Author’s note: As a fourth grader, wanting to be accepted by older guys as “cool” is an important milestone in any culture. In my old neighborhood, a small part of socially fitting-in with the older teenagers was the ability to endure scary stories.
These stories were told to us on summer nights by what I could only describe as “demented” teenagers. The younger kids on the block were corralled and seated on my best friend Edward Clay’s porch. Once the teens, who were being led by my friend’s older brother, Raymond Clay, were satisfied with the headcount of innocents, the porch light was turned off and the storytelling began. Thankfully, I can only remember 20 minutes of the nightmarish torture.
Afterwards, we were told that Junior (Edward) could not have any more company and we were forced to walk home in the dark. Although I lived across the street, that trek seemed like a mile.
The scariest story I can remember them telling us was about an inner city serial killer known as the “Bouncing Ball Man.” He was an African American male who would walk around the community known then as South Central Los Angeles bouncing a ball and asking Black kids to play with him. The scary part of the story was the description of the sound of the ball striking the pavement—it created a distant thump that became louder as he approached your street. According to our storytellers, the bouncing noise throughout the neighborhood meant death.
Raymond went on describing how bedroom windows were always open on hot summer nights to keep the interior cool and that worked to the advantage of the “Bouncing Ball Man.” An open window allowed the clean-cut Black man an opportunity to invite kids to come out and play ball. Some kids recognized the sound of a bouncing ball and looked out their open windows. The kids who agreed to play would climb out of their bedroom window, follow the culprit away and supposedly were strangled to death. After hearing that story, my friends and I avoided all strangers in our community for a very long time, especially the ones bouncing balls.
In researching this article, I discovered that there actually was a serial killer known as the “Bouncing Ball Killer.” He was eventually arrested in 1960 for strangling seven women.
As expected, Raymond Clay and his gang of teenage cohorts embellished a lot of the story to scare the crap out of us.
The killer’s name was Raymond W. Clemmons, and he was a 36-year-old African American San Quentin parolee and door-to-door Bible salesman.
I believe my friends and I were told the story of the “Bouncing Ball Man” in 1967, and I would not hear of another African American serial killer until June 1981, when Wayne Williams was accused in the Atlanta child murders.
Even today, the only other African American serial killers that come to mind are John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, AKA “The D.C. Sniper,” and Lonnie Franklin Jr., Los Angeles’ “Grim Sleeper.”
However, contrary to common belief, from 1981 to the present day, there have actually been a total of 126 African American or Black serial killers in the United States, according to Vernon J. Geberth of Practical Homicide Investigation Consultants Inc., a homicide training center covering forensic pathology and clinical psychology.
Many of these killers are unheard of in mainstream media. Many criminologists believe that mainstream media will not report on news concerning African American serial killers or homicides involving African Americans because they are not newsworthy, according to an article published by Anthony Walsh, Ph.D., a Boise State University professor, titled “African Americans and Serial Killing in the Media.”
Criminologist Geberth, remembers the “Bouncing Ball Killer” case. The killer was sentenced by a panel of seven women and five men to life imprisonment for the first-degree murder of Nina T. Thoeren, 19. Geberth believes serial killers can come from all races, cultures, nationalities, educational levels, economic strata, gender and sexual orientation.
However, statistically speaking, most serial murderers in the United States are predominantly White. However, since 1980, there has been an increase in Black male serial killers, most of whom have a history of rape and/or other sexual assault, and who kill to prevent identification. This information is not known to the public.
Geberth believes the media has either ignored Black sexual serial killers or opted not to focus on the race of the serial killer due to some illogical interpretation of political correctness. He goes on to explain how only recently has the media reported on Black sexual serial killers with the arrest and conviction of Anthony Sowell, also known as “The Cleveland Strangler.” He killed 11 women between 2005 and 2009.
More recently there was the arrest of “The Grim Sleeper.” He has been accused of killing 10 women between 1985 and 2007.
According to statistics from the United States Department of Justice, the ethnocentric profile of a serial killer in the U.S. as a White male was created by the FBI, and subsequently perpetuated by the media. Geberth points out that there is a strong media bias against highlighting African American serial killers. This may be because of fears of being branded as racist, or in the case of coverage in the entertainment media, the perception that Black characters have little appeal to White audiences.
Geberth refers to Anthony Walsh’s article “African Americans and Serial Killing in the Media” which points out that most law enforcement agencies believe African Americans lack the requisite brilliance to commit such crimes. Walsh believes thinking like this can lead to law enforcement neglecting to protect victims in the African American community.
