Franklin allegedly killed seven women between 1985 and 1988, when his crimes seemed to abruptly stop, authorities say. The slayings resumed in 2002, another murder happened in 2003 and a third one in 2007, police said. They suspect Franklin may be responsible for more homicides during that gap.

Detectives have spent the last two days serching Franklin’s home, collecting photo albums, documents, business cards and other records that they hope can provide a better picture of the suspect and perhaps provide links to other victims. A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said police recovered multiple firearms from Franklin’s home and will be testing the weapons to see if there is a match to the ballistics evidence from the crime scenes. 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 information from DNA databases. Many of the cases are three decades old and occurred during a period when several serial killers were allegedly operating in South L.A.

To many of his neighbors and customers, Lonnie Franklin Jr. was just a friendly mechanic who often stopped to chat as he tinkered on cars in the front driveway of his mint-green house on 81st Street. But after police identified him as a serial killer Wednesday, other neighbors recalled traits that suddenly seemed chilling. Some neighbors said Franklin made no secret of enjoying the company of sex workers, who he would often bring back to a camper parked in his backyard filled with old cars and junk. Another neighbor, Sherwood Howard, said Franklin would show off nude photos he took of the women from the neck down and talk about his exploits. He kept the pictures in the garage.

The 57-year-old man was arrested at least 15 times over four decades but was never sent to state prison despite the recommendation of probation officers, court and jail records show. He was arrested for burglary, car theft, firearms possession and assaults, but his crimes never were considered serious enough to send him to state prison or to warrant his entry in the state’s DNA database, authorities said. Despite the long and varied record, Franklin did not commit the kind of violent crimes against women that might have drawn the attention of detectives in the Grim Sleeper case. Investigators now plan to use DNA to tie Franklin to dozens more murders, looking at more than 30 cold case files dating to 1984, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Friday.

“Now that we know who he is, where he lives, the cars he drove, have people to interview, we will go over all those old cases and look for connections,” Beck said.

-articles from skcentral.com rewritten and adapted by admin-

The “Grim Sleeper” case has dogged police even though they had the killer’s DNA, a description from a survivor and had offered a $500,000 reward. The victims were shot, strangled, or both, usually after some kind of sexual contact. Ten victims were women and several were prostitutes. Police have said it’s possible that the male victim, Thomas Steele, who was shot in 1987, was a friend of another victim or discovered the killer’s identity. All the bodies were found outdoors, often in alleys a few miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, was arrested at his home in South Los Angeles on Wednesday morning after police said they made DNA matches linking him to the killings of 11 people over the last three decades. Prosecutors said they have charged Franklin with 10 counts of murder, noting that he is eligible for the death penalty. Dozens of police officials closed off a block around the 81st Street house where the arrest was made. Neighbors described the man who lives there as friendly and quiet. They said he was often seen working on cars in his front yard and would sometimes stop to chat with passers-by.

In recent days, the LAPD received the results of what is known as a familial DNA search, which trolls through state felon databases for partial DNA matches that would indicate a match to a relative. The suspect in the killings had left DNA evidence at several of the crime scenes. The LAPD learned that a man in state prison showed a strong familial match. Detectives questioned the man, who was too young to have committed several of the older murders, and he led detectives to his father, Franklin. Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said detectives got a piece of discarded pizza with Franklin’s DNA to make the link.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4CP8WfzabM

The series of killings included victims, mostly female, in the city of Los Angeles, in unincorporated areas of L.A. County and in Inglewood since the 1980s. A survivor in 1988 described her attacker as black, in his 20s, 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, about 160 pounds, soft-spoken and articulate, with neatly trimmed hair and a pockmarked face. DNA and ballistics evidence have connected the killings of 10 women and one man from 1985 to 2007, police said. After 1988, the killer did not commit any known homicides until 2002 and last struck on Jan. 1, 2007.

Franklin has twice been convicted of felonies, according to court records, both for receiving stolen property. One was in 1993 and the other was 2003. He served a year in jail for the first conviction and was sentenced to 270 days in jail in the 2003 case.

