THE Sinister sleeper The serial killings of young black women began in the 1980s in South Los Angeles, as the crack epidemic raged.

The victims’ bodies, naked or partially clothed, were left to rot under trash and debris in dumpsters and alleys along Western Avenue.

Most of the victims, who struggled with drug addiction, were either shot point-blank in the chest with a .25-caliber pistol, strangled, or both.

For decades, the identity of the killer remained a mystery until 2010, when the Los Angeles Police Department arrested Lonnie Franklin Jr. for the murders.

Franklin’s 23-year killing spree and eventual capture are now the subject of a two-hour special, Unsolved Cases: The Grim Sleeperpremieres Friday, November 8 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on A&E.

The special is narrated by the award-winning actress and producer. Regina Room.

“He hurt a lot of people in different ways,” Hall says of Franklin’s reign of terror. “You can see how this loss has affected an entire community. »

“It was incredibly calculated,” she tells PEOPLE. “He understood the times and he understood that people wouldn’t seek out this group of women. He understood that it wouldn’t be covered, and he saw it, and it’s quite manipulative. He had to hurt people.

Hall says she was struck by “the sheer insensitivity of the way he dismissed and treated the victims.”

“I was just thinking about living in this community, what it would have been like,” she said. “That would have been terrifying.”

“It’s pretty incredible that someone could murder that many people,” she said.

A series of murders – and a survivor’s harrowing story

The Grim Sleeper murders began on January 15, 1984, with the murder of Sharon Dismuke. Dismuke, 21, was found dead on the floor of a men’s restroom at an abandoned gas station.

The murder of Debra Jackson, a 29-year-old cocktail waitress, occurred next, on April 10, 1985. Her decomposing body was found under a rug in an alley near 1017 West Gage Avenue.

The murder of Henrietta Wright, a mother of five and cafeteria worker, occurred a year later, in August 1986. Her body was also discovered in an alley.

Next came the murders of Barbara Ware, 23, school supervisor Bernita Sparks, 26, Mary Lowe, Lachrica Jefferson, 22, Inez Warren and Alicia “Monique” Alexander.

Alexander, 18, was found on September 11, 1988 – six days after she disappeared – in an alley behind 1720 West 43rd Place.

All of the women had been shot in the chest with a .25 caliber pistol.

Police finally caught a break a little more than two months later when they discovered a living victim: Enietra Washington.

Washington, then a 30-year-old mother of two, was walking to her friend’s house when a stranger pulled up next to her and politely offered her a ride in his orange Ford Pinto.

She initially declined the offer, but the stranger continued to insist, at one point saying, “That’s what’s wrong with you black women.” People can’t be nice to you.

She changed her mind because she felt sorry for the man she described as short, in his early 30s, and well-dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt.

Washington, who later testified at Franklin’s murder trial, testified that as they drove through Los Angeles on the night of November 19, 1988, the man told him he needed to stop quickly at his uncle’s house to get money back.

They ended up on a side street, where he parked at a house near an apartment building and an auto shop. He got out, walked toward the house, spoke briefly to someone at the front door, and returned about 10 minutes later.

Once he returned, he started acting strange. He accused her of “harassing him” and called her another woman’s name. “I thought he said ‘Brenda’ and I was like, ‘That’s not my name,'” she later testified.

Then, she said, everything became “eerily quiet” and she realized she had been shot in the chest. Washington began to lose consciousness and pass out and woke up to him sexually assaulting her. She said she passed out again but woke up with the flash of a Polaroid camera.

After the attack, he started the Pinto and then pushed it out. She then got up in the street and stumbled several blocks to the house of a friend, who called an ambulance.

However, although he gave a description of his attacker and the Pinto to the police and took them to the street where he had briefly stopped, the attacker was not arrested and the Grim cases Sleeper remained unanswered.

