Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - "The Grim Sleeper" - Lonnie Franklin Jr.

Episode Date: August 7, 2017

He targeted and killed multiple women in the 1980’s; then mysteriously disappeared. Fourteen years later, he started killing again. Why would he stop? And why, after so long, would he come back? Greg and Vanessa examine what made “The Grim Sleeper” different from other serial killers operating in the area at the same time, as well as the psychology behind his “trophies.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Do you want to hear something? Spooky. Some monster. It reminded me of big stuff. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes.

Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. What goes through a serial killer's mind when they pick a victim? And why does a particular victim fall prey?

Is it just bad luck? Wrong place, wrong time? Or is it something more than that? For Nitra Washington, who looked like a woman her attacker knew, it was more than that. When Anita decided to accept a ride from a stranger, she didn't know how the decision would haunt her for years to come. But what she also didn't know, it would prove to be a crucial break in a case that would help police

catch a prolific serial killer, known as the Grim Sleeper. The Grim Sleeper was responsible for killing at least ten women, mostly poor black women in South Central Los Angeles, from 1985 to 1988. After a slew of kills, it is believed he took a 13-14-year break, or shall we say, sleep, before returning to the streets to murder again in 2002. One of the most interesting aspects of this story is that there was a survivor. Anitra was the one and only survivor of the grim sleeper's violent reign.

However, at the time, she didn't know that her harrowing experience was part of a much larger story, that of the Grimm Sleeper, who had been killing women for years and dumping their bodies in the dirty streets of some of the poorest areas of L.A. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson, and this is Serial Killers, a podcast diving into the minds and motives of the world's most notorious serial killers. This is part one of the Grim Sleeper, aka Lonnie Franklin Jr. If you want to listen to any episodes of serial killers, you can find them all on your favorite podcast directory. Don't forget to subscribe. You can also listen on our website, parcast.com, spelled p-ar-c-c-a-s-t-t-com.

A new episode comes out every Monday. Visit our Facebook page, Parcast, to join the conversation. On November 20, 1988, Anitre Washington got into a car driven by an African-American man in his 30s. Anichael later described him as neat, tidy, kind of geeky, wearing a black polo shirt and khaki trousers. It seemed a little odd to her that he was driving a bright orange Ford Pinto with a white racing stripe,

which in each her later recalled looked like a hot wheels car. Ironically, she at first declined the ride, but then the man said something that made her change her mind. He said, quote, that is what is wrong with you black women. You think you're all that. She later admitted she felt a little sorry for him, but also found his comment playful and harmless. And so she got into the car. Once she was inside, the man drove a little, then stopped at a house and left her to wait in the car. He then returned ten minutes later, and the vibe suddenly changed.

The man started to drive off and grew very quiet, only offering this, quote, Why did you dog me out? Unquote. Anita was completely thrown by this, and it got weirder. He then called her the name of a notorious sex worker who worked in the area. To this, Anita responded, Who do you think you're talking to? And that's when the man pulled out a 25-caliber handgun and shot her in the chest.

After shooting her, he sexually assaulted her and then proceeded to take Polaroid photos of her. As she floated in and out of consciousness, she only remembered a few things, like pleading with him to take her to the hospital and then asking why he shot her. She couldn't help but think of her kids. If she died, who would take her?

care of them. The man then threw her out of his car and left her to die by the side of the road. But she didn't. She survived and managed to walk several blocks to her friend's house. But her friend wasn't home. She and her husband had gone to a party. They didn't return until 1 a.m. That's when they found her. After discovering her, Anita's friends called an ambulance and Anitra was taken to a hospital. There, she was. She was interviewed by LAPD detectives, who kept some valuable information from her. They had been investigating a string of killings they were calling the Strawberry murders. Strawberry was a street term for women who solicit sex for drugs.

A man had been picking up women in his car and shooting them. They believed Enitra was another one of these cases, but they didn't let her in on this. So Enitra was left to wonder, why was she shot? Though he started killing in the 1980s, the true identity of the, of the grim sleeper didn't come to light until 2010. His real name, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., an African-American man living in South Central Los Angeles. So let's dive in, shall we?

