Cold Case Files - The Grim Sleeper Part 2

Episode Date: April 11, 2023

In 1980s Los Angeles, a killer is terrorizing South Central, murdering African American women and discarding their bodies in the street. As the victim count rises–but suspects are few–fear and anger take hold in a community often overlooked by the police. Check out our great sponsors! ZocDoc: Go to Zocdoc.com/ccf and download the Zocdoc app for FREE! Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts! Learn more at https://www.jordanharbinger.com  Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive!

An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Justice is supposed to be fair. When they say an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, right? I deserve to go after them. You did this to me. Why can't you put me in a room we go one-on-one?

Y'all don't know what I could do. Let me do to you what you did to me. Why can't you put me in a room we go one-on-one? I don't know what I could do. Let me do to you what you did to me. Can I sit there and repeatedly shoot you, shoot you, shoot you, shoot you? Can I do it for all these women, all these women you done shot for the other victims? Can we just push you out of a car and just leave you there? Can I do all those things to you? Wouldn't it be fair? That's how I thought of it. Wouldn't it be fair? There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of of The Grim Sleeper. Make sure you've listened to part one to hear the full story. It's 1989.

A year has passed since Anitria Washington was shot by a suspected serial killer. The investigators wonder why the killer has gone quiet. Anitria Washington was the last victim. Did he move? Was he put in prison? Did he just decide to quit? While the detectives wonder where the suspect has gone, Anitria is being haunted by both the memory of the attack and her attacker. I was outside my yard, and this man come walking down the street. And he said, do you know me?

I said, no, am I supposed to? And he just kept on walking. Then all of a sudden it dawned on me who it was. It was the guy who had shot me. And I was like, oh, my god. So then I called the detectives. No, we just need you to look at these pictures and see if you recognize any of these men.

15 years go by, and it's now December 2004. LAPD started a cold case unit to look at unsolved murders beginning in 1960 to the present. Cold case detectives are counting on advances in DNA technology to breathe new life into cold cases. Detective Cliff Shepherd worked as a patrol officer in the 80s and remembers the.25 caliber killings. His knowledge of the crimes is an asset when he's assigned to the cold case unit. The majority of the evidence has degraded and become useless, but the investigators are able to salvage DNA from three of the 25-caliber killer's victims.

Mary Lowe, Bernita Sparks, and Barbara Ware. The same male DNA profile matches all three. This man was linked to all these cases, but he wasn't in the CODIS, the state or felon data bank. They had his DNA, but they had no idea who he was. It seems as though the new DNA technology will prove to be just another dead end until the CODIS National DNA Database Search gives them a new lead.

Investigators discover a DNA link between three victims from the 80s and a murder victim from 2003. Everyone assumed that the guy stopped back in the 80s, but this guy was, like, still active. After 16 years, the.25 caliber killer is back. That victim was Valerie McCorvey. Valerie was a 35-year-old mother of two

when she was found dead in an alley in South Los Angeles. Six days later, a second DNA hit in the CODIS system links Valerie McCorvey's unidentified killer to evidence from a recent unsolved murder. On March 19, 2002, a tipster led police to the body of an unidentified female. The killer left her in an alley less than two miles from where he left Mary Lowe, Bernita Sparks, and Anitria, Washington. It took five months,

but the police finally identified the victim as 15-year-old Princess Bartholomew. The news was devastating for Princess's older sister, Samara Harard. When I learned that Princess had been killed, if they say Band-Aid ripping off, this was like ripping off my scalp. Like, my head exploded. There was nothing that would have ever prepared me.

Samara was a teenager when two-and-a-half-year-old Princess became a part of her family. Princess was given a new lease on life when Samara's mother, a retired nurse, was chosen as the little girl's foster mother. She was rescued from hell, literal hell. Princess was listed as one of L.A.'s worst cases

because they had never seen that level of abuse. Her mother was not the primary custodial parent. She was with her father and his girlfriend, and they not only physically abused her, they also were allowing other people to take turns on her for money. Their own biological father was pimping her out at two. Princess moved into the Harards' loving home in Claremont, an affluent college town 30 miles east of L.A.

