Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED A SERIAL KILLER: The Grim Sleeper

Episode Date: May 2, 2026

In November of 1988, 27-year-old Enietra Margette is walking to a party in South Los Angeles, when a neatly dressed man in a souped-up orange pinto offers her a ride. Soon after getting into the car, the driver, Lonnie Franklin, shoots the young passenger point blank in the chest. By this time, he had already committed a string of grisly murders in the city. Enietra recounts in her own words her resilience and keen insights that helped her outwit the would-be murderer.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/survived and take your retail business to the next level today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Police say Lonnie Franklin is the notorious grim sleeper serial killer who terrorized South Los Angeles for nearly two decades. Franklin was one of the most evil serial killers ever. He enjoyed inflicting pain on people and seeing them suffer. I get in the car. All of a sudden, he shot me point blank in my chest.

He is doing this to satisfy his sick desires. Started fighting to get up and he was pushing me down. And I just slumped against the seat. Oh, shh. He's trying to kill me. Real people who faced death and lived to tell how. This is I survived a serial killer. I am Anitria Margette and I survived a serial killer.

In 1988, I was 27 years old. I was living in South LA, and I was doing the home health care at the time. It was a Saturday, like 5.30 in the evening. I was walking over to my friend Linda's house. We were going to go to a party. I was walking past the store that's on the corner. The car caught my eye, it was an orange pento,

and I was like, I know that's not a pento, because you ain't seen no pentos since 77. This guy came out the corner market, He saw me looking at his car, and he hollered something. I kept walking, and he hollered again, and then I turned around and said, I know you're not hollering at me, because if you want to talk to me, you have to come to where I am. He got into his car and pulled up to where I was. He said, so you like my car?

He was dark skin, and it's mid-30s. He had him khakis in a polo. He didn't seem threatening. Then he started asking me where I was going. And I said, I'm going to my friend's house. He says, oh, I'll take you. I said, oh, no, no, no, no. I can walk.

And he will see, that's what's wrong with you, black women. You can't do nothing nice for y'all. And I said, oh, where did that come from? Just to prove a point, I was like, sincere, it'll make you feel better. I'll let you take you there. I get in the car. I said, I'm going over here to Dinker. It's not that far.

The radio was on. His demeanor was non-threatening. We were having a nice conversation, and I started to relax. I was just looking out the window at the scenery. He turned off a main thoroughfare. A little warning went off. Uh-oh. I was like, wait a minute, this is not the street.

His demeanor changed. He was angry. He said I was dogging him out. All of a sudden, the music just, stopped. He shot me point blank in my chest, but I didn't realize I had been shot. I didn't hear no gun, and I didn't see blood, but I knew something was really wrong. I was like, we're not going to panic. We're just going to figure out a way to get out this car. I reached for the door handle, and he said, fish, I'll shoot you again. Cliff Shepard is a retired Los Angeles police detective.

Before Nature was attacked, in 1985, Deborah Jackson was one of the first ones found in South Los Angeles. Deborah was shot three times in the chest with a 25 caliber bullet. She had been there already a few days, so her body was in such a state that they couldn't really collect any sexual assault evidence. We had no witnesses. They had the bullets that the coroners recovered from the body. but there's no cartridge casings at the scene without any information to follow up on her case went cold. He was driving, and then I was thinking,

he might shoot me in the back of the head. I was like, please, just let me out your car. I say, because if I do die, I'm going to ask the Lord, let me haunt you the rest of your life so that you will know you couldn't get away with this. And he didn't say nothing. He just kept driving. I started feeling woozy.

I was getting weak. I kept fading in and out. And then all of a sudden, I passed out. When I came to, I woke up to flashing lights. They clicked off and on. He was taking pictures. I was like, this dude is sick. I got to get up out of here.

Everything was dark. I remember pressure being on my chest and I couldn't breathe. I was trying to push whatever it was off. But I couldn't move. And then I heard this laugh. I started fighting, but it was just like I was paralyzed. And then I let out this long scream.

I knew I was going to die. Terry Austin is a legal analyst. Anitaia knew she was in trouble, but what she didn't know was that there was a string of other victims in South Los Angeles. Henrietta Wright, she's found under a mattress in an alley, shot to death. In January 1987, another victim, Barbara Ware, who was only 23 years old, was found in an alleyway shot in the chest.

About four months later, Bernadena Sparks was found in a dumpster. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning. Over the next couple of years, three more bodies were found in South Los Angeles. The victims were sexually assaulted. All of them had been shot in the chest, anywhere from one to three times, with the same firearm. A 25 caliber handgun, and then apparently pushed out of a vehicle or dumped in an alleyway. We knew we had a serial murderer. And if we don't identify somebody very soon, this could go on for.

forever. This guy is taking pictures of me. I was like, oh no, got to get off, got to get out. I started fighting to get up, and he was pushing me down. I was weak. I just slumped against the seat. And then he started driving. I was feeling on the door.

I wasn't even sure if it was the door handle, I was hoping it was. I got to get out. That's all I know. And I'm trying to figure it out. When I opened the door, he pushed me at the same time. Next thing I knew, I was just lying there in the middle of the street. I was afraid he might drive back. I rolled to the curb.

Got up and I saw all the blood. I got to find help. I started walking. I remember the street being so dark. No porch lights were on. I didn't see nobody. I just walked until I saw a sign and I realized I'm close to my friend Linda's house. I was holding on to cars trying to steady myself.

I was smearing the blood on cars as I go by. When I got to Linda's house, I started babbing on the door. Come on, Linda, open up, open up. I realized nobody's there because then I went to the party. I lost a lot of blood. I don't know how long I laid there. She finally pulled up. And I was like, call 911, call 911.

