
Speaker 9: actually thought that the killer had you know, she either
Speaker 9: had taken a shower beforehand or he had washed her
Speaker 9: because you know, they didn't really find you know that
Speaker 9: much you know, like DNA on her body. They found
Speaker 9: some you know, DNA, but it wasn't like right on
Speaker 9: for her body. So they ended up putting in for testing.
Speaker 9: And it comes back the twist tie. The killer's DNA
Speaker 9: is found on the twist tie of the garbage bag,
Speaker 9: and so it was linked that twist tie and was
Speaker 9: found in May. They well, it was actually the end
Speaker 9: of April they realized that the DNA that was found
Speaker 9: on the twist tie actually matched the killer, the Grim
Speaker 9: Sleeper killer. So at that point the upper like another
Speaker 9: detective found out about it. Actually this guy named Dennis Killcoin,
Speaker 9: and so they all had you know, like LAPV brass
Speaker 9: like they had this big discussion about, you know, what's
Speaker 9: going on and what happened and everything, and so they
Speaker 9: actually decided to start a task force, which they ended
Speaker 9: up calling the eight hundred Task Force. And that was
Speaker 9: after the name on the door because they had room
Speaker 9: eight hundred, So they called it the eight hundred Task Force.
Speaker 9: And so he had like eight detectives Detective kill Coin
Speaker 9: with the guy in charge. He was a supervisor, so
Speaker 9: he had eight detectives you know, working for him looking
Speaker 9: for the killer. So that was like sort of the
Speaker 9: first time there was like this real big push to
Speaker 9: you know, track down this killer. So it was a
Speaker 9: big moment then, you know, for them, you know, but
Speaker 9: you know, they also had a lot of twists and
Speaker 9: turns and things like that and also had issues trying
Speaker 9: to solve it.
Speaker 8: Yes, they do. They continue to have all these false
Speaker 8: leads when there's so much promise, and you capture that
Speaker 8: in the book too, that these you also talk about
Speaker 8: the five hundred thousand dollars reward that's issued here. So
Speaker 8: this this case is getting an incredible we haven't talked
Speaker 8: about wow, I mean the obvious media up attention to this,
Speaker 8: but also that the three sketches of the Grim Sleeper
Speaker 8: based on a Nutra Washington's description, uh tell us a
Speaker 8: little bit about some of the initiative and the turnaround
Speaker 8: in terms of mindset from kill Coin as well well
Speaker 8: the LAPD.
Speaker 9: At first, they wanted, well, Detective kill Coin wanted to
Speaker 9: keep the whole task force the secret, and they didn't
Speaker 9: want the public to know that they were looking into
Speaker 9: a serial killer. And you know, I ended up, you know,
Speaker 9: I found out again that you know, sorry that Geneesie
Speaker 9: Peters was killed, and so you know, I wanted to
Speaker 9: write another story about it, and I you know, really
Speaker 9: pushed to talk to the detectives and everything like that,
Speaker 9: and I finally was able to speak to kill Coin
Speaker 9: about it, and you know, they, you know, he thought, what,
Speaker 9: you know, because most of the killings were happening in
Speaker 9: like a small area in South Los Angeles, that they
Speaker 9: didn't want to alert the community and scare other people
Speaker 9: and all this other stuff. And then they also didn't
Speaker 9: want the killer. They thought that if they announced that
Speaker 9: they were looking into it, the killer would go underground
Speaker 9: and all this other stuff. But I, you know, I
Speaker 9: just thought that it was important that the story, you know,
Speaker 9: go out there. I mean, people should know that there's
Speaker 9: a serial killer out there, you know, especially in South
Speaker 9: Los Angeles. You know a lot of people walk on
Speaker 9: the streets wandering around and things like that. But they
Speaker 9: had you know, so at first, you know, they kind
Speaker 9: of wanted to keep it on the down low. But
Speaker 9: I ended up doing a story about it. And so
Speaker 9: once my story came out, there was a lot more
Speaker 9: you know, coverage, and the LAPD started doing sort of
Speaker 9: press conferences and things like that, and they ended up
Speaker 9: getting a lot of clues and things like that, and
Speaker 9: so you know, they were actually at first, you know,
Speaker 9: they didn't want to do the press conferences, and then
Speaker 9: after they were like constantly doing the press conferences, you know,
Speaker 9: to try to get more people to call, try to
Speaker 9: find more clues, and you know, so you know, they
Speaker 9: got there was thousands, if not you know, yeah, I
Speaker 9: think like a thousand or so clues, and so they went,
