'Grim Sleeper' sentenced to death for string of murders

The man who preyed on vulnerable young women for two decades, killing nine and a teenage girl, was sentenced to death Aug. 10, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Lonnie Franklin Jr., 63, was sentenced after more than 15 family members of victims addressed the court, many of them repeatedly asking why Franklin chose to attack members of his own community.

“The defendant took my daughter, murdered her, put her in a plastic bag — a trash bag — like she was trash,” Laverne Peters, whose 25-year-old daughter was found in a garbage bin in 2007, told the court before Franklin was sentenced. “My hope is that he spends the rest of his glory days in his jail cell, which will become his trash bag.”

The former city sanitation worker was convicted May 5 of 10 counts of first-degree murder. Jurors also found Franklin guilty of one count of attempted murder. 

During the penalty phase, prosecutors introduced evidence tying Franklin to four additional murders of women between 1984 and 2006. A woman who was kidnapped and raped by Franklin and two Army buddies in Germany also testified during trial. 

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