Grim Sleeper Biography
Lonnie David Franklin Jr., well known by the nickname Grim Sleeper, was an American serial killer who was answerable for at least 10 murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California from 1984 to 2007.
He was as well convicted of rape and sexual violence. He earned his nickname when he appeared to have taken a 14-year break from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002. Franklin was arrested as a suspect in July 2010, and, after many delays, his trial started in February 2016. On May 5, 2016, the jury sentenced him for killing nine women and one teenage girl. The jury recommended the death penalty on June 6, 2016, and on August 10, 2016, the Los Angeles Superior Court convicted him to death for each of the ten victims named in the verdict. Franklin was found dead in his cell at San Quentin State Prison on March 28, 2020.
10 Quick Facts About Grim Sleeper
- Name: Lonnie David Franklin Jr.
- Age: 67 Years (2020).
- Birthday: 30 August.
- Zodiac Sign: Virgo.
- Height: Average.
- Nationality: American.
- Occupation: Serial Killer.
- Marital Status: Married.
- Salary: To be updated.
- Net worth: $1.5 million.
Grim Sleeper Age
Grim Sleeper was 67 years old at the time of his death, he was born Lonnie David Franklin Jr. on August 30, 1952, in Los Angeles, California, United States of America. He celebrated his birthday on August 30, every year, and his birth sign is Virgo.
Grim Sleeper Death
Grim Sleeper died at the age of 67 years on March 28, 2020, in San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, California. Sources claim that Grim was found dead in his cell.
Grim Sleeper Height
Sleeper stood at an average height and he had moderate weight.
Grim Sleeper Family
Grim Sleeper was born to his parents in Los Angeles, California, and grew up in South Central Los Angeles, California. Our efforts to find out more about his family came to no avail as no such information is publicly available. Thus, the identity of Grim’s parents is still unclear. It is also not known if he has any siblings. We will update this section once this information is available.
Grim Sleeper Wife
Grim Sleeper married Sylvia Franklin and they have two children. During the gang, rape photographs were taken by one of the rapists as was the case with the women Lonnie Franklin raped and murdered. In 1989, he was also convicted of two charges of theft, one charge of misdemeanor assault, and one charge of battery. He served time for one of the theft charges.
Grim Sleeper Son
Grim Sleeper has a son called Christopher (convicted of a felony weapons charge) whose DNA helped the police to arrest his father.
Grim Sleeper Net Worth
Sleeper had an estimated net worth of $1.5 million dollars as of 2020. This included his assets, money, and income. His primary source of income was his career as a Serial killer. Through his various sources of income, he had accumulated good fortune but preferrred to lead a modest lifestyle.
Grim Sleeper Measurements and Facts
Here are some interesting facts and body measurements you should know about Grim Sleeper.
Grim Sleeper Wiki
- Full Names: Lonnie David Franklin Jr.
- Popular As: Grim Sleeper.
- Gender: Male.
- Occupation / Profession: Serial Killer.
- Nationality: American.
- Race / Ethnicity: Black.
- Religion: Not Known.
- Sexual Orientation: Straight.
Grim Sleeper Birthday
- Zodiac Sign: Virgo.
- Date of Birth: August 30, 1952.
- Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California.
- Date of Death: March 28, 2020(Aged 67 Years Old).
- Place of Death: San Quentin State Prison, California.
- Birthday: August 30.
Grim Sleeper Family and Relationship
- Father (Dad): To be updated.
- Mother: To be updated.
- Siblings (Brothers and Sisters): To be updated.
- Marital Status: Married.
- Wife/Spouse: Was Married to Sylvia Franklin.
- Dating / Girlfriend: Not Applicable.
- Children: Son(Christopher).
Grim Sleeper Net Worth and Salary
- Net Worth: $1.5 million(2020).
- Salary: Not Available
- Source of Income: Serial Killer
Grim Sleeper Cause of Death
Franklin was found dead in his cell on March 28, 2020. His cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy as reported; nonetheless, there were no signs of trauma. As of August 2022, his cause of death and the results of the autopsy have not been publicly discharged.
Grim Sleeper House
The one-time police mechanic was arrested and charged in the serial killing of 10 people over 25 years after a DNA sample from his son was found to bear a close resemblance to DNA found on the victims.
Grim was charged with 10 counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, and special circumstance accusations of various murders that could make him fit for the death penalty if sentenced, District Attorney Steve Cooley said.