She had scars all over her body, cigarette marks, burn marks, from where the ropes had been tied on her hands. So I used to think, Mom, let's cover all these things up, you know. It's going to look odd when we're going out in public. And we got stares, we got looks, but my mom was like, we're not going to make her ashamed of those things. Her biggest thing was give her as normal of a childhood as possible. Because I was such an older sibling, I was like another mom to her.

Princess used to love the fact that I would do her hair. I tried to do different things and little extensions and all that. I did a horrible job. But whatever I did to her, she used to say, oh, sister, I love it. It's so pretty. She just was such a sweet heart. Princess was a homebody. She liked to read and cared about little simple things like flowers and running and looking outside of her window and seeing deer. She was a little princess and she absolutely believed it. Princess was with us until my mom passed away and she was about 12 years old. At that time, Samara was a single mother and did not have the means required by social services to retain custody of Princess.

Child services took Princess from the only stable home she'd ever known and sent her to a new foster family. She was uprooted and put in, like, south-central Los Angeles. So her world was literally shaken to the core. Three years later, Princess ran away from the foster home, and at the age of 15, she became the killer's youngest victim. It put the case in a different spin, because now he's not just killing adult young women, he's killing children.

And unlike the.25 caliber murders from the 80s, both Princess Bartholomew and Valerie McCorvey were strangled to death. He's not using the firearm. So now we have him changing his M.O. You've been stewing about a health problem you have. You almost resort to texting your group chat to get your friends' opinions. You're extremely unlikely to find quality medical advice in your group chat, but you can find it from a doctor on ZocDoc.

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if you like fascinating podcasts hosted by interesting people. The show covers such a wide range of topics through weekly interviews with heavy hitting guests. And there are a ton of episodes you'll find interesting since you're a fan of this show. For example, in episode 806, Jordan talks with Neil Woods about how he spent 14 years as an undercover drugs operative in the UK's most vicious drug gang. It was fascinating. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Oh, and I can't forget episode 811, where Jordan talks with Jan Broberg about her experiences as a child who was abducted by a friend of the family. You may think you know

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Search for The Jordan Harbinger Show. That's H-A-R-B, as in boy, I-N, as in Nancy, G-E--R on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It's 2006, and Christine Pelasek begins working on the story about the lost women of South Central. I ended up finding out that Valerie and Princess were linked to a series of murders that happened in the 80s. I was absolutely shocked. I practically ran back to my office to write about it.

My editor thought, well, maybe the case would get a lot of attention if we actually gave the guy a nickname. Because of the break in between the murders, we came up with Grim Sleeper. It's been four years since the Grim Sleeper resurfaced. And a woman named Pamela Brooks comes close to becoming another victim.

I've seen this van several times. This one particular time, I guess it was my lucky night. He said, you who? I said, hey, hey. I was trying to get some money. I thought it was going to be a cool little gig, you know what I'm saying? I always knew it was a killer out here.

You know, you can hear some of men killing prostitutes. It never dawned on me that this is the weirdo, you know what I mean? First, he wanted to go down to his house on 81st. I don't go to people's houses. So I said, no, let's just get a room here. So we end up going to the motel. He shows me the handcuffs.

You know, he wants me to put on this thing, this little neck jay, and then bark and act like a dino. But I ain't. Who the does that? You know, only time I've been handcuffed is getting in the police car. Now, this is tricky here. Just being out there in the streets, it just, you never know who you might meet.

For Pamela, danger went with the territory on the streets of South Central L.A. I grew up in the 80s. The 80s, like the late 70s, where it was kind of rough. But I come from a good family. My mother was a nurse and a caregiver, so she always gave me little jobs. I went to church. I've been filled with the Holy Ghost. But as time went on, I just kept focusing across the street.