Speaker 9: you know, anyone, any clue they got, they would go
Speaker 9: and try to you know, get a swab and the
Speaker 9: whole bit. So, you know, they really put in a
Speaker 9: lot of effort. In two thousand and eight, in May,
Speaker 9: they actually tried this familial DNA test, which is they knew,
Speaker 9: you know, the killer had his DNA, you know, they knew,
Speaker 9: you know, they knew he wasn't in the code of
Speaker 9: data bank, and so what they were trying to do
Speaker 9: was to find a relative of the killer who was
Speaker 9: in the data bank, you know, like a brother or
Speaker 9: an uncle or a cousin. So they actually did this
Speaker 9: familial DNA test, which is done by the California Department
Speaker 9: of Justice, and you know, you have to apply for
Speaker 9: it and the person, you know, it has to be
Speaker 9: a situation where you know, you know, like a serial
Speaker 9: killer situation where you know, the public is at risk
Speaker 9: and everything like that. And so they decided to do
Speaker 9: this test, and but it came back nothing, and so
Speaker 9: you know, there was no match to it. And they
Speaker 9: finally did it again in twenty and ten, and the
Speaker 9: data bank had grown four hundred thousand by that point,
Speaker 9: and at that point when they did the test, it
Speaker 9: hit on a twenty eight year old Los Angeles resident
Speaker 9: named Christopher Franklin. And Christopher Franklin was too young to
Speaker 9: be the killer because he would have been in diapers
Speaker 9: when you know, Deborah Jackson was killed. So they knew
Speaker 9: that Christopher Franklin was related to the killer, and so
Speaker 9: they ended up doing an investigation to try to figure out,
Speaker 9: you know, what relative of Christopher's it was, and they
Speaker 9: came across Lonnie Franklin Junior, who lived on Aby First
Speaker 9: and Western, three doors down from Osus White's house, and
Speaker 9: he lived in the epicenter basically of where all the
Speaker 9: murders took place.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's very very interesting that it was just blocks
Speaker 8: away and he was connected to every single one of
Speaker 8: these geographically, wasn't Yes, Yeah, I.
Speaker 9: Mean his killsite was all of it was within five miles.
Speaker 9: And you know, I mean Mary Low went missing and
Speaker 9: you know the bar where she went missing from was
Speaker 9: a couple of blocks away. Princess Berthamew was found a
Speaker 9: few blocks away from his house. Macretia Jefferson lived on
Speaker 9: the corner of aby First and Western in a apartment complex.
Speaker 9: You know, there was a lot of you know, when
Speaker 9: they started putting, you know, putting the pieces together, there
Speaker 9: was a lot of connections there.
Speaker 8: Now they're looking at Lonnie Franklin. Surveillance has set up.
Speaker 8: Now they have to get his DNA sample without him knowing.
Speaker 8: You talk about Paul Coulter, with his extensive experience, I
Speaker 8: just found out how hard it is and how important
Speaker 8: it is to write up that warrant specifically and completely.
Speaker 8: And that's what he does, and he has a warrant
Speaker 8: ready for the results of the DNA. There's a little
Speaker 8: bit of a delay and everybody's on edge. But then
Speaker 8: you talk about Franklin's background, as you find out. And
Speaker 8: he was born in la in nineteen fifty two. His
Speaker 8: mom was Ruby and Lonnie Senior was his father. Tell
Speaker 8: us a little bit about what you found out about
Speaker 8: Lonnie Franklin and as everyone else finds out. But what
Speaker 8: do you find out about Lonnie Franklin and his background?
Speaker 9: Lonnie came from a really good family. I mean, he
Speaker 9: grew up in South Los Angeles. He wasn't exactly the
Speaker 9: smartest student on the planet. You know, he had problems
Speaker 9: in school. His mother, you know, had a tutor for
Speaker 9: him and things like that, and you know, but he
Speaker 9: you know, he was a charmer. You know, he had
Speaker 9: a gift of gab. You know, everyone in the neighborhood
Speaker 9: liked him. You know, when I ended up interviewing some
Speaker 9: people in the neighborhood after he was caught, they all said,
Speaker 9: you know, Lannie was great. You know, they knew, you know,
Speaker 9: he'd always fix things around the neighborhood. He was like
Speaker 9: the fixer upper in the neighborhood. Like if you had
Speaker 9: an issue with your car, like if you needed new
Speaker 9: break so Lonnie would give you a really good deal,
Speaker 9: especially if you were a woman. You know, he was
Speaker 9: always helpful. And he was helpful to like older people,
Speaker 9: you know, if they had problems with you know, getting
Speaker 9: something fixed, he'd do it for free. And you know,
Speaker 9: one of his things he was like obsessed with women.