Let's meet this man who became a grisly murderer. Lonnie Franklin Jr. was known as the guy who could fix things for you and get things for you, and that especially included stolen cars. Which is why when the police showed up to arrest him, Everyone thought it was because he had gotten caught reselling stolen cars, not because he was a serial murderer. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's go back to the origin of the grim sleeper.

Well, there isn't a ton known about Lonnie's childhood years. However, he was born in Los Angeles and raised in South Central. As an adult, Lonnie was a respected member of his South L.A. community. He had worked for the city as a sanitation worker, and had also helped out at the local police station as a garage attendant. before becoming a mechanic. And he then transitioned into more illicit work, car theft and the reselling of those stolen cars.

But how did this community patriarch of questionable part-time projects end up being one of South LA's most prominent killers in recent history? Before his collection of odd and criminal jobs in Los Angeles, he had served in the U.S. Army. However, he was discharged in 1975 because he had allegedly participated in the gang-raceous, of a 17-year-old girl while stationed in Stuttgart, Germany. And this is where his criminal story begins.

This would, of course, be an early indication of his hatred towards women, and his need to assert power over them. This may have been where it all started. His criminal record, however, dates back to 1969. Before the murders began, Lani had been charged with possession of stolen property, misdemeanor assault, and misdemeanor battery, and he served time for some of these crimes. crimes. When he moved to LA, he married a Belizean woman, Sylvia, and had two children with her.

But all was not blissful in the Franklin House. Sylvia was not the only woman Lonnie had eyes for, and this was no secret. Members of the community all knew about their troubles and of his girlfriends on the side. He was known for bragging about his sexual conquests, according to his longtime friend, Ray Davis. He kept marijuana on hand for his girlfriends and had nicknostic for them depending on how their breasts looked. His friends also knew about his box of Polaroids, about 500 photos of often unconscious nude women. Later, the police would find this notorious collection of photographs,

along with his stash of women's jewelry and a few items that would trace back to his victims, including an ID belonging to his final victim. But that's not all. Authorities would also discover items belonging to missing women, women who still haven't been found. We'll return to our story in just a moment from the Parkast Network. Own it all.

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And now, let's continue the story. Serial killers often keep trophies like the ones found in Lonnie's house, prized possessions that are usually stolen from their victims. But why do they do this? This is where we're getting to the crux of his motivation. Trophies are fantasy-driven rituals. These physical manifestations of a killer's, impulsions can say so much about them.

Their repressed desires. Their choice of social deviance. And even more chilling in this case? Photos of women who may be his victims and whose bodies have yet to be found. The Polaroids, which were eventually found and released to the public in order to identify the women, serve as a reminder that trophies are as much of a clue to the inner workings of a serial killer's mind as they are to an investigation. When it comes to trophies, the kind varies from killer to killer. Some keep biological mementos like a victim's eyeballs or skin.

Some keep clothing, which often retains the scent of a victim. The most notable trophy collector in the world of serial killers must be Jeffrey Dahmer, right? That's right. Police found an entire human head in his refrigerator and an entire human skeleton hanging from the wall. A few of the skulls found had been spray painted as part of a shrine of sorts. In the book Serial Murderers and Their Victims, author Dr. Eric Hickey examines why some known serial killers kept trophies.

A 1950s serial killer, Harvey Glatman, known as the Lonely Hearts Killer, also took photos of the women he murdered. Dr. Hickey writes, quote, his photos were more than souvenirs, because in Gladman's mind, they actually carried the power of his need for bondage and control. They showed the women in various poses, sitting up or lying down, hands always bowed behind their backs, innocent looks on their faces, but with eyes wide with terror because they had guessed what was to come." This terrible sentiment could also apply to Lonnie and his photos of women who were often

unconscious, nude or portrayed in sex acts. The quest for power over another human being is often what drives a killer to kill, and it makes sense that they would try to capture that feeling in a photograph. Is there a reason why serial killers are often associated with sexual deviancy? Yes, psychosexual deviancy traits are common in serial killers. Just look at Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgeway, Dennis Rader. Hollywood in particular is fascinated with serial killers in unhealthy and often violent sexual habits,

such as Patrick Bateman and American Psycho. But when we're looking at serial killers like Lonnie Franklin Jr., for whom sexual dominance and assault are a large part of his crimes, especially against women, we have a way of categorizing them. The grim sleeper could fall under two categories of serial sexual killers, either anger retaliatory or anger excitation. Anger retaliatory killers are out for vengeance

against a female figure who has wronged them earlier in life. They often call their victims by the name of this woman, and violent acts against their victims are committed as if they are directly harming the figure in their past who harmed them. Well, that's interesting. Because at one point, Lonnie called victim Initra by the name of Brenda. Exactly.

