Grim Sleeper's Killing Spree Worse than Thought, Prosecutors Claim

By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH

LOS ANGELES, CA - A fingerprint comparison expert testified today that a fingerprint from the magazine of a gun linked to a woman's December 2000 killing matched the fingerprint of the man convicted of the "Grim Sleeper" killings of nine other women and a 15-year-old girl.

Jeff Deacon, who works for the Los Angeles Police Department's latent print unit, told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury that he compared fingerprints of Lonnie David Franklin Jr. from a fingerprint database and concluded that a print found on the magazine of a Titan .25-caliber pistol discovered in July 2010 behind a false wall during a search of Franklin's garage "originated" from his left thumb.

In her opening statement last week in the penalty phase of Franklin's trial, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told jurors that the gun was used to kill 43-year-old Georgia Mae Thomas, who was found dead Dec. 18, 2000, in South Los Angeles.

Franklin, 63, was convicted May 5 of the 10 "Grim Sleeper" killings, along with the attempted murder of Enietra Washington, who survived being shot in the chest and pushed out of a moving vehicle in November 1988. In testimony Feb. 25, she identified the former Los Angeles city garage attendant and sanitation worker as her assailant.

The seven-woman, five-man jury is being asked in the latest phase of the trial to recommend whether Franklin should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The prosecutor told jurors that they would hear during the penalty phase about a series of other killings, including Thomas' shooting death, that she said are linked to the defendant.

Silverman told the panel that a separate gun used to kill Janecia Peters -- the final victim in the charged "Grim Sleeper" killings -- was also used in the January 1984 shooting death of 21-year-old Sharon Dismuke, a crime for which Franklin was not charged. The weapon was found in a bedroom during the July 2010 search of Franklin's property, the prosecutor said.

Deacon told jurors that he took a sample of Franklin's fingerprints in court Monday to compare to the set from the database and found that both matched.

He testified that he did not compare the fingerprints he had collected from Franklin to the latent print found on the magazine of the gun. He noted that he could compare the prints he had taken from Franklin with the latent print from the magazine of the gun, but that it would take time for others within his unit to verify his findings.

Franklin could not be excluded as the source of a fingerprint found in the area of the gun's serial number, but the print was "very low quality" and a conclusive determination could not be made, the fingerprint comparison expert testified.

"I knew from the very beginning that this print has limited potential," he said of that print.

Under cross-examination by defense attorney Seymour Amster, Deacon acknowledged that he could not determine the amount of time that a latent print has been on a surface.

When asked if he was aware of any incorrect identifications through fingerprint analysis, Deacon said the best known incident involved an investigation into a Madrid train station bombing in which the FBI eventually acknowledged that it had made an error in misidentifying a suspect after Spanish national police advised the agency that the fingerprint had been identified as belonging to someone else.

Along with the killings of Thomas and Dismuke, Franklin is suspected of killing 28-year-old Inez Warren, who was found Aug. 15, 1988, with a gunshot wound to the left side of her chest and blunt-force trauma to her head, Silverman said last week.

A kit used to collect potential DNA evidence from the woman was inadvertently destroyed in 2000 -- years before Franklin's arrest -- but the killing bore the "same pattern or signature" as the other slayings, the deputy district attorney said.

The prosecutor also told jurors that a high school ID card which belonged to 18-year-old Hawthorne High School senior Ayellah Marshall, who vanished in January 2006 -- and a Nevada ID card belonging to 29-year-old Rolenia Morris, who disappeared in September 2005 -- were found by police in Franklin's garage during a July 2010 search. Authorities have not been able to locate either of the women, Silverman said.

Franklin, while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany in 1974, joined with two other men to grab a 17-year-old girl off a street, gang-rape her and take photos of her, the prosecutor told jurors.

Franklin's attorney declined to present an opening statement at the start of the penalty phase, in which jurors are hearing emotional testimony from the murder victims' families, along with evidence about the uncharged killings in which Franklin is suspected.

In his closing argument in the trial's guilt phase, Amster contended that an unknown assailant may have been responsible for the 10 killings for which Franklin was prosecuted.

Silverman countered that there was no evidence to support the defendant's theory and told jurors that "the only DNA profile that repeats itself again and again is the defendant's."

Jurors deliberated about 1 1/2 days before finding Franklin guilty of the killings, which occurred between 1985 and 1988 and 2002 and 2007, with the assailant dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" because of what was believed to be a 13- year break in the killings.

Franklin, who has remained jailed without bail since his July 2010 arrest, was convicted of killing:

-- Debra Jackson, 29, found dead from three gunshot wounds to the chest in an alley on Aug. 10, 1985;

-- Henrietta Wright, a 34-year-old mother of five who was shot twice in the chest and found in an alley with a cloth gag stuffed in her mouth on Aug. 12, 1986;

-- Barbara Ware, 23, shot once in the chest and found under a pile of debris and garbage in an alley on Jan. 10, 1987;

-- Bernita Sparks, 26, shot once in the chest and found in a trash bin with her shirt and pants unbuttoned on April 16, 1987;

-- Mary Lowe, 26, shot in the chest and found in an alley with her pants unzipped behind a large shrub on Nov. 1, 1987;

-- Lachrica Jefferson, 22, found dead from two gunshot wounds to the chest -- with a napkin over her face with the handwritten word "AIDS" on it -- in an alley on Jan. 30, 1988;

-- Alicia Alexander, 18, killed by a gunshot wound to the chest and found naked under a blue foam mattress in an alley on Sept. 11, 1988;

-- Princess Berthomieux, 15, strangled and discovered naked and hidden in shrubbery in an alley in Inglewood on March 9, 2002;

-- Valerie McCorvey, 35, strangled and found dead with her clothes pulled down at the entrance to a locked alley on July 11, 2003; and

-- Janecia Peters, 25, shot in the back and found naked inside a sealed plastic trash bag in a trash bin in an alley on Jan. 1, 2007.

City News Service