Police release 180-photo trove from 'Grim Sleeper' suspect [Updated]

In a bold effort to determine whether there are additional "Grim Sleeper" victims, the Los Angeles Police Department is releasing photos of scores of women found in the possession of a man charged in 10 South Los Angeles killings.

Police hope the photo display will generate new tips from the public. Since the July arrest of Lonnie David Franklin Jr., the LAPD has received 75 calls from the family and friends of missing women wanting to know the fate of their loved ones.

After comparing information in those calls with evidence gathered in the Franklin investigation, detectives were soon able to discount most of the cases, said veteran homicide Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, head of the task force that tracked down the former city sanitation worker and police garage attendant. But Kilcoyne said investigators were taking a hard look at information generated by a handful of those contacts.

This is not the first time Southern California law enforcement has employed the tactic to help deal with serial killings. Last year, the Huntington Beach Police Department made public photos of women taken by accused serial killer Rodney Alcala. In 2006, the L.A. Sheriff's Department released the photos of 50 women taken by another accused killer, Bill Bradford.   

In the Grim Sleeper case, any public tips will come on top of 30 cases that police investigators already are reviewing because they share similarities to the slayings in which Franklin is accused. Franklin has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

There is no DNA evidence in any of the 30 cases, which is significant because authorities said they tied Franklin to some of the 10 killings based on a combination of DNA and ballistics evidence. Many of the cases are three decades old and occurred during a period when several serial killers were allegedly operating in South Los Angeles.

Franklin allegedly killed seven women between 1985 and 1988, then his alleged crimes seemed to come to an abrupt stop, authorities said. The slayings resumed in 2002, with a killing that year, another in 2003 and a third in 2007, police said.

The L.A. Weekly dubbed the killer the Grim Sleeper because of the lengthy, unaccounted-for gap in the slayings. But officials have said repeatedly that they suspect Franklin may be responsible for more homicides, including during the apparent lull.

During the search of Franklin's South Los Angeles home, detectives collected photo albums, documents, business cards and other records that they hoped could give them a better picture of the suspect and perhaps provide links to other victims.

One of the more troubling discoveries was nearly 1,000 still photographs and hundreds of hours of home video showing women, almost all of them partly or completely nude and striking sexually graphic poses.

LAPD officials said that after months of trying to identify the women, they decided to go public with the images of about 160 women in the hope that they, family or acquaintances will recognize the pictures and contact investigators. They released 180 images, some of which show the same women.

[Corrected at 1:50 p.m.: An earlier version of this post said the police released images of 180 women.]

"There's going to be a lot of speculation about the condition of some of the women in these photographs," Kilcoyne told The Times on Wednesday. “Right now, I don't know the answer."

See more photos here.

RELATED:

Grim Sleeper: How LAPD followed the DNA to an arrest

LAPD to release photos of 160 women taken by 'Grim Sleeper' suspect

-- Andrew Blankstein (@anblanx) and Joel Rubin (@joelrubin)

Learn more about the Grim Sleeper's known victims on The Times interactive Homicide Report

Photo: Credit: LAPD

Comments

[Juju31]

#s 37 and 58 appear to be the same woman.

[Rod]

This is when facial recognition would come in handy. Where are you Google and/or Facebook? You have to have something in the works...

[Avril]

Castrate that son of a bitch. They better make him pay dearly for his crimes.

[Gatta]

what a nightmare and so sad!

[HF_Buick]

has any one else looked at the pics?!? does anyone else think that some of the women in the fotos are not in fact women, but MEN?? i'm not pointing that out because i am scandalized by that possibility, i am pointing it out because if these were men that were living an alternative lifestyle and their families didn't know or even if they were estranged from their families, some information that might be worthwhile might go undiscovered.

[Angeleno]

I sure hope they have the right guy.

However, Enietra Washington, the survivor of her November 1988 rape/shooting by the so-called Grim Sleeper, has not yet stated that she believes 100 % Lonnie Franklin to be the man who tried to kill her twenty two years ago. In fact, when she was interviewed on video by a reporter in July after the press conference downtown and asked about this, she seemed surprisingly hesitant and vague and averted her eyes.