Speaker 9: He had like this absolute unquenchable you know, lust for women,
Speaker 9: and you know, he had numerous you know girlfriends throughout
Speaker 9: his life. I mean he married his wife, you know,
Speaker 9: back in the late seventies and carried on, by the
Speaker 9: least thought relationships you know, with different women over that
Speaker 9: period of time. Like when he got caught, he was
Speaker 9: you know, a grandfather, you know, still married, living with
Speaker 9: his wife, and you know, they had two kids, and
Speaker 9: and those kids had grandkids. You know, I've had kids,
Speaker 9: you know, and so but he had these you know,
Speaker 9: he just was obsessed with women, and there was some
Speaker 9: of his friends had talked about how he had nicknames
Speaker 9: for you know, some of the girls, like big Legs
Speaker 9: and you know all this other stuff. And he'd show
Speaker 9: his friends like photos of you know women, you know,
Speaker 9: like naked women. Like one guy actually testified and he
Speaker 9: said that, you know a day didn't go by that
Speaker 9: Lonnie wasn't showing him like photos of like naked women
Speaker 9: and things like that. He'd always address you know, some
Speaker 9: of the girls like they knew he like picking up
Speaker 9: you know, prostitutes and stuff like that, and you know,
Speaker 9: he'd have he'd always call them my girl. And you know,
Speaker 9: sometimes he'd go around, even though you know he's married
Speaker 9: and all this other stuff, he'd go around with girls
Speaker 9: and they'd be hanging out with him and stuff, and
Speaker 9: he didn't seem to have any problem whatsoever and didn't
Speaker 9: feel you know, showed them off and was happy about it.
Speaker 9: And you know, one of his big things, like one
Speaker 9: of the detectives I talked to, had told me that
Speaker 9: he thinks that Lonnie, like you know, I was asking him,
Speaker 9: like what he thought about, you know, when Lonnie got
Speaker 9: involved in the murders and everything and what prompted it
Speaker 9: and things like that, and he had said that, you know,
Speaker 9: Lonnie was in the military. He left school after he
Speaker 9: got into a fight and joined the military. And he
Speaker 9: was like a cook when he was there. And he
Speaker 9: was out one night with a couple of his army
Speaker 9: buddies and they actually tried to pick up a woman,
Speaker 9: a German woman, and they actually grabbed her and tried
Speaker 9: to force her in their car. But the woman was
Speaker 9: able to get away. But there was another woman who
Speaker 9: wasn't Her name was Ingrid. Wasn't so lucky, and Ingrid
Speaker 9: was actually ang raped by you know, Lonnie and two
Speaker 9: and the two army guys. And you know, she described
Speaker 9: she actually was at the trial and talked about her encounter,
Speaker 9: you know, with Lonnie and the two guys. But it
Speaker 9: was interesting because, you know, Lonnie denied that he he
Speaker 9: raped her and had basically said that she wanted him,
Speaker 9: and you know, he the only reason he was with
Speaker 9: her was because she was you know, she told him
Speaker 9: how much she liked him and everything like that, and
Speaker 9: it came out like, you know, basically the woman you know,
Speaker 9: they threatened her with a knife and everything like that,
Speaker 9: and she kind of just played along. And you know what,
Speaker 9: Lonnie was trying to convince everyone that he was the
Speaker 9: innocent one, and you know, she wanted to have something,
Speaker 9: you know, she wanted to be with him and all
Speaker 9: this other stuff. Meanwhile, you know, she had a knife
Speaker 9: to her throat. You know, so they think that he's
Speaker 9: kind of his sexual eving. He was pretty young at
Speaker 9: the time, he was like twenty one, and these other
Speaker 9: guys were more of the aggressors than Lonnie, because they
Speaker 9: even said that Lonnie actually wasn't as aggressive as the
Speaker 9: other two and so he actually got a lesser sentence,
Speaker 9: like and he didn't. All of them got tossed out
Speaker 9: of the military, but the other two got dishonorable discharges,
Speaker 9: but he didn't. And so he was actually able to
Speaker 9: come back to Los Angeles and you know, get a job.