Franklin was expected to be arraigned Thursday.

-articles from various sources rewritten and adapted by admin-

In exclusive extracts from his new book The Lost British Serial Killer, Wilson reveals why he believes Tobin committed the three brutal, unsolved murders in Glasgow that have been blamed on Bible John. And he describes the bombshell courtroom moment when he became certain that Tobin was guilty of the murders.

Wilson, professor of criminology at the Centre for Criminal Justice Policy and Research at Birmingham University, became convinced he was looking at Bible John during Tobin’s trial for the 1991 murder of teenager Dinah McNicol. Hitch-hiker David Tremlett was a reluctant witness, as police initially suspected he had murdered Dinah.

“He shared a hitched lift from Liphook Music Festival in Hampshire with her. She was sitting in the front of Tobin’s cab while he was in the back and he overheard a conversation where Tobin said to Dinah that the Cambridge Folk Festival was ‘more my style’. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was trying to imply he was socially superior and that he could be trusted. This was the exactly the same type of conversation that witness Jeannie Williams had in the back of a Glasgow taxi all those years ago with Bible John. Jeannie recalled how the killer seemed to want to make out he was a cut above everyone else. He talked about how he didn’t support Celtic or Rangers, which was highly unusual in Glasgow, and how he didn’t drink at Hogmanay. He talked about his cousin’s hole-in-one at golf and it was exactly the same technique he was using.

“Tobin kept his head down and rarely made eye contact throughout the trial but he looked up at this statement and I thought, ‘You are looking up because you know the significance of that’. I looked around the court but no one else had picked up on it. Despite the decades between the conversations, the link, to me, was clear and I wanted to stand up and shout, ‘Peter Tobin is Bible John!’”

During his research for the book, Wilson visited the sites of the Bible John murders and interviewed witnesses and former detectives. The murders stopped when Tobin left Glasgow. His travels around Britain, raping and possibly murdering other women, could explain why the killings came to a sudden halt in 1969 after three deaths in less than two years.

Wilson first became interested in Tobin when he was convicted of murdering Angelika. The evil handyman hid her body under the floorboards of St Patrick ’s Church in Anderston, Glasgow. Wilson said: “I was fascinated that a man in his sixties was capable of such a violent crime. I tracked down his first wife Margaret Mackintosh. Bible John was a sexual sadist and we have testimony from Margaret of Tobin’s sexual sadism. Jeannie gave a surname for John and she thought it was something like ‘Sempleson’ or ‘Templeton’. Tobin used the name John Semple. That is a striking piece of evidence that cannot be coincidental.”

The criminologist accepts there may never be definitive proof that Tobin is the infamous serial killer but he added: “I am as convinced as it’s able to be. As far as I am concerned the case is closed.”

Tobin, 63, will die in jail, having been convicted of murdering Scots schoolgirl Vicky Hamilton, Essex teenager Dinah and Polish student Angelika Kluk in Glasgow. He has since been linked with as many as 48 victims – and a special police operation has been set up to probe links between Tobin and a string of unsolved murders. We might never know the truth!

-article by Lynn Mcpherson rewritten and adapted by admin-

Siskiyou County investigators hope they may have finally found her killer. Siskiyou County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp said a confession posted on a website points to Keith Hunter Jesperson, a 55-year-old convicted serial killer. He is serving four life sentences in Oregon for murdering eight women in six states. In January, he pleaded guilty to murdering a still-unidentified woman in 1992 in Riverside County. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison to be served concurrently along with his three other life sentences. Jesperson is known as “The Happy Face Killer” because he would send notes signed with a smiley face to newspapers, detailing his crimes.

The Stensaa case went cold for 24 years, until Weed detectives recently discovered the posting on a website devoted to serial killer news. The site reposted a copy of a 1998 question and answer interview with Jesperson. The interview has since been reposted on a number of similar websites devoted to serial killers. In the posting, Jesperson doesn’t name his victim, and the year he provides in the alleged confession is incorrect. But the description of how he killed his victim appears to match how Stensaa died.