In 1988 E. Washington told the police that the killer had pock marks on his face, and the police sketch from 1988 that was released decades later to the public shows a man with significant scarring/pock marks on both cheeks. Franklin has smooth skin in photos released from his younger days. He is also fairly short (5'7" if I recall from the media coverage this year). In the police profile, the killer's height is given as around 5'10".

Again, I hope they have the right man, but this case was grossly mishandled from day one. After 25 years, the police and the city were under great pressure to nab the killer. And the always ambitious Jerry Brown was running for Governor this year and wasted no time taking false credit for his steadfast support for familial DNA testing, the method by which the police claim to have found Franklin.

Did you know that DNA evidence can be fabricated? Neither did I until I Googled it recently. Here's an article from the NY Times from last year on the subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/18/science/18dna.html?_r=1

Franklin by all accounts is clearly no angel, BUT: that does not necessarily make him a killer. A person is supposedly innocent until proven guilty. However, the public and the police seem to have already made up their minds and it will be virtually impossible to find an impartial jury when the case goes to trial due to the widespread reporting on the case in the media this year.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this case has been a very strange one indeed and when it comes to the police and to politicians, nothing surprises me. The real life Rampart scandal and the fictional "L.A. Confidential"
are two examples that come to mind when thinking of fishy.
In any case: I sincerely hope that the women in the photos were not victims of the Grim Sleeper, whoever he is.

[John Marson]

Women need to be taught how to defend themselves against physical attack! When she is being strangled-the most usual method of killing a woman-she needs to get aggressive instead of panicking. She needs to go for the attacker's most vulnerable point--his eyes. One of those long sharp fingernails in one of his eyes will end the attack on her. Unfortunately this is not much of a defense against a gun.

[Michael Boyd]

I have always, well since 8th grade, that is (more than 50 years ago), I have always wanted to be a detective and work on unsolved crimes. But, as I got older, I soon learned about the politics, the nepotism, the feet-dragging, religious input, and the rest of the obstacles that reality inserts into the equation. I wanted to be the TV Cop who is married to his job, has a terrible home life, gets divorced, all the rest, but always make the arrest. Private citizens just don't have enough information. And, I don't want to be an actor.

[Dr.Howard]

This is why the bible has the death penalty,but liberalism says no!This kind of crime is beyond all hunanity so the need to be out to death just as they did all of their innocent victims.

[Joseph Williams Walden Jr.]

How about LAPD get real and start investigating the murder of Mitrice Richardson by the LASD officer's stationed in Lost HIlls, oddly enough a LASD officer Deputy Mark Fitzpatrick amoung others are charged with sexual misconduct before raping a woman in her driveway.
Her dissappearence and death is clearly caused by one of Baca's own officers and the LASD has been delaying and destroying evidence for almost a year now.

[NickFun]

Might I add, if any one of these women had been a wealthy socialite the murderer would have been apprehended very quickly. I don't think much investigation went into these killings, particularly in the earlier years.

[Bob Kehl]

Do not release these photos and give the killer any more glory than he or she already has.
BK

[Bitter Scribe]

So why couldn't these just be pictures of hotties that this schmuck downloaded from websites?

[troanother]

These reminds of world war 2. How sad.

[mustafa w.]

Rest in peace

[M]

50 and 51 are the same woman

[P.A. Hughes]

There are various photos that are the same women.

[xdrfox]

At least three on these women have 2 shots, at quick review of pictures, Where could he have buried so many others. many looked very high and others completely under. Others early on expecting nothing sinister ! Lets hope many never ended in a bad fate !

[xdrfox]

There may be an answer to many Jane Does now ! Some look very familiar from Reconstruction or pics/sketch! I have help in this field for years via web.

[xdrfox]

That lady found burnt on a couch in a vacant lot may be one of these women !

[xdrfox]

The woman found in a burned auto may be one of these women !

[xdrfox]

He had others killer/wannabees/that assistant in many !

[xdrfox]

First place to look is morgue Jane Does ! Yes many are under their nose's.

[Terri]

This fool needs to be move to Texas an tried ! California DR is BS an he will die of natural causes before being put to death By California...
Texas will fry him like a burnt french fry...

[Dave]

Just goes to show you that a women who gets killed in Aruba the whole world will know about it, but yet 180 black women go missing and know one seems to care at all.