Brenda could have been that woman he was seeking revenge on. His troubled relationship with his wife and many girlfriends could also point to some trouble with women in the past. However, the other type of serial sexual killer, the anger-excitation type, is a kind of serial killer who gets sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on a victim. The torture killing is not done out of revenge, as much as for personal gratification. This could also be likely for Franklin, considering his collection of home made pornographic polaroids and the brutal ways in which he assaulted and killed his victims.

This kind of violent power is a turn-on for certain killers. It's hard to say for sure, but both of these are potential reasons for the slings. Well, with that in mind, let's take a look at those initial slings. It began in 1985. Deborah Jackson, a cocktail waitress, was found dead with three bullets in her chest. There isn't a ton known about this victim, or any of his victims aside from sole survivor Anitra. But Deborah Jackson is the first known victim of Lonnie Franklin Jr. To authorities, this could have just looked like a simple killing. An isolated incident?

Perhaps. In 1986, a 35-year-old black woman by the name of Henrietta Wright was found nearly nude and half-hidden under a discarded mattress in the Hyde Park area. She had been shot. At the time, according to Lerner, Lieutenant Joseph Freya, Chief of Detectives for LAPD's 77th Street Division, there were no suspects in the murder of Henrietta Wright. It wasn't until later that Wright's death was tied to the grim sleeper slayings.

And this was the case for a while. These crimes were first interpreted as isolated incidents, just common hazards on the dangerous streets of South Central. This perception may have been one of the largest contributing factors as to why Lani was able to continue to kill without being detected. Detectives weren't putting the pieces together initially. A serial killer wasn't the first idea in everyone's minds. In a region in which violence was prevalent,

a street shooting, a murder, felt like a drop in the bucket, not a piece of a much more contrived and organized puzzle. And this actually became a real hot-button issue for citizens of LA, especially those living in the crime-ridden areas. By now, a pattern is starting to emerge with his victims, even from the beginning. victims, almost all vulnerable African-American women in the South Central area of Los Angeles, are found dead on grimy streets.

His victims are shot at close range. However, Lonnie eventually switched to strangling in some cases. A detail we'll explore more in depth later. Two days after Henrietta's body was found, another victim surfaced. Lonnie killed his only male victim that we know of. 57-year-old Thomas Steele, also African American. His body was found in Harvard Park. in Harvard Park.

It's important to note that Lonnie was never convicted of killing Thomas Steele, but he's still considered a probable victim of the Grim Sleeper. It's also important to address that this killing can be considered an anomaly, as all of Lonnie's other victims were women. As far as we know. Yeah, as far as we know. Anomalies in a killer's victim track record are important. Their victims are often manifestations of parts of themselves or their history

that they would like to destroy or take. vengeance on. So when that victim changes from the established norm, that's a sign, either of a shifting mental state, a new demon, or, more simply, an obstacle that they needed to remove from their past to return to their usual set of victims. There's some speculation as to why Thomas Steele was killed that night. Steele had been arrested previously on prostitution charges and was in town visiting a sister. Now, could this have been the reason Lonnie shot him, his ties to prostitution? It's possible, considering that most of Lonnie's victims were prostitutes, and in this way, Thomas Steele could have been killed due to his associations.

Unfortunately, there isn't much information to go off of here to determine Lonnie's exact motive with this killing. However, after this murder, Lonnie returned to killing women and would continue this streak for his remaining crimes. But for now, it's important to address the social milieu at the time of Lonnie Franklin Jr.'s reign. In the 1980s, Los Angeles was experiencing a very dark period. Homelessness became a huge crisis during this time.