Because I lived right here, and all the drama was across the street. Everybody looked like they was having fun. One day, I went to see, you know, what the noise was. I ended up hanging down there. It was called Sherm Alley. You go through the alley, you can get rocks, cocaine, Sherm. I just want to try it.

I just want to see what it does. Once you take that hit, once you put one in, you in trouble. Your body's in control. It's no longer your mind is working. That's when the shenanigans begin. Because money don't come easy unless you start doing the funny s*** for some strange change. And anyway, to make a long story short, I took my crack show on the road. I became a full crackhead at 21 years old. I became full-blown, lights, camera

action, walking down the street, doing demoralizing things, getting money. I done jumped out of many cars at a high speed, yeah. Pamela's used to being in high risk situations, but something about this one has her on edge. I said, OK, this not going to work. He said, let me drop you off. I said, no, you ain't got to drop me off. From here, mother,, I can make it. And I'm lucky that he didn't shoot me because I didn't do nothing he wanted me to do.

Damn, I made it out the rapture. He didn't get me. A year goes by, and it's January 1st, 2007. A homeless guy was climbing in the dumpster to, you know, find cans and found a big garbage bag. And he cut a little hole in the garbage bag and found the body of Janisha Peters. It's another three months in April when Detective Shepard gets word that DNA found on a zip tie from the garbage bag that 25-year-old Janisha Peters was found in is yet another match to the serial killer. So we try to go back and

reconstruct everything. What we find out is that she was at a motel on a century east of western. Shepard heads to the motel looking for witnesses or security footage that can help identify the killer, but there's another problem. We find out that motel no longer exists. It's been torn down. I mean, the frustrations are mounting up. I was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but we're talking about a guy that's been active for almost 20 years and is still out there killing women. They had to do something about it. This guy was not going to stop. It's April 2007, and Christine Pelasek is determined to help the victim's families. Christine Pelasek got involved and said, you know what? No, there's something going on here, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it.

I started making calls, you know, to try to find out more. I was talking to the family members, and in a couple of cases, I ended up telling them that, you know, their daughter was killed by a serial killer. Christine was always calling, checking on us if we needed anything, if there was anything she could do to help the family, telling me what was going on. I thought it was, like, really important that the community knows that there's a serial killer out there.

I was in contact with police, and I let them know that we were going to be publishing a story about Janisha Peters and the 25-caliber case, which we now call the groomed sleeper. The media pressure prompts the police to focus more resources on the investigation. My supervisor told the captain, said, you know, if the press gets hold of this and we don't have the guy, where if this would have been in the white area, we would have flooded the area with cops and detectives and everything else.

We have to have a task force. It was a group of seven detectives, and they just dive into the murder books and see what they could come up with. The task force pours over the evidence. A detail from Barbara Ware's murder in 1987 stands out It was about 20 minutes after midnight 9-1-1 police dispatchers receive a phone call From an unidentified male saying Hey, a guy just drove in the alley And dropped off a body

The guy that dropped off was driving a white and blue Dodge Van 1PZP746. It was a really dark alley, and detectives kind of wondered how the person who made the call would be able to see that license plate number, because also part of the license plate was covered up. And so the task force actually came to the conclusion that it was the killer who made that call. The police hold a press conference and ask anyone who recognized the caller's voice to speak with them. He threw her out, threw a gas tank on top of her, and the only thing you can see out is her feet. The press conference is seen by Barbara's stepmother, Diana,

who has spent the past 20 years believing that Barbara was killed over drugs. I was home watching TV when Barbara's picture came on and they mentioned something about a serial killer. I didn't know anything about it. We had heard nothing about a serial killer in the area. Back in 1985, police had formed a task force aimed at solving the South Central serial murders. Looking for any advantage, they had operated in secret.

