Los Angeles police detectives on Thursday said they have growing doubts that there was a 13-year gap in the killing spree of the "Grim Sleeper" serial killer, announcing that they have linked two more slayings to the suspect in the case and that those slayings took place during the supposed dormant period.
The "Grim Sleeper" got his moniker because he allegedly killed seven South L.A. women between 1985 and 1988 before appearing to abruptly stop. Police said the killings resumed in 2002, with a killing that year, another in 2003 and a third in 2007.
Detectives said they have now connected the suspect, Lonnie Franklin Jr., to two more killings. Officials declined to provide details about the crimes but said the first occurred in the 1980s, after a 1988 killing tied to Franklin, and the second occurred in the early 1990s. Both involved women slain in the South L.A. area. Franklin has not been charged with these new killings and has pleaded not guilty to killing 10 people.
"I don't think there is a gap," said LAPD Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who has been leading the investigation. "We are continuing to examine many, many old cases now we know Mr. Franklin's identity. We are trying to put together other cases."
[Updated at 2 p.m.: Clarifying an earlier statement, Kilcoyne said that the first of the two new slayings police are investigating occurred in the 1980s, after a 1988 killing tied to Franklin, and the second occurred in the early 1990s.]
The Los Angeles Police Department has announced significant new progress in the Grim Sleeper case, saying it is now investigating two new potential victims of the serial-killer suspect and has identified 72 of the more than 180 women whose photos were found in his possession.
Los Angeles police detectives say the two new murder cases possible linked to suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr., involve women killed in the 1990s. They declined to give further details, saying the case was still being investigated.
"There is a connection between Franklin and these women [in the new murder investigations] that we are not talking about," Det. Dennis Kilcoyne said to The Times. "This is the first time we've mentioned it."
Franklin, 57, is charged in connection with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder — crimes that occurred in South L.A. and spanned three decades, prosecutors have said.
Franklin has pleaded not guilty. At the time of Franklin's arrest in July, authorities found about 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video of women.
The LAPD decided to release approximately 180 stills from these materials and have received hundreds of phone calls, e-mails and other tips since last month.
Investigators have identified 72 women who contacted authorities after their photographs were released by investigators last December in an effort to identify approximately 134 women who are believed to be the subjects of pictures, video or both, said Kilcoyne, who is heading up the case.
Kilcoyne said 62 women have yet to be identified, although they have been able to remove 118 images of the original 180 images posted on the LAPD website including friends and family of Franklin.
Detectives said Wednesday night that they are investigating two additional killings that may have been committed by Lonnie Franklin Jr., the Grim Sleeper serial slaying suspect.
The revelation came during a meeting with about 100 residents at the Bethel AME Church in South Los Angeles.
The detectives' comments were prompted by a question from a relative of a victim in one of the two new cases. The detectives acknowledged the new probes had been launched but declined to elaborate.
The church, in the 7900 block of Western Avenue, is just a few blocks from the home where Franklin was arrested in the summer. The meeting was organized by Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who represents the area.
"It's important for the Police Department to stay connected to the community," Det. Dennis Kilcoyne of the Los Angeles Police Department told The Times.
Franklin, 57, is charged with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder — crimes that occurred in South L.A. and spanned three decades, prosecutors have said. Franklin has pleaded not guilty.
Detectives have released about 180 photos of women whose pictures were found on Franklin's property after investigators served a search warrant in July. As a result of those photos, 72 women were identified and ruled out as victims. Detectives still need to identify about 62 women, Kilcoyne said.
Scores of calls and tips from the photos resulted in the LAPD developing four missing-person cases.
Los Angeles police detectives said Thursday they are investigating at least four missing persons cases as a result of publicizing photos seized from the South Los Angeles property of alleged "Grim Sleeper" serial slaying suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr.
The Los Angeles Police Department was flooded with hundreds of phone calls, e-mails and other tips last month after detectives released photographs of the unidentified women that were found in a trailer and garage belonging to Franklin, who has pleaded not guilty to 10 killings in South L.A. over three decades.
Thus far, at least 53 women have been identified by LAPD robbery-homicide detectives who are continuing to receive information since going public with the approximately 180 images, including duplicates.