Crack cocaine hit the streets and became so widespread, it soon took on the status of epidemic. Not to mention, gang violence was at an all-time high. It was the urban Wild West. The crime rate was soaring. Maybe this was the perfect backdrop for an opportunistic killer like Lonnie. Unfortunately, he was. wasn't the only serial killer leaving his mark on the city during this time.

The Knights of Los Angeles back in the 80s were surprisingly rife with serial killers. The Southside Slayer, real name Michael Hughes, was killing sex workers and young girls in the same area. And some of the murders that Lonnie Franklin committed were at first actually attributed to him. A former security guard, Hughes killed four women in 1992 and 93. He was found guilty of those murder charges and eventually convinced, of three other crimes in 2011 that he had committed back in the 80s and 90s. People have drawn numerous similarities between the Southside Slayer and the Grim Sleeper. They were both African-American men living in the area, generally going after prostitutes.

But the South Side Slayer was far less prolific than the Grim Sleeper. And while the Slayer and the Sleeper were targeting mostly prostitutes, drug addicts or women in areas with higher crime rates, another killer by the name of the Nightstalker was wreaking havoc all over the city, not just South Central. His real name was Richard Ramirez, but police called him the night stalker because he'd enter Angelino's homes

in the early hours of the morning through open windows and would kill his victims in their own beds, spray painting Satanist symbols on the walls afterwards. That is an interesting tidbit. Why would a serial killer do something like that after committing a crime? So this would fall under the category of a killer's signature or calling car.

Some object or message left at multiple crime scenes, an identification of the killer, if you will. We've discussed this concept before, but the Satanist symbol is a very specific choice. It's been determined that Ramirez was a Satan worshipper, so this act makes sense. But it leads us into the often-asked question of why serial killers kill. For Ramirez, the concept known as, the devil made me do it, seems extremely appropriate here. This motive stems from a murderer truly believing they are possessing. by the devil, or are so immersed in devil worship that committing the crimes is essentially beyond their control.

So in other words, blame is placed on the supernatural, not on the flesh and blood killer actually committing the heinous acts. Right. Now, just by comparing these three killers, we can learn a lot about them. All three committed sexual assault, and the sleeper and the slayer mainly went after prostitutes, drug addicts, or young women, whereas the stalker would choose whichever victims he could find in the homes he could get access to. The stalker was heavily invested in Satanist imagery,

whereas the Sleeper and the Slayer's killings were much less theatrical or thematic. These differences in profiles of the murderers helped police determine that there were multiple killers active at the same time. The thematic or not, the grim sleeper's reign of terror continued in January of 1987 with the kidnap and murder of 23-year-old Barbara Ware.

But with this murder came the first break in the case. I like to say the police aid, do you like to put a murder or a dead body or something. This anonymous 911 caller helped to identify the vehicle Franklin was driving when he kidnapped Barbara. The witness had told the dispatcher that someone threw her out of the van. He also provided a full license plate.

Police chased on the vehicle only to find it at an abandoned church, about four and a half blocks away from where Ware's body had been discovered. 22 years later, in February of 2009, police would release the tape of this 911 call and photos of the van to the public to hopefully generate new leads in a long, drawn-out case. But back in 1987, the abandoned van provided no real evidence for LAPD detectives. And so, Lonnie Franklin Jr. took his next victim, three months later in April of 1987. She was 26-year-old Bernita Sparks, who was shot in the chest and found in a trash bin with her pants and shirt unbuttoned. Lonnie didn't wait much longer to claim another.

Mary Lowe, also 26, was on her way to a Halloween party on October 31st of the same year. Unfortunately, the scariest thing she encountered on Halloween was her attacker, the grim sleeper. Our story will continue in a moment after a brief message. And now back to serial killers. So by now we see that Lonnie Franklin targeted women who frequented the streets and were likely to accept rides from him. Do you think that one of the grim sleeper's motivations for killing was to teach these girls a lesson?