Jesperson claimed to have met a woman at Silva’s Restaurant while he was waiting for his girlfriend, a worker at the now-closed Truck Village truck stop. His girlfriend had stood him up for a date. He claimed he met a woman who “wanted to party” at the restaurant, so he took her back to his big rig to have sex. They were interrupted by Jesperson’s girlfriend who knocked on the big rig’s door. “I turned to my new friend who now was wanting to be my new lover and pal and grabbed her by the throat and held her till she passed out,” Jesperson said. “Tying her up and gagging her, I taped the knots so they would stay tight.” He allegedly confesses to moving the truck to a new spot, pulling the woman out of the truck and placing her under the big rig’s tires, then driving over her.

The last time her family saw her alive was on February 13, 1986.

-article by Ryan Sabalow, rewritten and adapted by admin -

Although no new charges against Antwan Pittman have been filed, investigators have turned up more evidence in a string of murders in and around Rocky Mount that date back to 2003, authorities said. Police are looking into possible links in the deaths of 10 people and two women reported missing.

Pittman, a registered sex offender, was arrested in September, and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Taraha Nicholson when his DNA was found on Nicholson’s body. He had a criminal history of soliciting prostitutes in East Rocky Mount and at different points in his life lived near each of the secluded areas where most of the victims — all with known histories of prostitution and illegal drug use — have been found. One woman’s body was found in a wooded area behind Pittman’s former residence in Scotland Neck. Five of the women were found along Seven Bridges Road, and at one point, Pittman lived nearby in the Battleboro community.

The 160-person team expanded its search to areas inside city limits, along Melton Drive and Pennsylvania Avenue, where the bodies of Elizabeth Smallwood and Travis Harrison were found. A fisherman and his son found Harrison’s body along the Tar River behind Tom Stith Park in 2006. Harrison, 24, was a known crossdresser whose background mirrored the nine female victims. So far, the bodies of Nicholson, Harrison, Jackie Thorpe, Jarniece Hargrove, Christine Boone, Ernestine Battle, Denise Williams, Elizabeth Smallwood, Roberta Williams and Melody Wiggins have been found in wooded areas northeast of Rocky Mount.

The suspect’s trial was expected to start on May 3, but both the prosecutor and defense team said they needed more time to review the evidence in the case. And with more evidence coming in from law enforcement officers, the trial could be delayed for months.

-articles by Mike Hixenbaugh and Eric Eckard rewritten and adapted by admin-

Last November, Cleveland Police discovered the remains of nearly a dozen women inside Sowell’s house on Imperial Avenue. Bodies were found throughout the home and also in the yard. There were multiple shallow graves in the basement. Police say in addition to burying the decomposing bodies, Sowell hid them in various crawl spaces. In the living room, cops found two dead bodies out in the open, lying next to a shovel. More than 4,500 pictures were taken during the investigation by the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s office, and you can see 62 photos exclusively on Action News.

Anthony Sowell is facing an unprecedented 85 charges. The accused sex offender faces the death penalty if convicted. if you want to read more about this case, read the article Serial Killer Anthony Sowell Arrested. It is yet uncertain if he is involved in more disappearances that happened around Celeveland and police are looking into it.

-article from Action News rewritten and adapted by admin-

John Crutchley, with this terrifying crime earned the nickname of the “Vampire Rapist” – he kidnapped the girl and, while she was tied up, he inserted a hypodermic needle into her arm and attached it to a hose leading to his mouth. On several occasions, while she was bound and gagged in his Malabar home, Crutchley drank her blood. He even poured some into a large glass and gulped it all down. But, it was the crimes for which he never was convicted that caused his nefarious reputation to grow even more sinister.

