Review: A crime-stopper better than "Law & Order LA"
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 19, 2011
Possible jurors in the upcoming trial of Lonnie Franklin Jr. are a group of people best advised not to read "Homicidal," Paul Alexander's true-crime story about the L. A. serial killer known as the "Grim Sleeper." Alexander piles up enough circumstantial evidence against the accused to make it almost impossible to maintain an open mind.Franklin is accused of sexually assaulting and murdering 10 women in the South Los Angeles area between the 1980s and 2007. The killer earned the "Grim Sleeper" marker for an apparent 14-year gap in the slayings between 1988 and 2002.DNA evidence linked Franklin to the slayings and as incredible as it may seem, L.A. police are now taking another look at 230 cold case murders going back to 1970 to see if there's anything to link Franklin to additional homicides.Alexander is thorough and patient in laying out the case against Franklin. His research is so painstaking that in his diligence he almost does himself a disservice. He describes South Los Angeles as the "land of serial killers," a place where 1,000 murders a year is an average and cases involving serial killers have become almost as common as stories of Hollywood breakups.In 1975, the "Skid Row Slasher," was convicted of nine counts of murder. In 1977 the "Trash Bag Killer" confessed to the murders of 28 young men. The "Freeway Killer" was found guilty of 10 horrible murders in 1980 and police suspect the killer may have been responsible for as many 35 other slayings. The list of killing sprees is long and the body count gruesomely high. In Alexander's account, Franklin's story sometimes gets almost lost in a mire of statistics that tends to diminish the homicides to a series of numbers.Still, it's fascinating to read that although the facts seem to clearly point to Franklin, the case against him is anything but predetermined. Police apprehended Franklin based on forensic evidence but the DNA testing may have been botched. There is ballistic evidence linking the murders but there's no gun and nothing to tie a weapon to Franklin. There is a possible witness, the woman who may be the only intended victim to escape, but her testimony is suspect. Some things just don't seem to fit, and as attorney Johnny Cochran famously said in the OJ trial, "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit."Alexander spent three hours sharing a meal at a trendy L.A. restaurant with Franklin's attorney Louisa Pensanti, who says she knows evil and that "Lonnie Franklin is not evil." This crime story unfolds better than an episode of "Law & Order LA," and it's a great pre-read for the real courtroom drama unfolding soon in real life.