Speaker 9: I mean, he started off, you know, he worked, he
Speaker 9: did a number of different you know, sort of jobs
Speaker 9: here and there, but he got a job at the
Speaker 9: LAPD Central Division as a gas station attendant and he
Speaker 9: worked there for about a year and then actually got
Speaker 9: a job as a sanitation worker with the Department of Sanitation,
Speaker 9: and so he was driving trucks around in South Los
Speaker 9: Angeles and I think that's where he actually got the
Speaker 9: intricate knowledge of like the alleyways and all that other
Speaker 9: stuff in Los Angeles, you know, and they found actually
Speaker 9: when they did a search on his home, they actually
Speaker 9: found photos of him, you know, at landfills and things
Speaker 9: like that. I mean, he kept his job with the
Speaker 9: Sanitation department for a number of years, but throughout like
Speaker 9: it was almost fort of the moment he started working there,
Speaker 9: plaining about on duty injuries like that. He claimed they
Speaker 9: had rotator cuff injuries, and you know, he'd be evaluated
Speaker 9: and some guys were like, no, we don't believe it,
Speaker 9: and other ones would be like yes, you know, and
Speaker 9: it ended up that, like at the end of the eighties,
Speaker 9: he ended up getting like a pension and he went
Speaker 9: on disability and when he got arrested, he was getting
Speaker 9: like seventeen hundred dollars a month from the city of
Speaker 9: Los Angeles in pension and he actually still gets it
Speaker 9: today and he you know, probably gets around two grand
Speaker 9: a months.
Speaker 8: Now. You talk about the arrests, it's not so eventful. Again,
Speaker 8: like a lot of these guys, he's doesn't put up
Speaker 8: a big fight or anything. He's pretty timid. Any confession,
Speaker 8: they're trying to get a confession. Have they employ some
Speaker 8: different strategies to try to reach him. What happens? Yeah,
Speaker 8: any any confession?
Speaker 9: No, I mean confess. I mean they tried to get
Speaker 9: him to talk, and you know, the only thing that
Speaker 9: he seemed to get upset about, like I mean, you know,
Speaker 9: they showed him photos of all the women and said,
Speaker 9: you know, do you know these women and he said, no,
Speaker 9: didn't know them at all. And you know, he even
Speaker 9: like kind of chuckled a few times, and at one
Speaker 9: point in time he was like really disrespectful to a
Speaker 9: couple of victims. One of the victims he called her fat,
Speaker 9: and another one he said she was but ugly, and
Speaker 9: you know, he was just it was, you know, he
Speaker 9: just found it almost he didn't seem to be bothered
Speaker 9: by it, you know, at all. And then he'd make
Speaker 9: these little wise cracks, you know, every once in a while.
Speaker 9: And the only time he seemed to be irritated, in
Speaker 9: my opinion, was when they brought up the fact that
Speaker 9: he was, you know, picking up girls on the street,
Speaker 9: because at one point when they were following him, he
Speaker 9: left the house at like two o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 9: was on you know, fortieth and Western, and there was
Speaker 9: two girls, you know, street walkers on the side and
Speaker 9: he pulled up, and so they were actually following him,
Speaker 9: so they saw what he was doing, and so they
Speaker 9: brought it up during the interrogation and he denied it,
Speaker 9: and he was like, no, I have a girlfriend and
Speaker 9: all this other stuff, and so that was when he
Speaker 9: really was the only time like he really got miffed
Speaker 9: was when you know, they tried to accuse him of
Speaker 9: you know, picking up girls on the street. And it
Speaker 9: was funny because during the trial it was the same
Speaker 9: thing like when they were they brought up his girlfriend
Speaker 9: at the time when he was arrested, and then he
Speaker 9: got irritated there too, and he was like, it's not
Speaker 9: my girlfriend. And it was like he was just more
Speaker 9: concerned about like his wife finding out that he had
Speaker 9: a girlfriend, and then his girlfriend finding out that he
Speaker 9: was picking up hookers. You know, he didn't seem to
Speaker 9: be bothered.
Speaker 8: Pardon I'd say, certainly psychopathic tendencies.
Speaker 9: Oh for sure. I mean he didn't you know, he
Speaker 9: didn't seem to be concerned at all about the women.
Speaker 9: And they you know said, look at you know, you're
Speaker 9: not getting out, You're going to prison. You know, you're
Speaker 9: never going to you know, walk the streets again. You're
Speaker 9: never going to fix another car again, you know, because
Speaker 9: he was also a mechanic. And they said, you know,
Speaker 9: just don't you want to give the families closure, you know,
Speaker 9: and he just I didn't know them, I don't know them.
Speaker 9: And they talked to him for about forty five minutes
Speaker 9: or so before he finally just said, I guess I
Speaker 9: need an attorney, and so you know, that was kind
Speaker 9: of that. And from what I can gather from what
Speaker 9: the detectives told me, because they listened in on his
Speaker 9: phone calls, like when he was in the LA jail,
Speaker 9: and he you know, he denied everything when he talked
Speaker 9: to like friends, family, whatever. You know, it wasn't him.