You know, don't accept rides from strangers? Possibly one of the reasons, or maybe it just played into his game, most of the women who were murdered accepted rides from him, making them, in his mind, easy, dumb prey. Another hallmark of his victims is that they were all poor African-American women in South Central L.A. Many were prostitutes, waitresses, addicts, or young runaways. There's an element of his killings and the way he left the bodies in the trash sprawled out in alleys under dirty mattresses that suggests he was trying in his own twisted way to punish these women for their transgressions,

especially with the next murder in 1988 of 22-year-old Lucretia Jefferson, who sadly suffered from a cocaine addiction. She was killed with the same 25-calibre gone that the others were killed by, and her body was found with the word AIDS, scrawled on a napkin that was covering her face. This is the first time that the grim sleeper left a note on a body, right? What could this mean? His disgust towards women, especially women who were selling their bodies or polluting themselves with drugs,

the way he discarded these women in alleyways on the streets, it shows that one of Lonnie's base needs was to degrade women, to exercise the ultimate power over them and leave them like garbage, which is clearly how he viewed them. Suggesting she had contracted HIV just shows his assumption that she was dirty from selling her body, or at least that's one way to interpret the note and why he left it. But I have to ask, Vanessa, could the note suggest more than that?

Could Lani have gotten HIV from a sex worker? Could that have been his motivation for killing them? Was this handwritten message he left on Lucretia Jefferson actually him revealing the crux of his MO? Ooh, I like where you're going with this. That's a very intriguing theory. If his motivation was to kill prostitutes because he had a negative experience with one or more,

like contracted in STD, that would make his killings more of the revenge type. It's something to think about, and it would align with the fact that he may have wanted revenge on a woman named Brenda, the same thing. name he used to refer to his surviving victim, Anitra. That's right. Did Lani actually mistaken Nitra for this Brenda due to intoxication or was he just projecting? Sadly, I don't think we'll ever know.

Well, the plot thickens, and so did the hunt for the grim sleeper. However, the investigation proved to be fairly futile despite many close calls. His latest victim, Lucretia Jefferson, lived only four doors down from Lani, and the police missed him by a few dozen. yards when they canvassed the neighborhood. Then, in September of 1988, Alicia Monique, Alexander, was shot and discarded in an alley near 48th in Western. She was only 18 years old, and she supposedly was the eighth victim. Her father accused the police of not doing enough to investigate her death.

This became a commonplace refrain in a neighborhood ravaged by the Southside Slayer and the Nightstocker. These public outcries would reach a crescendo as the murders continued. leading to the creation of a coalition and a public indictment of the police department. Who would have predicted that three notorious serial killers, namely the Grim Sleeper, would catalyze a social justice movement and shed light on the reality of South Central? After the death of Alicia Alexander, the police truly had their work cut out for them. In February 1989, Detective Richard Harrow and his partner came upon the first real suspect,

L.A. County Sheriff's deputy Ricky Ross. He was a black detective working in narcotics, and not to be confused with the famous drug dealer Freeway Rick Ross, who was operating in the area at the time. Detective Ross was discovered in his car supposedly smoking crack with a sex worker. LAPD patrol officers searched his car and found a 9-millimeter handgun. Authorities pursued this lead for a while, but eventually ballistics experts determined that the LAPD patrol officers searched. had screwed up during tests on his gun, which provided false information. Also, Ross did not test positive for cocaine. He was, however, fired for abusing alcohol and drugs and soliciting a prostitute. Whether it's completely true is another story.

Ross later filed a $400 million civil rights lawsuit. He believed that the ballistics tests of his gun were originally falsified by LAPD. He didn't win the case, but eventually received an undisclosed sum privately from the LAPD. County Sheriff's Department. And all this led up to Anita's violent assault in November of 1988, which would be the defining turn in the case, second only to DNA evidence that would emerge later. As one of the only survivors of Lonnie Franklin Jr.'s rampage, Anitra's brave testimony would eventually bring him to justice and prove that her nightmare was not for nothing. Leaving a survivor was a costly mistake, a mistake that would cause the grim sleeper to

sink into a deep sleep, a possible hiatus from killing to make sure he stayed under the radar. Because of this, Anitra would have to wait over 20 years for justice. One of the most terrifying questions, however, is whether or not this break from killing was actually a break, or if the bodies from this period of time were just never found. After all, Lonnie Franklin had been working as a sanitation worker at this time for the city. If anyone could dispose of bodies in a clever and efficient way, It was him. So which is it?

