Your Friendly, Neighborhood Serial Killer

Soon after the capture of "The Grim Sleeper", one of California’s most elusive serial killers, an all too common portrait of the perpetrator emerged. Unbeknownst to most, Lonnie David Franklin Jr., the friendly mechanic who volunteered around his neighborhood, does indeed fit the mold cast by scores of killers before him. A local man, Franklin held menial jobs, had a criminal record, chose marginalized victims, lived in the vicinity of the crimes, and was snared by DNA. The façade he delicately concocted to conceal these facts was shattered to reveal his true nature, shocking his neighborhood. These are all hallmarks of the average, modern day serial killer.

On Fear and Loathing, an episode of the popular television show Criminal Minds, the FBI agents asserted that the offender was African American to which the Mayor of the suburban town responded, “I’ve never even heard of a black serial killer.” The Mayor was echoing the sentiment of the real world news media, true crime aficionados and criminologists who consistently perpetuate the widely held misconception that serial killing is an endeavor engaged in solely by Caucasian males. 

In 2002, upon learning that the D.C. Snipers were African American, the killers were regarded as outliers; a rare occurrence among rare occurrences. But those perplexed by The Grim Sleeper’s race must only briefly examine our storied history of serial murder to discover that a plethora of African American serial killers do exist. Chester Dwayne Turner and John Floyd Thomas, two of the most prolific serial killers in California history, were both African American. Missouri’s Lorenzo Gilyard and Ohio’s Anthony Sowell each amassed victim counts and time lines commensurate with those of Franklin’s. Derrick Todd Lee gathered friends together for sermons and barbeque, much the same as Franklin offered his services around the neighborhood. These are all regular, common men who share an irregular, uncommon pastime; each living dual lives until the full breath of their atrocities become known. Time and again, these killers compel us to assess societal constructs and question how well we truly know our neighbors.

Franklin earned “The Grim Sleeper” moniker due to his seemingly self imposed hiatus between murders, the unique aspect that garnered him national attention. So how was Franklin able to out-maneuver the police for decades? Some may purport that Franklin is an uber-intelligent, stealthy, cunning loner with unique insight into police tactics. Hardly. The ballistic matches, eyewitness account and lack of forensic knowledge relegate Franklin to the careless killer’s club. Franklin did, however, purposefully capitalize on people’s willingness to trust others, a trait common to almost all serial killers. After all, who among us would like to think their neighbor is capable of such abhorrent crimes? Those who knew Franklin find it difficult to juxtapose his outward genial behavior with his brutal private actions. This dissonance, in concert with police missteps, victim selection, luck, neighborhood dynamics, and a failing criminal justice system also ensured Franklin’s longevity.

Franklin perfected the ability to remain infamous and concurrently surreptitious by being a prototypical, common man; a pizza eating, blue collar worker with a daughter attending college, the nice guy willing to go out of his way to fix your car and stop to chat with passersby. Conversation ranged from basketball to police procedurals and often veered towards his favorite subject, women. According to news reports, Franklin was not especially shy about sharing details of his sexual exploits with his male neighbors, invariably counting on them to overlook or dismiss this subtle red flag as simply “guy talk”, a tenant of normalcy. Comparably, the same is true when men congregate and discuss sports as a means to find commonality and fit in.

Arguably, the most intriguing aspect of the Grim Sleeper case is the controversial method with which he was located; familial DNA. Currently, the majority of serial offenders are detected using DNA taken from victims and matched to the killer’s own genetic material, a concept unknown to murderers, like Franklin, who were operating in 1985. But, as law enforcement tactics evolve, killers find new resolve. Today, competent serial killers either take forensic countermeasures or realize that eventually they will be apprehended; their inevitable capture a mixture of good science, persistence, and luck. For these reasons, today’s killers rarely contact the media or engage in the shrewd cat and mouse days of old. Rather, modern offenders hope to prolong their freedom’s fragility by constructing a delicate façade, either by staying married or being involved in the community, all while praying they remain unchallenged. In the future, however, a killer’s unsuspecting relative may unwittingly be responsible for bringing them to justice through a familial DNA match. This new technique, if nationally accepted, would render many serial killers’ attempts to cloak themselves as a futile exercise and undoubtedly expose many more average, friendly, neighborhood serial killers.