Even though six driver’s licenses belonging to dead women were found in his desk at work, no murders could ever be linked to Crutchley. The remains investigators are now focusing on were found in Malabar in 1985, along with partial and full skeletal remains of a half-dozen other women. Young women went missing everywhere Crutchley lived, and the disappearances stopped every time he moved away, according to police.

There are dozen or so boxes of case files and evidence collected from Crutchley’s home. Among the items in the boxes are handcuffs he used on the rape victim, a handgun, ropes, homemade sex tapes of he and his wife, dozens of candid photographs of women in public places, a book titled “The Dracula Syndrome,” and an earring.

Crutchley was only a rape suspect initially and was released on bond after his arrest. Some believe he successfully destroyed evidence that would have linked him to the murders while he was free. “It’s not law enforcement’s fault that they only treated it like a rape,” said Crutchley’s former attorney, Joe Mitchell of Melbourne, “Apparently, he would drink their blood until they died. Supposedly he would dismember the bodies and scatter the parts all over the place.”

While Crutchley was working as an engineer in Fairfax County, Va., he was a suspect in the 1977 slaying of his girlfriend. The skeletal remains of 25-year-old Debbie Fitzjohn were found in the woods in 1978. Authorities believe he may have killed women in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Washington, D.C., before women started vanishing in Brevard County. He died in prison in 2002 at the age of 55 while practicing autoerotic asphyxiation — suffocating himself during sexual arousal.

-article by John A. Torres, rewritten and adapted by admin-

A Yonkers, NY detective John Geiss says he finally solved the case after “nine long years” of looking at over 100 suspects in connection with the deaths of three women who were raped and strangled in 1989, 1991, and 1996. He said at a news conference Thursday that his department never gave up investigating these murders. The killings were linked to each other by DNA and other evidence, but Francisco Acevedo was never even a suspect until he submitted a DNA sample after a drunk driving arrest last year, apparently as part of an application for parole.

Two of his victims, Maria Ramos, 26, killed Feb. 5, 1989, and Tawana Hodges, 28, killed March 28, 1991, lived in the Bronx and the third Kimberley Moore, 30, killed May 24, 1996, lived in Westchester. All were found naked, bound at the hands and facing up. Geiss said the three killings constituted the last unsolved multiple slaying in his cold-case files, though he still has 28 other cases ranging back to 1986.

Acevedo, who was already imprisoned upstate on the DWI charge, apparently had no idea detective in Yonkers were finally closing in on him and seemed surprised when he was arrested in an upstate prison on the murder charges. “I didn’t think we’d see the day that we’d come to the point we’re at now,” said detective John, “He wasn’t very happy to see us.”

Acevedo was indicted Wednesday on six counts of murder, three of which also allege rape. He pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole.

-article by Carlin DeGuerin Miller rewritten and adapted by admin-

On the photo on the left, you can see a sex murderer Peter Tobin as a man of 27, who is now serving a life sentence for the murder of 23-year-old Polish student Angelika Kluk and is linked to unresolved disappearances of several other young women in Sussex. Police are hoping the image will jog people’s memories if they knew Tobin as a young man and give officers a clearer view of his past.

There are fears that he may have killed many more and could have been carrying out gruesome sexual attacks in the county undetected throughout the seventies and eighties. Among those suspected of being Tobin’s victims is student Jessie Earl who disappeared from her Eastbourne bedsit in 1980 and whose remains were found at Beachy Head nine years later. Police are also listing Louise Kay, who was last seen in 1988 dropping a friend home from an Eastbourne club, as a potential Tobin victim.

Police have been gathering information about Tobin’s life in Brighton and Hove since three people came forward saying they knew about his time in the city. Tobin is thought to have been a member of a Biker Gang called the Rising Sun and officers are hoping to trace members of that group as well as a woman possibly called Lesley who lived at a seafront hotel in the city in 1986 and whose parents are believed to have attempted to legally prevent her from seeing Tobin.

They are also trying to trace items of women’s jewelry that Tobin owned which could help identify more victims and reveal the full extent of the vile acts of one of Britain’s most evil men.

