South Central Los Angeles in the 1980s was a pressure cooker. Between the crack cocaine epidemic and the intense friction between the LAPD and the community, things were already on edge. Then, women started disappearing. Well, they didn't just disappear. Their bodies were being found in dumpsters and alleyways, tucked under discarded mattresses or hidden behind mounds of trash. This is the chilling reality of evil among us the grim sleeper, a moniker given to Lonnie Franklin Jr., one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.
He got the name because of a supposed "break" in his killings. For years, investigators thought he just stopped. They were wrong.
The Man Behind the Monster
Lonnie Franklin Jr. wasn't a shadowy figure lurking in the bushes with a hockey mask. He was a neighbor. He was a former garage attendant for the LAPD and a sanitation worker. People knew him as the guy who was handy with cars. He’d help you fix a flat or tinker with an engine. He was "social." That’s the part that really messes with your head when you look back at the case files. He lived a completely mundane life on West 81st Street while allegedly keeping a collection of "trophies" that would later fill stacks of police evidence folders.
It’s terrifying.
The victims were mostly young Black women. Many were struggling with addiction or poverty, which, unfortunately, meant their disappearances didn't trigger the "Amber Alert" level of media frenzy we see for others. The "Grim Sleeper" nickname came from the fact that there was an apparent 14-year gap in his crimes, from 1988 to 2002. However, many detectives now believe he never actually slept. They think he just got better at hiding it, or the bodies simply weren't found.
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How the DNA Trap Finally Sprung
For decades, the case was cold. Ice cold. The turning point didn't come from a classic "aha!" moment in an interrogation room. It came from science—specifically, familial DNA searching. This was a relatively new frontier at the time. When Lonnie’s son, Christopher, was arrested on an unrelated weapons charge, his DNA was entered into the state database. It wasn't a direct match to the DNA found on the Grim Sleeper victims, but it was a "near miss."
It was a partial match.
This led investigators directly to the father. But they needed a direct sample. They couldn't just knock on his door and ask for a swab. So, they went undercover. An officer followed Franklin to a pizza parlor and watched him like a hawk. When Franklin finished his meal and walked away, the officer swooped in and collected the crusts, the napkins, and a partially eaten piece of cake.
That was it. The DNA on that pizza crust matched the DNA from the crime scenes. The evil among us the grim sleeper wasn't a ghost anymore; he was a guy who liked pepperoni pizza.
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The Evidence That Shook the Courtroom
When police finally raided Franklin’s home in 2010, they didn't just find a messy house. They found a digital and physical nightmare. We're talking about over 1,000 photos and hundreds of hours of video footage. These weren't family vacation photos. They were pictures of women—many unconscious, some clearly dead—posed in horrific ways.
The scale was staggering.
The LAPD actually had to release 180 of these photos to the public, hoping families could identify the "missing" women. They wanted to know who else he had hurt. It was a desperate move, but it worked to identify more victims. Margaret Prescod and the "Black Women for Wages for Housework" group had been screaming for years that a serial killer was targeting their community, but the "Grim Sleeper" case became a symbol of how marginalized victims are often overlooked by the system.
- Victim Count: Officially 10, but likely over 25.
- Active Years: 1985–2007 (officially).
- The Survivor: Enietra Washington is the only known person to escape him. Her testimony was the nail in the coffin. She described being shot, sexually assaulted, and pushed out of a moving car after he took a Polaroid of her.
Why We Still Talk About Him
This isn't just a true crime story for a podcast. It's a study in systemic failure and the banality of evil. Franklin didn't look like a monster. He looked like the guy who lived next door for 30 years. When he was finally convicted in 2016 and sentenced to death, it brought some closure, but the questions remained. How did he go unnoticed for so long?
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He died in San Quentin in 2020 of natural causes. He never confessed. He never gave the families the peace of knowing exactly where their loved ones' final moments happened or why he chose them. He just... stopped existing.
The case of evil among us the grim sleeper changed how the LAPD handles "unsolved" murders in lower-income neighborhoods. It pushed the boundaries of DNA technology. It forced a conversation about "The 800," the slang term for the number of unsolved murders of Black women in LA during that era. It’s a dark, heavy legacy.
Practical Steps for True Crime Researchers and Advocates
If you are looking to understand this case beyond the headlines or want to support victim advocacy, here is how you can actually engage with the history and the future of such cases:
- Study the "Black Women for Wages for Housework" Records: This group was instrumental in forcing the police to acknowledge the serial killer. Their archives provide a crucial perspective on grassroots activism against systemic neglect.
- Support Cold Case DNA Initiatives: Organizations like the DNA Doe Project or local cold case units rely on public interest and funding to process backlogs. The Grim Sleeper was caught because of a database; thousands of other killers haven't been because their victims' kits are still sitting on shelves.
- Review the LAPD "Grim Sleeper" Missing Persons Gallery: There are still unidentified women from the photos found in Franklin's home. If you are a researcher or genealogist, looking into these "John/Jane Doe" cases is a tangible way to help return names to the nameless.
- Read "The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central" by Christine Pelisek: She is the journalist who broke the story and gave the killer his name. Her work is the gold standard for factual reporting on this specific case.
- Audit Local Media Coverage: Look at how missing persons are reported in your own city. Notice the disparity? Writing to local news outlets to demand equal coverage for marginalized victims is a direct way to prevent another "Grim Sleeper" from hiding in plain sight.
Lonnie Franklin Jr. is gone, but the ripples of his actions are still felt by the families on West 81st Street and beyond. The "sleep" is over, but the wake-up call for justice continues.