Can a serial killer really stifle their urge to kill for so long? Or is it more likely that he continued to kill just silently? This is a much debated issue when it comes to Lonnie, so some are adamant that he never stopped killing and in fact continued his ammo of shooting and the disposing of his bodies. But instead of recklessly discarding them on the streets, he'd lug them to the dump and get rid of his victims there. It's incredibly rare that a serial killer,

would take such a lengthy break from killing? 14 years? That almost seems illogical. The way that a killer's brain tends to work is that they often are driven to kill because of a need, to fill a void or write a wrong or satisfy a dark urge. To ignore that need for so long,

that seems strange to me. The Showtime television show Dexter conveyed this concept best, in my opinion. The series featured a blood-spatter analyst at the Miami Police Department who also struggled with his own serial killer, tendencies due to childhood trauma. But as an adult, he actually channeled this darkness into killing other killers

in order to clean up the streets of Miami while satisfying his own urges. Right. Dexter called this urge his dark passenger. Which suggests it was always with him. Real-life serial killer Dennis Rader, more famously known as the BTK killer for blinding, torturing and killing his victims, alluded to something similar in a note he placed in a library book. In it, he took responsibility for killing a family known as the Oteros, but he also wrote, It's hard to control myself. Where this monster enter my brain, I will never know. But

it here to stay. Rader called this urge his monster, and he even addressed that it wasn't going anywhere. He goes on to question how he could ever be cured, serial killers rarely are. So the Grim sleepers supposed sleep? Well, we'll have to look at it more closely, because if we consider the photographs, Lonnie's job as a sanitation worker and his knowledge of prime locations to hide bodies, he may have actually just perfected his MO, the way he operated as a killer, and the way he disposed of his bodies. It's important to realize that the manner in which a serial killer disposes of a body

can be just as significant as the manner in which he kills. Some murderers find ultimate satisfaction in successfully disposing of a body and getting away with the crime. It's like they have a buried secret no one knows about. And therein lies their power. Other murderers are very methodical when it comes to disposing of a body, and that becomes part of their ritual narrative. This is especially true for those serial killers who dismember their victims, or creatively eliminate corpses.

Take British serial killer John George Hay as an example. We've featured his story on the show, which listeners are able to check out. He was primarily known as the acid bath killer. Aptly so. He would put his victims in a vat of sulfuric acid where they would disintegrate. This was the way he would eliminate all evidence. But can we confidently say that Lonnie was disposing of his bodies in a ritualistic way, or was it simply convenience?

That's a good question. Before his supposed break, it would appear that he may have been dumping them in the streets for convenience. However, he often covered them and put them in filthy locations, which suggests to me it was all part of his narrative to dispose of the women he viewed as trash in places where trash could be found. If he killed during his sleep and put them in massive garbage dumps or landfills,

this would just continue that narrative, but on a larger, more significant scale. And in this way, Lonnie would be continuing his theme of disposing of what he considered as human trash in a sense. I see. Well, the break didn't last forever. In 2001, LAPD police chief, Bernard Parks, began reopening old murder cases using new DNA technologies, just in time for the grim sleeper to reawaken from his long slumber in 2002, because this is when he was caught killing again. An act which sealed his fate.

Next week, we will explore how the police zeroed in on Lonnie Franklin Jr., with the most unlikely of accomplices, a hot slice of pizza. If that sounds unbelievable to you, that's only because truth often is stranger than fiction. Thank you for listening to Serial Killers. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell your friends. Don't forget to subscribe to Serial Killers on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or any other podcast directory, or through our website, paracast.com. That's p-a-r-c-s-s-t-com. A new episode of of serial killers comes out every Monday. Let us know what you think.

Join the conversation on our Parcast Facebook page. You can tweet us at Parcast Network. That's P-A-R-C-A-S-T-Network. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and developed by Ron Cutler. It is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network.

It's produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Ron Shapiro with production assistants by Joel Stein and Maggie Edm. Myer. Serial Killers is written by Jessica Mallow and Amy Suto and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Our amazing voice actor is Mike Caposi. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something.

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of. a lot of true crime podcast this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the

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