You try not to reveal too much information that would tip the murderer off. You don't want him to change his M.O. You don't want to spook him. It's disappointing for the family members and survivors who never knew that a predator was at large. So naturally, I called Detective Kilcorn and Detective Shepard, and I said, why wasn't the people in the community

aware of this serial killer? The police, from what I understood, were using the terminology of NHI to basically describe the women involved, which was no human involved. Just because they were living less than desirable lives, I don't care what mistakes you make in life. It doesn't make your life any less valuable.

They thought of us as just crackheads, but we still was humans. We still had a mother. We got a family. We just got caught up in some,, and they treated us like. Barbara was the fourth victim that we knew of. Maybe others could have been saved if this information

had been put out. While the community grapples with the news, the task force focuses on the 911 caller. The operator asked for his name, and the caller just kind of laughed. What's your name? Oh, I don't stand to knock on this. I know too many people. Okay, then, bye-bye. caller just kind of laughed. We believe that the killer was toying with the police. The 911 call is the first solid lead in a long time. It's February 2009, 24 years after the Grim Sleepers' first murder, and the investigators take a new approach. The caller gave them information about a van. He gave a license plate number, and it turned out it was owned by the Cosmopolitan Church.

Did the killer have an axe to grind with somebody at the church? If they could talk to somebody and if that person could recognize that voice, then they've caught their killer. They played the tape for some of the church members. A couple of people said, oh wow, that sounds like so-and-so. The police would then follow that person. And if they dropped a cigarette butt, they were taking it to the lab and then ruling them out.

Anyone who was even closely affiliated with that church, they investigated and ruled them out with DNA. We know we're running out of time. Police department is not going to find us forever. We're not any closer to catching this guy than we were from day one. I'm reading an article in the newspaper that our attorney general is now approving

familial DNA testing for certain cases. They're basically looking for a relative, like a cousin, a brother, an uncle, who is related to the killer and who could be in the federal or state databanks. At the time, there were around 1 million DNA samples from felons in the databank, but there are no matches. They said, our database is growing day by day,

and give it about a year, and we'll see. So we did. I mean, that's all we could do is sit and wait. The victims' loved ones aren't willing to wait. We had flyers made up ourselves and passed them out in the neighborhood, so the word would get out that there was a serial killer. And we would have regular meetings with the family members at this church.

And we can see maybe our daughters knew each other. This episode of Cold Case Files is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you can be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance. It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $700 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles

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I'm Lola. And I'm Megan. And we're the hosts of Trust Me, cults, extreme belief, and manipulation. We both have childhood cult experiences, and we're here to debunk the myths about people who join them and show that anyone can be manipulated. Our past interviews include survivors and former members of the Manson family, NXIVM, MS-13, Teal Swan, Heaven's Gate, Children of God, and the Branch Davidians.

Join us every week as we help you spot the red flags. Get new episodes of Trust Me every Wednesday on Podcast One or wherever you get your podcasts. It's July 30th, 2010. 25 years have passed since the first known victim was discovered. And some new details emerge that could finally break the case. My partner gave me a call. It was a Saturday. And he said, hey, you want to come to work? I said, what's going on?

He said, we got a potential suspect. It actually hit on a 28-year-old male, Christopher Franklin. Christopher's DNA was uploaded into CODIS in 2009 after he pled guilty to a weapons charge. The problem was he would have been a young boy at the time that the murder started. They looked into his father, a man named Lonnie Franklin Jr. And they saw that Lonnie Franklin Jr. lived in South Los Angeles.

Detective Mike Opelt notices a link between the suspect's occupation and the dump sites. He had worked for the city of Los Angeles for a number of years, and one of his positions happened to be with the Department of Sanitation. And we knew several victims were found in or near trash dumpsters and things of that nature. He lived on 81st and Western, and that was the epicenter of where all the murders took place. It's July 5th, 2010,

and the investigators are closing in on their prime suspect. We have surveillance teams on Lonnie Franklin, watching his house, watching for him, tailing him 24 hours a day to obtain a DNA sample. Finally, after about the third day, he went to a piece of place. The surveillance team decided that one of them

would pretend that he was a busboy. The cop collects the uneaten items team decided that one of them would pretend that he was a busboy. The cop collects the uneaten items and takes it back to the back where it's packaged up and transported directly to our laboratory. It was going to take two to three days to get the analysis done. On day three, we get the call, this is him. It's a match. The DNA from all the victims match him.