Speaker 9: The cops set him up and you know they'd ask
Speaker 9: him about, you know, how come you had so many
Speaker 9: photos because when you know, the police caught him, they
Speaker 9: found you know, they did a search of his home
Speaker 9: and they found hundreds of photos of naked women and
Speaker 9: all this other stuff. And he claimed that you know,
Speaker 9: was you know, he fixed cars and they were left
Speaker 9: in the cars and he just had them and you
Speaker 9: know they weren't his, and you know, he had like
Speaker 9: every sort of excuse in the book after you know,
Speaker 9: it was somebody else's fault.
Speaker 8: Very interesting testimony from a man you mentioned named Ray Davis,
Speaker 8: and he was a friend from cars or car racing,
Speaker 8: and he Franklin had showed him bags of clothing and
Speaker 8: had talked about and done them and had numerous conversations
Speaker 8: and Ray Davis came forward. How effective was his testimony
Speaker 8: in feeling his fate and how revealing was that information?
Speaker 9: Well, I think it was interesting. I mean I don't
Speaker 9: think it I don't think it's swayed the jury one
Speaker 9: way or the other. Just you know, but I think
Speaker 9: it was an interesting insight into you know, Lonnie's mind
Speaker 9: because it really showed his compulsion and you know that
Speaker 9: he was just so obsessed with women. I mean, it
Speaker 9: was just he couldn't get enough, and he just couldn't
Speaker 9: help himself at brag about it. You know, that's all
Speaker 9: he did. And you know he's always talk about it,
Speaker 9: and he you know, and one of the things, actually,
Speaker 9: there was one thing that was actually kind of critical
Speaker 9: was Ray Davis remembered this one occasion where he went
Speaker 9: he saw Lonnie's van parked at a friend's house, and
Speaker 9: he saw Lonnie, you know, sort of outside of the van.
Speaker 9: So he pulled up, and you know, Lonnie was all irritated,
Speaker 9: like what are you doing here kind of thing or whatever,
Speaker 9: and so he went to talk to Lonnie and he
Speaker 9: saw this girl in the back of the van just
Speaker 9: sar for a few minutes or whatever, and that was that.
Speaker 9: And he said, you know, as the years went by
Speaker 9: or whatever, you know, when they had these billboards up
Speaker 9: looking for the killer the five hundred thousand dollars award.
Speaker 9: The billboards also had the photos of all the victims,
Speaker 9: and he had gone he had seen the billboard, and
Speaker 9: then he was at the police station. They had sort
Speaker 9: of a smaller billboard in there, and he looked and
Speaker 9: he realized that one of the girls, you know, was familiar.
Speaker 9: And he realized, you know, later he kind of put
Speaker 9: two and two together that the girl that was with
Speaker 9: Lonnie he believed was Genisha Peters, which was his you know,
Speaker 9: Lonnie's last known victim. And so he you know, when
Speaker 9: Lonnie got arrested, he ended up talking to the police
Speaker 9: about it and said that you know, he recognized, you know,
Speaker 9: genishe from the neighborhood and remembered that she was the
Speaker 9: girl that was in Lonnie's car that time. But I
Speaker 9: think for the jury, the jurors, you know, the DNA
Speaker 9: evidence and the ballistic evidence was just so overwhelming. I
Speaker 9: think that you know, that really in a lot of
Speaker 9: ways sealed the deal for.
Speaker 8: Them, and there really was no you talk about the
Speaker 8: defense with a desperate attempt to put it on somebody
Speaker 8: else and name somebody else, and again a real tenuous,
Speaker 8: implausible sort of theory as to why Lonnie Franklin was innocent,
Speaker 8: and you talk about that it was for ten women
Speaker 8: he was charged Deborah Jackson, Henrietta Wright, Barbara Ware, Bernita Sparks,
Speaker 8: Mary Lowe, Accresia Jefferson, Monique Alexander and Princess Bertha Meeu
Speaker 8: and Valerie McCorvey and Genessa Genisa Peters. Ten women was
Speaker 8: interesting tell us about what the verdict was. And then
Speaker 8: as we mentioned, I thought it was very very profound
Speaker 8: and very visual. Was Ingrid w forty years later coming
Speaker 8: during the penalty phase.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, Lonnie was found you guilty. I mean, the
Speaker 9: defense actually tried to some of the women had other
Speaker 9: men's you know, DNA on them, So the defense tried
Speaker 9: to say that, you know, how could they say with
Speaker 9: Lonnie for sure when you know, some of the women
Speaker 9: had other men's DNA, so maybe one of those men,
Speaker 9: you know, was the killer. But the prosecution was trying
Speaker 9: to say that the constant was Lonnie's DNA, you know,
Speaker 9: whereas it wasn't constant with the you know, the other
Speaker 9: DNA found on some of the other women's all, you know,
Speaker 9: each women had different DNA. But anyway, so Lonnie was
Speaker 9: found guilty and they had the penalty phase. In California
Speaker 9: they have the death penalty, and so they brought on
Speaker 9: the prosecution actually presented four other cases that they believed
Speaker 9: that Lonnie was linked to, and so presented that evidence.