After a few minutes, the ambulance put up, and I don't remember nothing else after that. I woke up. The doctor said, and they had pulled the bullet out. I didn't have a lot of damage internally. My ribs in the sternum helped deflect the bullet. They said when I was found, my underwear were hanging off under my skirt. I had been raped, but I didn't remember anything. but it was rough.

Now I'm really worried because I didn't know where he was or who he was. How do I know he's not going to come after me? When I first started building my podcast into something more, I quickly realized I wasn't just hosting anymore. I was suddenly in charge of everything. Branding, scheduling, promotion. It felt like every day came with a brand new role to learn. And doing it all solo, yeah, that part can get a little lonely.

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Make it easier to get a place that gets you. Visit Apartments.com, the place to find a place. I was in a hospital. I had been shot and raped and left for dead. A couple of days later, the police asked me a lot of questions. I told them what happened. The bullet from her chest was compared to bullets from the other cases, and they match. They were all fired from the same firearm.

So we know Ennitra was one of his victims. Finally, we could get more information. She was the only one that you'd give us a description of what the guy looked like and a description of the card. You would think that this orange pinto would give the police a huge, and they looked everywhere, but they couldn't find the car. We ran out of Leeds. The cases went cold and went into storage.

Even at this point, the police have not informed anyone that there might be a serial killer out there. They didn't want the killer to go underground, but that happened anyway. For the next 14 years, there are no other victims, or at least as far as the police, police know. In November of 2001, because DNA was now the best way to catch somebody and identify them, LAPD put together a cold case unit. The police actually went back to the sexual assault kits

to gather DNA from the serial killer. The DNA's run through the database, but we're not getting any matches. So we don't have a name to that suspect. Then in 2004, the investigation took a crazy turn. Two more cases pop up, Princess Barthamew and Valerie McCorby. They were not shot by that 25-caliber handgun. Instead, they were both strangled. But both still matched the DNA profile from the killings back in the 1980s. This guy, he didn't stop.

He's still out there. How many other murders did he commit that we don't know about? The media picked up on the fact that there was a serial killer. And because of the long break that he took, they dubbed him the Grim Sleeper. At least 10 murders are attributed to the Grim Sleeper. They don't even know who the guy was. That brought a lot of anxiety and panic attacks. The police have a DNA profile of the killer, but they don't have his exact identity,

because the name is not in the database. So they turn to this new technology where they're able to take the DNA and match it to DNA from a family member. It will give us a family name and then we have to do our work and narrow it down from there. There was a match to a young man

who had been convicted of a firearms violation. We know he's not our murderer, but they found out other people that could be related and gave us three names. and they gave us addresses. Well, guess what? One of those addresses right there

at 81st Street and Western, and the person who lived at that address was named Lonnie Franklin. Lonnie Franklin was a mechanic and used to work for the City of Los Angeles Sanitation Department. Franklin lived in the areas where they found the bodies.

We have to do a verification process. and obtain a DNA sample. So we had every surveillance team in our police department following him to obtain anything he made this card that would have DNA on it. Lonnie and a group of people go to a pizza parlor in Orange County. The guy watching him contacts the manager and asks him if he can dress up as an employee

and collect the food and utensils from that table. Managed to say, sure, go ahead. When everybody's done, the detective moves in as an employee, starts collected food and everything. It's delivered to our laboratory. About two days later, finally, we get an answer. It's a match. We have our murderer.

This is him. This morning, at about 9-20, we made an arrest of the suspect that has been known to many as the Grim Sleaper. We were at his house conducting a search. We found the murder weapon, and we found around 180 photographs, women of all ages from teens to senior citizens

in various stages of dress or undress. Of all these pictures they find, one is particularly disturbing. Tonight, 57-year-old Lonnie Franklin is under arrest, suspected of being a notorious serial killer dubbed the Grim Sleeper. Detectors said they caught him. They found a photo for me. I looked at it and thought, oh my God, I was dead.

That's what it looked like. I was slumped against the seat, and you can see the blood coming out of my shirt. The Polaroids of the women were heartbreaking. Were these trophies, were these women he had murdered? I mean, there's no names on them. We don't know. Ultimately, we released the photographs to the news media. These photos go back 20 and 30 years.

We need the public's help. We did have some people come forward to identify themselves, saying that's me. I did allow him to take photographs of me. But a lot of the women weren't identified. We had others where we don't know to this day who they are if they're alive or dead. Because Lonnie worked for the Department of Sanitation,

We do believe some of them most likely ended up in a dump somewhere. He claims he never murdered anyone. The police suspect that there are many more victims, but ultimately they only have enough DNA and ballistics evidence to charge with the 10 murders and the one attempted murder. During the trial, Naitre was able to testify against him. At first, I was very apprehensive. But then, I saw it. I saw him and I went, that's him. That was the man who shot me.

I just felt angry. I thought I forgave you, but I was wrong. Lord forgive me, but I was wrong. In May of 2016, Lonnie Franklin is convicted of 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. We, the jury, and fixed the penalty for defendant Lonnie, David Franklin, Jr. as death by execution. We could rest a little bit easier.

We're able to put him away. He doesn't get the seat by the day no more. In 2020, Lonnie Franklin actually cheated the executioner and died in his cell. There was no evidence of trauma. Lonnie was one of the longest going serial murders that we had in Los Angeles. Without today's technology, we may never have caught him. I feel blessed. I finally settled down.

I was able to do things and live a life. I really don't consider myself a survivor because a survivor just survives and that's a day-to-day. I am going further. I'm a conqueror. Thousands of free movies and TV shows. We're coming at you with everything we got.

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