Police arrest Franklin, and while he's behind bars, they search his house. We took eight handguns, a shotgun, a rifle out of the location. We knew we were looking for, in particular, a.25 caliber weapon. Well, we happened to find, I believe, three of them. We're extracting pegboard walls and some drywall. No stone goes unturned. Every nook and cranny is going to get examined.

We found a myriad of female undergarments that were just squirreled away. They found hundreds of different stolen car parts in the back of his house. It essentially looked like he was running a chop shop out of his backyard, with stolen vehicles and parts and things like that. The discovery of stolen car parts solves another mystery. Why investigators could never find that distinct orange Pinto

Anitria Washington had described in 1988. He dealt with a lot of cars and he didn't register them. Friends of his had mentioned that he used to drive around in a orange-colored Pinto and then all of a sudden it just disappeared. When we went into his garage, a team had found a collection of photographs that was hidden behind a wall. And that group of photographs was Anitra Washington.

We continued digging and uncovering hundreds of photographs, and many of them depicted women in different stages of undress, different stages of consciousness. Frankly, some appeared as though they might have been dead. Were we looking at actual victims? Anitria told police that her attacker made a stop at a house in South Central. That house looks a lot like Franklin's home, which is only three doors away. Police had staked out the neighborhood for a month, but they never questioned Franklin at the time.

I led you to his home. I'm lost. I am so lost. The arrest is announced at a press conference, and Pamela Brooks recognizes the man in the mugshot. I was watching the news, and I was like, damn, I was with the Grim Sleeper. I knew it was something strange about that mother. Details about Franklin emerge, and the people in the community are shocked that the killer is one of their own. A lot of people that I knew knew him.

His wife, his wife was a church woman. Lonnie had been married for over 30 years. He was a grandfather, and he had a couple of grandchildren. He was the kind of guy that, you know, helped everybody out in the neighborhood. If you went and told that,, you need a refrigerator, you got it. If you went and told Lonnie, I need to get a TV,

he made it happen. People love him. He mastered that image real good, and he fooled the community. It's taken more than 20 years, but the investigators are finally face-to-face with the man they believe murdered at least 10 African-American women. You tell me what the news calls you. I know damn well you know. The Reaper?

Grand Reaper? Something like that. The Grim Sleeper. Oh, okay. I know it's something like that. Yeah, I saw it on TV. I look at TV. Well, of course you do.

Of course you do. I got TV in every room. Well, there you go. You go to church? Matter of fact, there's supposed to be a church tonight. And, uh, you remember a cosmopolitan church? Remember that? No. Franklin is questioned about the cosmopolitan church to try and figure out why he had implicated their van in the crime.

I still can't tell you today why he chose that church. That's not familiar to you, the cosmopolitan church? No, it's not. His wife and other family members had nothing to do with that church or those people that went to that church. Do you remember there? No, I wouldn't. The questioning moves on to the victims.

I remember photograph after photograph being put in front of him and just him you know seemingly I have no idea what you're talking about that's a Valerie McCordy this young lady here name is Barbara Ware this young lady her name is Henrietta Wright her name was Bernita Sparks. Mary Lowe. Patricia Jefferson. Deborah Jackson. Do you recognize her?

Princess. Detective Coulter lists each of the victims and asks Franklin if he recognizes them. I've never seen her before? Mm-mm. The detectives don't need Franklin's confession. They have evidence and something even better. You know, these girls, they can't talk. But we got one that can.