Speaker 9: There was two women had gone missing. They never found
Speaker 9: their bodies, but they were last known in the area
Speaker 9: of Lonnie's house, and they found their identification in Lonnie's home,
Speaker 9: along with Janisia Peters photo and Initria Washington's the polaroid
Speaker 9: of a Nitria Washington. So they were pretty much convinced
Speaker 9: that those two women were victims. There was another victim
Speaker 9: in eighty four who ended up being like sort of
Speaker 9: the very first victims like that we know of anyway,
Speaker 9: this woman, Sharon the Smute. She was killed in nineteen
Speaker 9: eighty four, found in a gas station, in a garbage
Speaker 9: a dirty bathroom. And another victim, Georgia M. Thomas, was
Speaker 9: killed in two thousands. So the gap, the thirteen and
Speaker 9: a half year gap, was actually sort of it wasn't
Speaker 9: as big it was ten years. But although detectives still
Speaker 9: don't think that he stopped during that time. But also
Speaker 9: so they presented test evidence that Lonnie was linked to
Speaker 9: those crimes and also to one of the victims sharing
Speaker 9: the smuke, the bullet that was found in her. It
Speaker 9: ended up that they found one gun in Lonnie's house
Speaker 9: and the gun was used to kill Geniesha and Sharon
Speaker 9: the smuke. So but for you know, what choices that
Speaker 9: the prosecutions made, they didn't actually charge Lonnie for the cases,
Speaker 9: but they believed that he was responsible. So they also
Speaker 9: flew in Ingrid from Germany, and it was forty years
Speaker 9: and you know, when she had been attacked by Lonnie,
Speaker 9: and so she flew in with her husband and actually
Speaker 9: testified to what happened, and it was very she was scared,
Speaker 9: absolutely terrified, you know, and she had never been to
Speaker 9: the US before and had basically, you know, kept what
Speaker 9: happened to her pretty much a secret. Her you know,
Speaker 9: mother didn't really want her to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 9: she didn't. She later told her you know, daughter and grandchild,
Speaker 9: but it's not a story that's known at all in Germany.
Speaker 9: And you know, she didn't want to come at first,
Speaker 9: and then decided that she did want to, like face,
Speaker 9: you know, Franklin and testified and of course, you know,
Speaker 9: he you know, he didn't look at her, and she
Speaker 9: kind of looked at him briefly. Her husband was sitting
Speaker 9: with her, you know, on the witness stand when she
Speaker 9: when she spoke, and it was just a really like
Speaker 9: just unbelievable moment that you know, after so long she
Speaker 9: was there and you know, she was really you can
Speaker 9: you know, she was shaking, you know, my you know,
Speaker 9: she had good reason too, for sure, So it was
Speaker 9: a real powerful moment. And uh so, the defense the
Speaker 9: penalty phase went on for like, you know, for a
Speaker 9: few weeks, and at that point, the jury that found
Speaker 9: Lonnie guilty of you know, convicting him of the murders
Speaker 9: also found him you know, they basically said that he
Speaker 9: should get the death penalty, and they recommended the death
Speaker 9: penalties to the judge, and the judge actually sentenced him
Speaker 9: in August of last year, in twenty sixteen, to death.
Speaker 9: And so about ten days after she sentenced him, he
Speaker 9: was taken to San Quentin's death Row, where he is
Speaker 9: currently until you know, he dies.
Speaker 8: Tell us about the reality of the death penalty in
Speaker 8: California and also how it really delayed this case, and
Speaker 8: many of the people, the loved ones that survived this well,
Speaker 8: i mean went on after their loved ones died, couldn't
Speaker 8: even make the case because it had been so long.