DNA Sample From Son Led To Arrest Of Accused ‘Grim Sleeper’
When California Authorities arrested Grim, they based their case in part on a DNA match of crime scene evidence to a sample from his imprisoned son relatively new and uncertain technique critics say raises ethical and legal questions that need to be examined by legislators.
Police had forensic evidence from the crime scenes, but no match to suspects in the FBI’s DNA database, which contains samples from people arrested or convicted of a felony crime.
Grim’s son Christopher was jailed on a felony weapons conviction. When police ran a so-called “familial search” of the database to find a match with the Grim’s DNA, they got a match on Christopher.
Grim was arrested July 7 on suspicion that he was the serial killer, supposedly accountable for killing nearly a dozen women in Los Angeles over a period of 25 years. The gruesome name stems from the fact that the killer took a break from murder for a dozen years at one point before resuming his killing spree.
The FBI DNA database, CODIS, contains the genetic fingerprint of millions of people. The database initially contained only DNA profiles of people convicted of violent felonies, but it has recently expanded to include anyone arrested in some states under suspicion of committing a felony.
The database allows police to compare crime-scene DNA samples to the genetic profiles of people who have been previously arrested. But states have begun allowing authorities to conduct “partial” and “familial” searches in the database to expand the scope of the database. A disproportionate number of people with profiles in the database are African American.
Grim Sleeper Book
The Lost Women of South Central
“This upsetting account of a Los Angeles serial killer, written with love by Christine Pelisek, an investigative crime reporter who spent 10 years working the case, blurts out a hard truth that no one wants to admit. She tries to restore honor to some of the victims by drawing sympathetic and carefully detailed life histories for each and every one of them.”
In 2006, The writer broke the story of a terrifying serial killer who went unchecked in Los Angeles for decades. Two years later, in her cover article for L.A. Weekly, she dubbed him “The Grim Sleeper” for his long break between murders. The killer preyed on a community devastated by crime and drugs and left behind a trail of bodies all women of color, all murdered in a comparable fashion, and all discarded in the alleys of Los Angeles.
The case of the Grim is unforgettably unique. But it also tells a wider story about homicide investigations in areas beset by poverty, gang violence, and despair; about how a serial killer could continue his grisly work for two decades in part due to society’s lack of concern for his chosen victims; and about the power and tenacity of those women’s families and the detectives who refused to let the case goes cold. No one knows this story better than Pelisek, the reporter who followed it for more than ten years.
Grim Sleeper DNA
The controversial DNA search that helped nab the ‘Grim Sleeper’ is winning over skeptics. The 687 years old roaming the streets of Sacramento for six years, raping women as they walked to work or headed home from parties in the dark. To keep them from fighting back, he crushed their heads with rocks and enveloped his hands around their necks. Sometimes he threatened them with a gun.
Police officers became frustrated, unable to identify him even though they had his DNA from the crimes. Desperate for a break, they checked a database of condemned criminals but came up empty-handed. Finally, they searched for a partial match to see whether he had a relative in the database. They got lucky the man had a brother in custody, which led authorities to the attacker.
The state’s early success using familial DNA searches to identify the name “serial killer led Charlie Beck to predict that the method would “change the way policing is done in the United States.” Civil liberty groups expressed alarm, saying the searches raised important decent and privacy concerns. Some questioned their right.
Grim Sleeper Caught
On 7th July 2010, the Los Angeles Times reported that an arrest had been made. Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley identified the suspect as Grim. The Killer was identified for arrest, at least in part, on familial DNA analysis.
Police had found no exact match between DNA found at the crime scenes and any of the profiles in California’s DNA profile database, so they searched the database for storing profiles that demonstrated sufficient similarity to allow police to infer a familial relationship.
They found similar DNA belonging to Grim’s son, Christopher, who had been sentenced to a felony weapons charge. According to Cooley, detectives then used a piece of discarded pizza with the suspect’s DNA to make the link.
One undercover police officer pretended to be a waiter at a restaurant where the Grim ate, collecting Dishes Silverware Glasses Pizza crusts to obtain DNA. The identification was used to arrest him after his DNA was obtained and deemed a match. Saliva found on the victims established a DNA match linking Grim to the deaths.
Law enforcement missed an opportunity to catch the mechanic because his DNA was never collected. In 2003, he was convicted of a felony and was serving three years of supervised probation. In 2004, voters passed Proposition 69, which requires that DNA must be collected from all felons and everyone arrested on some specified charges.
