In the latest developments involving accused “Grim Sleeper” suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr., six additional murders have been attributed to the defendant, bringing the total number of alleged killings committed between 1985 and 2007 to 16.
These additional victims were linked via a combination of forensic research, specifically DNA, and circumstantial evidence.
Franklin was initially linked through a genetic match involving the emerging technology of familial DNA testing. Samples collected from utensils discarded by Franklin at an Orange County pizzeria corresponded with those obtained from his son, who had been arrested on a separate felony charge.
“We have seven additional cases that we have concluded were likely committed by Mr. Franklin,” said Detective Dennis Kilcoyne, lead investigator of the task force charged with pursuing the grisly slayings that rocked South Los Angeles over the past few decades.
Of these latest developments, four are confirmed murders, and two are persons missing since 2005 whose belongings were found in what Kilcoyne called “a secret place” on Franklin’s property near 81st St. and Western Ave.
The seventh and possibly most intriguing case involves an unnamed survivor of the serial assaults who came forward after Franklin’s arrest in July 2010. She is the only living victim aside from Enietra Washington, who was shot in the chest during an encounter with her assailant in 1988.
These new findings, however, will not be used to file additional charges in the current legal proceedings so as not to impede the progression to trial.
In additional developments involving South Los Angeles area serial killers, new criminal proceedings are under way against defendant Michael Hughes, 54, who was previously convicted of the sexual assault and murder of four women between 1992 and 1993.
Hughes, a former sailor and security guard from Michigan serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, has been moved from North Kern State Prison to the L.A. County detention facilities during this current trial.
Once again, the defendant was tied to these cold cases via DNA technology. The four additional women Hughes is accused of killing are Yvonne Coleman, 15; Verna Williams, also 15; Deanna Wilson, 30; and Deborah Jackson, 32. The victims were strangled, and their killer often positioned them postmortem in a sexually provocative manner.
Hughes was initially arrested in Culver City in December 1993, as he was pushing a shopping cart containing the remains of Jamie Harrington.
In 1998, he was convicted of the murder of Harrington and three other women–Teresa Ballard, Brenda Bradley, and Terri Myles.
The victims’ bodies were found in Culver City, Inglewood, and Los Angeles, while those linked to Franklin were confined to South Los Angeles.
Police inquiries into the homicides attributed to Franklin and Hughes were complicated by the surge of violence connected to crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s. City and countywide murder rates swelled with a plethora of drug-related executions and drive-by shootings, as gangs vied for territorial supremacy in the lucrative narcotics trade that was dominating the streets.
Homicide investigations were further hampered by the presence of at least one other prolific local murderer, Chester Turner, who has been credited with 10 slayings, and possibly several others, stalking the same general area during that time period.