It's February 2016, 27 years after Anitria Washington's attack, and she can finally face her assailant at the trial. I had a revenge tactic in my head when I was in the courtroom. He's done all these things to these women, and he gets to sit there all dressed up. He's still able to walk around and breathe. They are dead, so that should be the same. Enitria Washington testified during the trial, and that was really, really moving and unbelievable,

just to see her, like, face this guy and go after him. This is me, him, one-on-one. I'm accusing you and you're accused. I know you actually shot me. I know it was you. I saw you. You saw me. The victims' families find solace together as they endure the process of the trial.

Every time court was in session, we knew we would see each other there, and I really looked forward to talking with the other family members. It kind of drew us close together that we weren't alone. We all shared the same grief. On May 5th, 2016, after a three-month trial, a jury finds Lonnie Franklin guilty of 10 counts of murder and the attempted murder of Anitria Washington. In the end, he was caught. That's the best part. But never once did he utter why he did it.

There was this one moment in trial at the end, we were doing impact speeches, and Mary Alexander asked a question, and she wanted to know, why? What did my daughter do to you? And she looked at Lonnie straight in the face and, you know, told him, like, look at me. Why did you do this? That moment, he turned around, and he told her, she didn't do nothing.

She didn't do nothing to me. So for me, that was a confession. I was like, wow. I knew it. It was never a question. But it's just nice to finally have him acknowledge it. I was glad that Mary Alexander was able to get that clarity and that moment on her daughter didn't deserve that.

She asked that question because I know that was a little bit of closure for her to know it wasn't her daughter's fault. It was the evil daughter's fault. It was the evil man's fault. On August 10, 2016, Franklin is sentenced for his crimes. The judge tells him, I can't think of anyone that I've encountered in all my years in the criminal justice system that has committed the kind of monstrous

and the number of monstrous crimes that you have. It is the judgment and sentence of this court that you shall suffer the death penalty. In the end, this man got what he deserved. To hear those words read to the courtroom and the gallery is extremely emotional. That monster deprived those families of all their loved ones. It's been six years since Franklin was sent to death row. Through the pain and suffering and now closure, the families of the victims reconnect.

Look at how much we've lived through. You have lost someone. Right. You almost lost your life. You've lost someone. I lost someone. The families out there, we bonded. Everybody's family.

We would have regular meetings with the family members amongst ourselves to discuss what should be done. We were on the detectives, you know, are you going to help us? We'll do it on our own. Mm-hmm. Unfortunately, people of color have had so many issues being represented. This would not have happened and gone this long had it been others involved.

Exactly. It's almost like what not to do as a serial killer. If there was a book, Lonnie absolutely did everything wrong. But the only thing he had going for him is no one was caring. We're not of any concern because we weren't labeled human. Correct. Because of their lack of empathy, sympathy, and concern,

I'm not going to become like them. I'm going to be the example that they should be. Oh, yeah. That everyone has accountability for their fellow man. And you know, forgiveness is for you. That's it. Not for him. Yes.

You know what I mean? Amen. Forgiveness is for you. That's true. I won't forget, but I do forgive you because I know that you'll have a higher answering. In March 2020, Lonnie Franklin is found dead in his cell on death row. What did you think? What was your feelings on it when it finally hit? Like, that was it. Like, he's dead. He's gone. I was just glad he was dead.

It's hurt not only our family members, but our people, our community. He preyed on, you know, the issues that were going on in the community. Samara Harard will never forget her little sister, and she's grateful that Anitria Washington survived to bring justice for all of the victims. The one solace I have is that you're here. You know, you are a living testimony to just being that courage.

Oh, yeah. I get up, and the first thing I say is, thank you, Father God. I am resilient. I'm resilient enough to know that just because you knocked me down don't mean I can't get back up. That's for sure. Stronger. Yes.

Get up. Oh, Lord, I thank you. Amen. Amen. Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barrows. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson. Our composer is Blake Maples. For A&E, our senior producer is John Thrasher, and our supervising producer is McKamey Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis.

This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more Cold Case Files, visit aetv.com. Copyright 2023. A&E Television Networks, LLC. All rights reserved. Thank you.