For example, during the “Grim Sleeper” murder investigation, there was a brief focus on a White suspect and two already known Black serial killers. This approach is typical claims Walsh, who notes that belief in the Whites-only stereotype allows law enforcement to eschew more detailed searches for other possible candidates. He also speculates that this lack of action may actually lead to additional victims.
There are some who believe that police have the mindset that the victims like those that Franklin is accused of killing were only street walkers. This kind of thinking enables Black serial killers the ability to operate for a long time undetected.
Take Franklin’s case, for example. He was just part of the environment—a common staple in any African American working class neighborhood—“the shade tree mechanic.” For folks on a limited budget, this guy was a God-send because he could keep their cars running without the cost of going to a more expensive repair shop.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. was “a good mechanic” according to former customer, Jackie Hamilton, who has lived in the neighborhood for almost 17 years. She used Franklin as her mechanic for a very long time. He repaired her vehicle as well as that of her husband, Michael.
When they were given data from The Homicide and Forensic training institute PHI showing the increase in African American serial killers it was alarming, according to Jackie.
“I believe if some of the victims were aware of the numbers, they may have thought twice about getting into a car with a person unknown to them,” she said.
Jackie said she always knew that although Lonnie was a excellent mechanic, there was some type of unconscious warning that something did not sit right about him. “I figured it out once he was arrested. I always felt funny around him while he was working on my car; he always wanted to discuss his sexual conquests, as if I was one of the guys.
“Once he was bleeding my brakes and had me pumping the brake pedal to get air out of the lines. During that time, the interior of the car was hot and I had the window cracked. He kept discussing how he liked skinny women. He said their small size allowed him to carry them around the room while they had sex. He was always saying he didn’t like anything fat.”
Another thing he did which may have exposed his insanity, said Jackie, was his laugh. “He had a very crazy laugh and was always jovial. He dealt with a lot of females that I still see from time to time, one would wait for him and sell him food stamps. I know for a fact that he had a male friend on 79th Street and Denker Avenue; he and this friend would have sex with ‘crack hoes.’ This friend sometimes would recruit women for Franklin.
“There is a young lady I still see today. She would visit him and he had special lingerie he would lay out for her prior to them having sex. I believe her name was Nicky. She told me prior to his arrest, that he would dress her up and take photos of her.”
African American Federal Bureau Investigator Special Agent Mary Ferguson believes the interview with Jackie Hamilton does not give any indications of the behavior of a African American serial killer; it only describes someone obsessed with sex. She believes Franklin might have remained free to continue killing if not for Gov. Jerry Brown allowing the use of familial DNA.
“I am a big advocate of letting the African American community know that the Black serial killer does exist; the number of Black serial killers has doubled since the 1980s,” Ferguson said. When you hear the names Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, they stand out as White serial killers. However while these guys were out murdering, African American serial killers Carl (Coral) Eugene Watts (Sunday Morning Slasher), Milton Johnson, Kendall Francois, and Henry Louis Wallace were also committing murders during the same time period and they are virtually unknown.
Watts (Nov. 7, 1953 – Sept. 21, 2007), dubbed “The Sunday Morning Slasher” is now suspected to have killed more than 100 women, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history.
Milton Johnson (born May 15, 1950) was convicted at age 19 of raping a Joliet woman, and torturing her with a cigarette lighter in the process. The rape conviction carried a sentence of 25 to 35 years in prison, with a consecutive term of five to 10 years added on after another conviction for burglary. Even with “good time,” Johnson should have been confined until April 1986, but authorities saw fit to release him more than three years prematurely, on March 10, 1983. Their generosity cost at least 10 lives according to information on the Crime Statistics Sites.
Kendall Francois (born July 26, 1971) from Poughkeepsie, New York, was convicted of killing eight prostitutes, from 1996 to 1998, says the FBI. He is currently serving life in prison for his crimes.
Henry Louis Wallace (born Nov. 4, 1965) killed 10 women in Charlotte, N.C., and is awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh, reports the FBI.
FBI agent Ferguson said there is no national repository that maintains and tracks the number or race of serial killers in the United States so it is impossible to determine the percentage of African American serial killers. But she believes it is up to mainstream media to make public and give extensive reports on African American serial killers just as much as those of other races regardless of the impact on ratings.
