"Grim Sleeper" Convicted: Serial Killer Who Murdered Women Over 30 Years

A former sanitation worker accused of being the serial killer known as the "Grim Sleeper" was found guilty on Thursday of murdering nine women and a teenage girl in a killing spree spanning three decades in Los Angeles, reports the Patria News Agency.  

It took the jury at the Superior Court only a day to reach a verdict on all 10 murder counts against the accused, Lonnie David Franklin Jr. (63).

Franklin, who could face the death penalty, was also found guilty of attempted murder for an attack on an 11th victim who was the only survivor after he shot her, raped her, and pushed her out of his car, believing her dead in 1988. She described the attacker to the police as a Black man in his early 30s.

Franklin was found guilty of murdering seven victims by shooting or strangulation between August 1985 and September 1988, while he worked as a mechanic for the city sanitation department, and three others between March 2002 and January 2007. Due to the gap of more than 13 years between the two murder sprees, the killer earned the nickname "Grim Sleeper".

Since the indictment in March 2011, police have said they have gathered evidence linking Franklin to at least six more murders, some of which occurred during the previously assumed break in his killing spree, writes Index.