A break in the affair

It was only after the Los Angeles Police Department launched its cold case unit in the early 2000s that the killer was linked by DNA and ballistics to the death of 15-year-old Princess Berthomieux – a 15-year-old runaway found strangled. in Inglewood in 2002 — mother of two Valerie McCorvey, 35, in 2003 and Janecia Peters, 25, in 2007.

Peters’ lifeless body was discovered in a dumpster at 9508 South Western Avenue. Peters had been shot in the lower back, paralyzing her from the waist down.

However, the killer’s DNA profile was not included in CODIS, the national DNA database.

Franklin, a seemingly unassuming grandfather and former LAPD mechanic and sanitation worker, was finally arrested in 2010 through familial DNA testing after his son, Christopher, was arrested for carrying a gun at the summer 2009 and had to forego a DNA sample.

Hall says: “Of course, in hindsight you say, ‘He would have to have come from that community – who else could have walked in and out without being seen?'”

She adds: “He certainly didn’t fit the profile of a serial killer per se, and yet, of course, he was, just not the one we imagine. We have this idea: ‘Oh, I know what would look like a serial killer.’ , and act, and be like.’ And he didn’t do that, he wasn’t that, which I think is another reason why he got away with it for so long.

“I doubt he would have stopped,” adds Hall. “He especially wanted not to get caught.”

Once it was determined that Christopher was related to the killer, detectives tracked the elder Franklin to a pizzeria in Buena Park. As Franklin finished his meal, a detective posing as a waiter retrieved a fork, two plastic cups, a plate and a slice of pizza left behind by Franklin.

A few days later, DNA taken from the pizza slice came back and matched DNA found on one of Franklin’s victims.

During a three-day search of Franklin’s property, investigators found women’s necklaces, rings, earrings and watches, as well as more 500 photographs of various women – many of them naked or engaged in sexual acts.

In one of Franklin’s bedrooms, authorities discovered a .25 caliber FIE Titan semi-automatic handgun, also known as a “pocket pistol.” It was later determined to be the weapon used to kill Peters.

In a backyard garage, an LAPD firearms examiner found a Polaroid photo of Washington, the survivor who had told police about her harrowing experience.

Also in an envelope was a photo of Peters, as well as a school ID card of Ayellah Marshall, 18, and the Nevada driver’s license of Rolenia Morris, 31. The two women were reported missing in February and September 2005, respectively, and were last seen around Franklin’s home, located at 81st and Western Avenues in Los Angeles.

Their bodies were never found.

During his trial, prosecutors described Franklin, a former U.S. Army corporal, as a sexual predator who killed women who “weren’t submissive enough.”

“These crimes were about power and control,” prosecutor Beth Silverman said. told the jury during his final arguments.

“It’s clear that the defendant took pleasure in killing these young women because that’s how they all ended up,” Silverman said. “He definitely wanted to degrade these women by throwing their bodies away like trash. He enjoyed it too and that’s why he did it again and again. This brought him satisfaction.

Franklin was convicted in May 2016 of the murders of Jackson, Wright, Lowe, Sparks, Ware, Jefferson, Alexander, Berthomieux, McCorvey and Peters, as well as the attempted murder of Washington.

Prosecutors also provided evidence that he also killed Dismuke, Morris, Marshall and Georgia Mae Thomas, 43, and that he attempted to kill Laura Moore, a 21-year-old waitress, in May 1985, when she was shot down. three times in the chest.

Want to stay up to date with the latest crime coverage? Register for PEOPLEThe free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, coverage of ongoing trials and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

The following month, the same Los Angeles jury decided that Franklin Jr. should be put to death on all counts of the murders.

In March 2020, Franklin was found unresponsive in his death row cell at San Quentin State Prison. He died shortly after. He was 67 years old.

PEOPLE senior editor Christine Pelisek covered the Grim Sleeper case extensively and is the author of the book. The Grim Sleeper: The Lost Women of South Central. She is interviewed extensively on the A&E special, alongside survivor Washington and the victims’ families.

Unsolved Cases: The Grim Sleeper premieres Friday, November 8 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.