Read more articles about Peter Tobin: Peter Tobin may have been a serial killer, Bible John case, serial killer Peter Tobin linked to a pedophile ring.

To contact the Operation Anagram team about Tobin call 0845 6070999.

-article from www.theargus.co.uk rewritten and adapted by admin-

A jury convicted Rodney Alcala, 66 years old amateur photographer, Thursday of murdering a 12-year-old girl and four women in the late 1970s, setting the stage for a possible death penalty in a legal saga that has dragged on 30 years. Jurors took less than two days to reach guilty verdicts against Rodney Alcala after six weeks of testimony. The penalty phase of the case begins Tuesday.

Police believe Alcala, who has been in custody since 1979 and has twice had previous convictions overturned, could be responsible for dozens more deaths in New York and Los Angeles in the 70s, and some even say he is a new Ted Bundy. Authorities said they were able to tie Alcala to the murder of four Los Angeles County women between 1977 and 1979. Investigators said they linked Alcala to the torture and murder of Jill Barcomb, 18; Georgia Wixted, 27; Charlotte Lamb, 32; and Jill Parenteau, 21, with DNA, blood and fingerprint evidence. Each murder carried a special circumstance charge that would make Alcala subject to the death penalty.

The Samsoe case, which was first tried in 1980, presented more of a challenge for prosecutors because it was built largely on circumstantial evidence. Murphy said he does not expect this third conviction to be overturned:
“This one is as clean as we can possibly make it for an appeal,” he said. “We’ve got a good jury and we feel very satisfied with the progress of the case so far.”

-articles by Gillian Flaccus and Nick Allen rewritten and adapted by admin-

Here is a Rodney Alcala’s case timeline by Kimi Yoshino:

1972 — Alcala is convicted in the 1968 rape and beating of an 8-year-old girl.

Nov. 10, 1977 — The body of 18-year-old Jill Barcomb is found in the Hollywood Hills. She had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and strangled with a pair of blue pants.

Dec. 16, 1977 — Georgia Wixted, 27, is found beaten to death at her home in Malibu. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

1978 — Alcala appears in an episode of “The Dating Game” as Bachelor No. 1.

June 24, 1978 — Charlotte Lamb, a 32-year-old legal secretary from Santa Monica, is found in the laundry room of an El Segundo apartment complex. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a shoelace.

June 14, 1979 — Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank is found strangled on the floor of her Burbank apartment.

June 20, 1979 – Robin Samsoe, 12, disappears near the Huntington Beach Pier. Her body is found 12 days later in the Sierra Madre foothills.

September 1980 – Alcala is convicted of the 1978 rape of a 15-year-old Riverside girl and sentenced to nine years in state prison.

June 20, 1980 — Orange County Superior Court Judge Philip E. Schwab sentences Alcala to death after he is convicted of Samsoe’s murder.

July 11, 1980 — The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office files murder, burglary and sexual assault charges against Alcala in the slaying of Parenteau.

April 15, 1981 — The L.A. district attorney’s office tells a judge that prosecution of Alcala in the Parenteau case could not proceed because a key witness admitted that he had committed perjury in another case.

Aug. 23, 1984 — The state Supreme Court reversed Alcala’s murder conviction in connection with Samsoe, ruling that the jury was improperly told about Alcala’s prior sex crimes.

June 20, 1986 — For the second time, Alcala is convicted for Samsoe’s murder and sentenced to death in Orange County Superior Court.

April 2, 2001 — A federal appellate court overturns Alcala’s death sentence in the Samsoe case, ruling that the Superior Court judge precluded the defense from presenting evidence “material to significant issues.”

June 5, 2003 — The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office files murder charges against Alcala alleging that he killed Wixted during a burglary and rape.

Sept. 19, 2005 — Additional murder charges are filed against Alcala in connection to the deaths of Barcomb, Wixted and Lamb.

Jan. 11, 2010 — Alcala’s trial for the five murders begins. He represents himself.