In all, 79 photos have been or are in the process of being removed from the LAPD website after the women in them were identified.
Police would not discuss details of the missing persons cases other than to say they involved women whose images were found among Franklin's possessions.
Los Angeles police detectives said Monday they have tentatively identified at least 20 of the roughly 160 women whose images were seized last summer from the South Los Angeles property of alleged Grim Sleeper serial slaying suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr.
[Updated 3 p.m. : LAPD Robbery-Homicide detectives said Monday afternoon that the total number of women identified rose from 15 to 20. There were roughly 160 women in the images released last week by the LAPD. Police said that number included eight duplicates, and one known victim whose family was unable to meet with investigators before their press conference.]
The Los Angeles Police Department was inundated with hundreds of phone calls, e-mails and other tips after detectives on Thursday released photographs of the unidentified women that were found in a trailer and garage belonging to Franklin, who has pleaded not guilty to 10 killings in South L.A. over three decades.
From that information, relatives and friends of 15 women have contacted LAPD robbery-homicide detectives to let them know they are alive and well, which investigators said was their primary goal in releasing the images in the first place.
In addition, detectives say they have received 75 tips that could prove important to the Franklin case.
Franklin is accused of sexually assaulting and killing 10 African American women in South L.A. During his arrest in July, authorities found a disturbing trove of about 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video of women. Some of the images appeared to be innocent snapshots, but most showed the women in various states of undress and striking sexual poses.
Fearing that some of the women could be additional victims, detectives set out to identify them. Some of the material dated back to the 1980s and included video and digital camera images, Polaroids, conventional prints and even undeveloped film.
Last week, Louisa Pensanti, Franklin's attorney, criticized Los Angeles police for releasing the photos and said more than a dozen were relatives or friends.
LAPD officials said the decision to release the photos was not made lightly. Detectives said they were concerned about how the images should be presented to the public given the explicit nature of the material, and understood that their release could force the women to revisit encounters with Franklin from periods in their lives they would rather forget.
In the end, the LAPD opted to release closely cropped versions of the images that show the women's faces. Detectives also wanted to be sensitive to the families of the 10 women Franklin is alleged to have killed. Before the announcement, they invited members of the victims' families to LAPD headquarters to view the images that would be released.
The attorney for Grim Sleeper serial killer suspect Lonnie Franklin Jr. criticized Los Angeles police for releasing scores of photos of women found in Franklin's possession.
In a statement, Louisa Pensanti complained that the photos were not part of discovery in Frankin's case and that some of the images were of Franklin's family and friends.
"The photographs include members and friends of the Franklin family, all now subject to the intense scrutiny of the public as well as the police," she wrote.
An LAPD source told The Times that detectives had asked Franklin's family to review the photos before they were publicly released so that ones of his family and friends could be removed. But the source said officials got not no reply to their requests. It's unclear whether Pensanti has now asked that any photos specifically be removed.
The LAPD was inundated with hundreds of phone calls, e-mails and other tips a day after detectives released photographs of the unidentified women found in a trailer belonging to Franklin, who has pleaded not guilty to 10 killings in South L.A.
A day after releasing photographs of women that belonged to Lonnie Franklin, Jr., the alleged "Grim Sleeper" serial killer, the Los Angeles Police Department has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails from the public.
"The information coming in is voluminous," said Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who headed the task force that tracked down Franklin. According to Kilcoyne, officers have fielded "several hundred phone calls," while e-mails and text messages have been flooding in through various accounts and tip hotlines the department uses.
Franklin, who is accused of sexually assaulting and killing 10 women in South L.A., was arrested in July after authorities identified him after matching DNA samples Franklin allegedly left on the bodies of his victims to his son's genetic profile that was stored in felon databases.
After arresting Franklin, police discovered a trove of 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video in a trailer and garage on his property. The images showed about 160 different women, most of them partially or fully nude and striking sexual poses. Fearing that some of the women in the photos could be victims and wanting to better understand what makes Franklin tick, detectives spent months trying to identify the women in the images. The effort was fruitless, however, and LAPD officials made the decision to go public with cropped versions of photographs that showed the women's faces, hoping that the women, family members or others would recognize them and contact police.
