LONNIE FRANKLIN JR
HIS APPARENT HIATUS FROM MURDER GAINED HIM THE MONIKER ‘GRIM SLEEPER’ BUT RECENT EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THIS SERIAL KILLER CONTINUED WORKING IN THE SHADOWS AND WAS FAR FROM DORMANT
South Central, later known as South Los Angeles, is a 132-square-kilometre region of Los Angeles County, divided up into 28 rough, rundown neighbourhoods. It’s a dark place, filled with disillusioned individuals struggling to survive. Poverty and the ever-present easy escape of drugs are major issues. Children and teenagers are constantly lured away from their families into the ‘protection’ of the territorial gangs. Add a hefty dose of racial unrest and you are left with a hotbed of crime.
The discovery of dead, drug-addled prostitutes rarely made the news back in the 1980s – after all, crack cocaine was sweeping the county and such events were an inevitable by-product. However, unbeknown to the local homicide detectives, the discovery of Debra Jackson would be the starting point of a 30-year manhunt for a truly evil and prolific serial killer.
ECLIPSED BY THE NIGHT STALKER
The decomposing corpse of 29-year-old Debra was found on 10 August 1985 – but nobody cared. Across town in the affluent Los Angeles districts, a terrifying serial killer, named ‘The Night Stalker’ by the media, had struck again, killing yet another middle-class victim. Why would the press bother to report on the death of a poor, black drug addict when there were ‘hardworking, decent folk’ dying at the hands of Richard Ramirez? And so her passing left no mark in the papers.
She was found, as all the others would be, discarded like unwanted rubbish in a South Central alley, beneath a piece of carpet. Since there were only eight homicide detectives working, on average, 130 murders per year in that area, the likelihood of finding her killer was slim to say the least, but the report was filed and details logged. She had been shot three times at close range with a .25-calibre pistol. Due to her decomposition, it was impossible to say if she had been sexually assaulted.
Detectives had little to go on – their only lead was the .25-calibre pistol. And, just to make matters worse, another serial killer started working their patch, known as the ‘Southside Slayer’. Luckily for the police, the Slayer’s modus operandi was entirely different since he had a penchant for stabbing and strangling his victims.
On 12 August 1986 the body of Henrietta Wright was discovered underneath an old mattress and a blanket in a dirty back alley. A gag made from a torn shirt had been rammed into her mouth and, once again, the killer had used a .25-calibre pistol. She had been shot twice at close range. Ballistics confirmed she’d been murdered with the same gun that killed Debra Jackson. The detectives were left reeling. Surely there couldn’t be three