It also requires the expansion of the DNA database. Authorities collected and sorted through thousands of DNA samples. While he was on probation, Franklin’s DNA was supposed to be entered in the system but was not as probation officers did not collect samples from people who were on unsupervised probation between November 2004 and August 2005. The probation department did not have the resources to collect samples until August 2005.
On 16th December 2010, the LAPD released 180 photos of women found in the suspect’s home after unsuccessful attempts to identify the individuals, possibly additional victims. “These people are not suspects, we don’t even know if they are victims, but we do know this: Grim’s reign of terror in the city of Los Angeles, which spanned well over two decades, culminating with almost a dozen murder victims, certainly needs to be investigated further,” said Police Chief.
In all, investigators found over 1,000 photos and several hundred hours of video in his home. The images show mainly black women of a wide age range, from teenagers to middle-aged and older, frequently naked. Police believe Grim took many of the pictures, which show both conscious and unconscious individuals, dating back 30 years. The photos were issued to the public in an effort to identify the women.
On 3rd November 2011, Reuters reported that the police were considering the killer as a suspect in six more slayings of additional female victims. The police were investigating two of the six as potential victims killed during a 14-year lapse between an initial spate of Grim Sleeper murders that ended in 1988 and several more that began in 2002.
Of the remaining four victims, two bodies were discovered in the 1980s and two were reported missing in 2005 but the remains of the other two were never found, police said.
Detectives said they linked Franklin to the six additional killings after reviewing hundreds of old case files and seeking the public’s help in identifying a collection of 180 photographs of women and girls that were found in his possession.
Christopher’s dad was charged with ten murders and one attempted murder. He was held without bail until he received his death sentence. He is not charged with the death of an eleventh suspected victim, a black man, a crime for which DNA evidence was not found.
On 5th May 2016, after nearly three months of trial and a day and a half of jury deliberation, he was convicted of ten counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. On 6th June 2016, a Los Angeles County jury sentenced The Criminal to death.
Grim Sleeper Podcast
During the mid-1980s, a brutal killing spree started in Los Angeles as several women were murdered, having been sexually assaulted and shot in the chest with the same .25 caliber gun. By Grim.
However, his identity would not be exposed for more than 20 years, by which time he had become one of America’s most prolific serial killers. At the time, Los Angeles was a city struggling under the weight of racial inequalities and a crack epidemic that was sweeping through its most deprived areas. The victims were black women, and often addicts and sex workers.
Many in the communities of South Central felt that these factors all caused a lack of interest on the part of the LAPD in investigating the murders, allowing the killer to carry on his killing spree undetected. THE GRIM SLEEPER: Talking With America’s Most Notorious Serial Killer, Restall.
Grim Sleeper Review
In his latest documentary, Nick Broomfield examines the grim evidence surrounding a series of killings that still haunts the city after 25 years
Nick Broomfield’s documentary picks over the grisly bones of a serial killer case that continues to haunt LA. In 2010, Lonnie Franklin Jr was charged with murdering 10 women over the previous quarter-century; he’d gained the nickname “Grim Sleeper” from the theory he had rested 14 years between killings, but Polaroids scattered around Franklin’s pad suggest other victims may simply have vanished into this impoverished, crack-scarred, deeply misogynist landscape.
‘Grim Sleeper’: 160 pictures of women maybe serial killer’s victims, say police
Broomfield’s follow-ups with friends and neighbors reveal how normalized Franklin’s behavior had become one thought nothing of the “motor oil” he cleaned from Franklin’s carpets yet their oversight pales against the LAPD’s institutionalized indifference: you gulp on learning Franklin was apprehended only via an evidentiary fluke.
Tough viewing, but the film-maker’s commitment is unmistakable: even after being pulled over for driving without a seatbelt a trademark Broomfield bumble he still thinks to ask the cop what he knew of this tragically compelling episode.
Frequently Asked Questions About Grim Sleeper
Grim Sleeper was a renowned American serial killer who was responsible for at least ten deaths and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California from 1985 until 2007. Grim was also convicted of rape and sexual frenzy.
Grim Sleeper died at the age of 67 years on March 28, 2020, in San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, California.
Yes, Grim Sleeper was married to Sylvia Franklin. They got married and together they were blessed with children.
Sleeper had an approximate net worth of $1.5 million. This amount has been accrued from his leading roles in the entertainment industry.
Grim Sleeper died at the age of 67 years on March 28, 2020, in San Quentin State Prison, San Quentin, California. Sources claim that Grim was found dead in his cell.
Grim Sleeper Contacts
- Youtube
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- Website
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