Kilcoyne said detectives have already had phone conversations with a handful of people claiming they were relatives of women pictured in the photographs and that they had either been missing for years or had been the victim of unsolved murders.
"We will make sure we sit down across from anyone like that and have a face-to-face conversation to make sure we do everything possible to figure out what happened," Kilcoyne said. "Right now, my goal is just to sort all the information coming in, organize it and in the days to come we'll start meeting with people."
Los Angeles Police Department detectives said releasing the photos of scores of women found in the possession of the Grim Sleeper serial killer suspect was an agonizing decision. But they concluded it was ultimately the only way to determine whether they had been harmed.
The photos and video images were apparently collected by Lonnie David Franklin Jr. over the years, and detectives said they needed to know who these women were as they try to determine whether Franklin was responsible for more than the 10 homicides for which he was charged earlier this year.
Detectives said they were concerned about how those images should be presented to the public given that the women depicted were almost all partly or completely nude and striking sexually graphic poses.
"We are just trying to do what is right and decent," said LAPD Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who heads the task force that arrested Franklin. "We are very cognizant of not causing embarrassment or anguish to the people depicted in the photographs."
Before they were ready to release the images, detectives first set about trying to identify as many different women as possible by distilling the mass of material, including video and digital camera images, Polaroids, conventional prints and even undeveloped film.
Investigators reviewed images in missing-person databases and coroner records looking for matches. Unable to find their subjects, police decided to go public with the images at a Thursday news conference.
Detectives said they thought hard about how making the photos public would affect the women.
The photo release could force most, if not all of the women, to revisit a chapter in their lives they would sooner forget and reveal an association with Franklin, who has pleaded not guilty in the killings. Some of the photos may have been taken years ago -- and some of the women might be living significantly different lives now.
Detectives also wanted to be sensitive to the families of the 10 victims Franklin is alleged to have killed.
In the end, the LAPD opted to release closely cropped versions of the images that show the women's faces, hoping the women themselves, their family members or acquaintances will recognize them and contact investigators.
Before the announcement, they invited families of Grim Sleeper victims to come to LAPD headquarters to view the images they would be releasing to the public.
In the press conference Thursday, LAPD officials declined to get into the backgrounds of the women, saying that it could hinder the reason for holding the press conference, which was determining the whereabouts of those pictured.
Kilcoyne acknowledged that some might be offended by the decision to go public with the pictures and video stills. But he said the LAPD needs the public's help to determine who the women are and whether some might have been additional Grim Sleeper victims.
"We are not the ones who took it and kept it," Kilcoyne said of the images. "We can thank Mr. Franklin for that."
Photo: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, left, and Councilman Bernard C. Parks walk by the array of photos after the Thursday news conference at LAPD headquarters. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times
Since the July arrest of "Grim Sleeper" serial killer suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr. for allegedly killing 10 people, Los Angeles police investigators have 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.
Officials are bracing for more inquiries with Thursday's release of images of about 160 women who were photographed or videotaped by Franklin.
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 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 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.
In July, when Los Angeles police arrested Lonnie Franklin Jr., the suspected "Grim Sleeper" serial killer, they scoured his South L.A. property for incriminating evidence.
Among the more troubling discoveries were 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.
Detectives on the case have spent the ensuing months trying to identify the women to determine whether they are alive and to learn how they came to be photographed by a man charged with sexually assaulting and killing 10 women.
The attempt has proved fruitless. So Thursday the LAPD plans to publish images of the roughly 160 women in the hope that they, family or acquaintances will recognize them and contact investigators.
“As a police department, we have an obligation to account for the welfare of these women,” said veteran homicide Det. Dennis Kilcoyne, who headed the task force that hunted Franklin. “We’re trying to fill in the life and times of Lonnie Franklin over the past 30 years, and talking to people is a big part of that. These are obviously women who had a conversation or two with this guy.”
Authorities said they have linked Franklin, 58, to the killings through a combination of DNA and ballistics evidence. The former city sanitation worker and LAPD garage attendant has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He remains in custody.
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