Speaker 9: Well, in California, there's a moratorium on the death penalty,
Speaker 9: and they haven't had an execution in my close at
Speaker 9: ten years. And in California have an appeals process, So
Speaker 9: even if you had the death penalty, it takes about
Speaker 9: twenty five to twenty six years for the case to
Speaker 9: go through the appeals process. And you know, the you know,
Speaker 9: these cases, they're looked at very closely, and so any
Speaker 9: case that the death penalty case takes longer to prosecute,
Speaker 9: and the judges are very careful that the cases don't
Speaker 9: go back on appeal, and that was partly, you know,
Speaker 9: the reason why it took six years for them to
Speaker 9: actually try this case, and you know, it ended up
Speaker 9: being like just an absolute you know, incredibly frustrating for
Speaker 9: family members because you know, for a lot of them,
Speaker 9: it took twenty five years before you know, Lonnie Franklin
Speaker 9: was caught and then you know, they had to wait
Speaker 9: another six years before he finally went to trial, and
Speaker 9: you know, during that time, you know, some of the
Speaker 9: family members passed away, and you know that was really
Speaker 9: upsetting for you know, some of the mothers you know,
Speaker 9: had died and so they never you know, were able
Speaker 9: to see you know justice for their you know, for
Speaker 9: their family and for their daughter, and so you know
Speaker 9: that was something that was really really upsetting for you know,
Speaker 9: the family members that would go you know, every couple
Speaker 9: of days, and so you know, it was just it
Speaker 9: was dreadful for them to wait, and you know, we
Speaker 9: thought that it wasn't going to you know, it was
Speaker 9: going to take longer and longer, and i mean some
Speaker 9: of the case there's one guy who's actually in jail
Speaker 9: right now and it's almost been ten years. It's a
Speaker 9: definalty case. So you know, they just take longer, you know,
Speaker 9: because the judges are just way more concerned about the case,
Speaker 9: you know, getting tossed out on appeal, so you know,
Speaker 9: they give the defense attorneys more leeway to investigate and
Speaker 9: and things like that, and as a result, like it
Speaker 9: just became like really a contentious thing. I mean, there
Speaker 9: was no love lost between the prosecution and the defense.
Speaker 9: There was you know a lot of bickering and a
Speaker 9: lot of issues you know, going on there that you know,
Speaker 9: stalled the case and things like that. So it wasn't
Speaker 9: you know, it was for he wasn't a pleasant six
Speaker 9: years waiting for him to go to trial.
Speaker 8: What was his demeanor and what was his behavior like
Speaker 8: at trial?
Speaker 9: You know, his demeanor, you know, I mean, he really
Speaker 9: he went in. He never looked at the audience, you know,
Speaker 9: he never looked at the family members. He pretty much
Speaker 9: you know, and he barely really talked to his defense
Speaker 9: attorneys occasionally. He never laughed. He looked at the spot.
Speaker 9: It looked to me like he was looking at a
Speaker 9: spot on the wall which was kind of right next
Speaker 9: to the judge, you know, Kathleen Kennedy, and he kind
Speaker 9: of fixated on it. I know that he when you know,
Speaker 9: they were putting up photos, autopsy photos and things like that,
Speaker 9: and you know, one of the detectives told me, I
Speaker 9: couldn't see where I was from where I was sitting.
Speaker 9: But he had said that, and so did actually one
Speaker 9: of the brothers, Manie Alexander, one of the brothers, had
Speaker 9: said that they'd catch him like looking at photos, you know,
Speaker 9: like when the girl's photos like of the breast and
Speaker 9: stuff like that. They'd catch him like, you know, peak over,
Speaker 9: you know, looking up at the screen and stuff like that,
Speaker 9: you know, but most mostly he just sat there and stared.
Speaker 9: You know, he didn't you know, he had no It
Speaker 9: didn't seem like, you know, he had a care in
Speaker 9: the world. Really. I mean, he must have been I'm
Speaker 9: assuming he was, you know, scared, but he certainly, you know,
Speaker 9: didn't show it. And the only one time he seemed
Speaker 9: to be animated was when his girlfriend showed up one
Speaker 9: day and he looked up and saw her, and it
Speaker 9: must have you know, obviously he knew she was going
Speaker 9: to be in the courtroom because he immediately when he
Speaker 9: walked out when they brought him out, he immediately looked
Speaker 9: up to this corner of the courtroom and looked at her.
Speaker 9: But besides that, I mean, you know, when he got
Speaker 9: the when he was convicted, you know, when the you know,
Speaker 9: in June, he didn't do anything, and you know, he
Speaker 9: shook his one of his legs, you know, he kind
Speaker 9: of twitched a little bit with one of his legs.
Speaker 9: But besides that, he just kind of got up and
Speaker 9: you know, walked away. I didn't see him sleeping or
Speaker 9: anything like that, but he just didn't seem to be
Speaker 9: affected by it at all.
