Serial killers: criminology, psychology, and investigation

¶ … Grim Sleeper

There is a serial killer in custody in Los Angeles named Lonnie Franklin, Jr. As of January, 2011, Franklin's DNA was linked to the slaying of 10 women, but police detectives and other investigators believe that he may be responsible for many more killings. The killings have taken place over many years, beginning in South Los Angeles in 1985, and after what appeared to be a halt in the serial killings for 13 years in 2002 they started up again, according to the New York Times (Steinhauer, 2010). The women known to have been killed by Franklin were African-Americans -- women "on the margins of society…including some prostitutes and drug addicts" according to the Los Angeles Times (Blankstein, et al., 2011).

The Details: This is a very sad and grim story, and of course it is heartbreaking for the families and friends who now know -- after the passing of many years -- the killer of their loved ones. But the most interesting and revolutionary part of this case is how Franklin was linked to the killings. In California there is a new technological system called a "familial search" in which authorities use DNA samples from convicted criminals "to track down relatives who may themselves have committed a crime" (Steinhauer).

In California, law enforcement officials collect DNA samples from convicted felons because forensic experts say a person responsible for a major crime "may well be a relative of a person [who is already] locked up," Steinhauer explains. And so since many of Franklin's victims were sexually assaulted prior to being shot and thrown into dumpsters, there were DNA samples that police captured from the crime scenes. It turns out that Franklin's son, Christopher, was convicted on a felony weapons charge, and Christopher's DNA was close enough to the DNA found at the crime scenes to make Franklin a top suspect (Steinhauer).

So Los Angeles police located Lonnie Franklin's residence in South Los Angeles, shadowed him for a few days and followed him to a restaurant where they recovered a "discarded pizza slice" from his lunch; the DNA from Franklin's saliva matched the DNA from the women found murdered. He was arrested the next day, Steinhauer continues.

Meanwhile, when police were investigating Franklin's residence and his garage in back of his house, they discovered "about 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video footage of women," Blankstein reported. Some of the images were just "innocent snapshots" but others showed women in "various states of undress and in sexual poses," Blankstein wrote. Because detectives feared that some of the women in those photos may have been killed too, they reviewed and researched records of unsolved murders. When they were not able to link many of the photos (except two) to killings, the LAPD decided to release the photos to the Los Angeles Times.

In January, 2011, the Los Angeles Times printed the photos (only using the faces) of 160 women on the front page of the newspaper. The LAPD posted the photos on their Website. In a few days 200 tips came in, some identifying women that were still alive, and others identifying family members or friends who had gone missing.