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Los Angeles Police Arrest Lonnie Franklin Jr. as the "Grim Sleeper" After His Son's DNA Points to Him

Franklin, 57, a one-time police mechanic, was charged with 10 murders dating to 1985. A familial DNA search of California's database produced the break.

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Lonnie Franklin Jr. in a green corduroy shirt over a white T-shirt in a 1998 Los Angeles police photograph

For 25 years, police hunted the killer known as the "Grim Sleeper" in South Los Angeles. On July 7, 2010, detectives arrested Lonnie David Franklin Jr. after his son's DNA pointed to him.

Franklin, 57, a one-time police mechanic, was taken into custody at 9:20 a.m. in front of his South Los Angeles home by Robbery-Homicide detectives, ending a task force investigation that had begun more than three years earlier. District Attorney Steve Cooley charged him with 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, with special-circumstance allegations of multiple murders that could make him eligible for death. The killer had been dubbed the "Grim Sleeper" because of an apparent 14-year pause in the killings, from 1988 to 2002. "Today is a good day," said Donnell Alexander, whose sister, Monique, was killed in 1988.

The break came after Franklin's son was convicted on a felony weapons charge and swabbed for DNA. A familial search of the state database found a partial match to evidence from the crime scenes, and detectives then investigated the son's relatives. California, the first state to use such searches, had adopted the policy under Attorney General Jerry Brown in April 2008. Franklin had never been a suspect. "This is a landmark case. This will change the way policing is done in the United States," Police Chief Charlie Beck said the next day.

The Los Angeles Police Department said the suspect was believed to have killed at least 10 young women, while the Associated Press reported that the victims included one man.

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