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 The Superior Court jury reached its verdict on all 10 counts of
first-degree murder against Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 63, after
deliberating a day and a half, capping a trial that ran more than 11
weeks.
Franklin, who could face the death penalty, was also convicted of
attempted murder for an attack on an 11th victim, Enierta
Washington, who survived being shot in the chest, raped, pushed out
of a car and left for dead in 1988.
Washington took the witness stand during the trial to identify
Franklin as the man who attacked her.
Judge Kathleen Kennedy instructed jurors to return to the courtroom
on May 12 for the start of the trial's penalty phase.
Franklin was convicted of shooting seven women to death between
August 1985 and September 1988, then strangling a 15-year-old girl
and strangling or shooting two other women in a second round of
killings between March 2002 and January 2007.
 The 13-year interval between the two spates of murders earned the
killer the "Grim Sleeper" moniker. Since his 2011 indictment, police
said they had gathered evidence tying Franklin to at least six more
unsolved slayings, some of which occurred during the previously
presumed lapse in killings.
Detectives said those came to light from reviewing old case files
and seeking the public's help in identifying women and girls
pictured among 180 photos found in Franklin's possession.
Franklin, who did not testify in his own defense and sat impassively
in court as the verdicts were read, has been in custody since his
arrest in July 2010.
During the trial, his attorney sought to raise questions about DNA
evidence presented by prosecutors and suggested a "mystery man" was
behind the killings.
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Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told
jurors that DNA collected from victims' bodies showed all 10 had
sexual contact with Franklin just before they died. Prosecutors said
they had been sexually assaulted.
Their nude or partially clothed bodies were found dumped in alleys
and trash bins in South Los Angeles, an area gripped by rampant drug
abuse, prostitution and other crime at the height of a crack cocaine
epidemic there during the 1980s.
In closing arguments, Silverman described Franklin, a former
mechanic and trash collector, as "a serial killer who was basically
hiding in plain sight."
In court on Wednesday after deliberations began, Silverman disclosed
Franklin also was convicted in Germany for his role in a gang rape
while he was in the Army in the 1970s.
Victims' relatives said Thursday's verdict gave them a sense of
closure.
"It's been 30 years, and we need this," said Irene Ephriam, whose
niece, Henrietta Wright, 34, a mother of five, was found slain in
1986.
Wright said she would pray for Franklin, adding, "but he didn't give
them [his victims] the chance to do that."
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by David Gregorio and Andrew
Hay)
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