Speaker 8: You have so much, Like I said, I've talked about
Speaker 8: the incredible access you had to all kinds of players
Speaker 8: in this story. It's we don't have any more time,
Speaker 8: but it's interesting to tell the readers that about the
Speaker 8: interviews that you got from and pardon me and e
Speaker 8: Tria Washington, very very interesting and all of the dedicated
Speaker 8: detectives to Shepherd and Coulter and kill Coin and in
Speaker 8: the end a detective Dupree, a black detective that grew
Speaker 8: up in South Central It was responsible at the end,
Speaker 8: who if people I've heard of end of Watch starring
Speaker 8: Jake Gillenthal, basically based around Detective Dupree's life. So very
Speaker 8: very interesting. The most important thing that you took away
Speaker 8: from this, I'd say the most the biggest thing that
Speaker 8: you discovered in this lengthy investigation and book project.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean I just thought that the case, this
Speaker 9: story needed to be told. I mean, it was just
Speaker 9: there was a lot of twists and turns. I didn't
Speaker 9: you know, when I first got involved in the case,
Speaker 9: I just didn't realize just how much, you know, attention
Speaker 9: was put on the case. And just how much the
Speaker 9: detectives investigated and how much they were invested in the
Speaker 9: case as much as you know, some of the you
Speaker 9: knows as the family members. And it was really interesting
Speaker 9: because I mean there was no love lost between the
Speaker 9: family members and the police at first, you know, but
Speaker 9: towards the end, it was all, you know, like a
Speaker 9: big family, you know, the prosecutors and the detectives and
Speaker 9: the family members, you know, and when they got that
Speaker 9: guilty verdict, you know, I want to to the hallway
Speaker 9: and they were all hugging each other, and you know,
Speaker 9: as much as they were all so different, they all
Speaker 9: had that same goal to you know, find you know,
Speaker 9: to have justice for the family members, and so it
Speaker 9: was like a really it was you know, obviously tragic
Speaker 9: the situation, but it was really amazing just to see
Speaker 9: how everybody came together was in this common goal to
Speaker 9: you know, find justice. And it was really a wonderful
Speaker 9: thing to see because you know, a lot of the
Speaker 9: detectives were from you know, different backgrounds as the family
Speaker 9: members and as well as the prosecutors, and to know
Speaker 9: that they all came together to do this and you know,
Speaker 9: there was it was it was really amazing actually, and
Speaker 9: I was really proud to be able to witness that
Speaker 9: and to be able to get such incredible access to
Speaker 9: you know, the case with the detectives and the prosecutors,
Speaker 9: and so you know, I was really you know, we
Speaker 9: cappy that they trusted me and allowed me you know,
Speaker 9: you know, access to them and especially with the family members,
Speaker 9: because you know, that was something that was still really
Speaker 9: you know, difficult for them and for them to you know,
Speaker 9: talk to me about it. It was just and tell
Speaker 9: their family, you know, their daughter's story. It was very overwhelming,
Speaker 9: and you know, I was so happy they did that.
Speaker 8: Yes, I want to congratulate you again on your very
Speaker 8: very important role in this very very incredible story and
Speaker 8: important story. I want to thank you very much, Christine
Speaker 8: Pelistik for coming on and talking about the Grim Sleeper.
Speaker 8: For those that might want to get a copy of
Speaker 8: this and find out more about this, do you have
Speaker 8: a Facebook page and maybe mentioned the publisher and tell
Speaker 8: us just a little bit how people might contact you
Speaker 8: or find out more about your work.
Speaker 9: Sure, I'm well, I'm a writer. I'm a senior writer
Speaker 9: at People Magazine, and I also have a Facebook. I
Speaker 9: have a Facebook page and I also have a website.
Speaker 9: It's Christine pelisek dot com and there's a link there
Speaker 9: to Amazon. You know, if you're so inclined, if you
Speaker 9: want the book, and the book you can also get
Speaker 9: at you know, Barnes and Noble and pretty much any bookstore,
Speaker 9: and you know also on Amazon, and I think Amazon
Speaker 9: and anywhere else I think they sell books. You can.
Speaker 9: You can actually get it even in Canada too, so
Speaker 9: if you go to they have it in chapters in
Speaker 9: Canada and the other I feel indigo right absolutely.
Speaker 8: I want to thank you very much Christine Pelisick for
Speaker 8: coming on and talking about the Grim Sleeper. You have
Speaker 8: a great evening. Thank you once again for this interview.
Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you very very much. I appreciate it.
Speaker 8: Thank you, and good night, Okay, good night, thank you.
Speaker 8: Thank you yet