May 12, 2016
City News Service
A 22-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing a 2-year-old girl and wounding her pregnant mother — his live-in girlfriend — in the Jefferson Park area was charged on May 6 with murder and two counts of attempted murder.
Lataz Gray appeared in court in downtown Los Angeles, but his arraignment was postponed until May 19. His bail was set at $4.5 million.
According to police, Gray attacked the woman and girl with a knife during a domestic dispute around 9:50 p.m. Monday in the 3500 block of Arlington Avenue. The girl, identified as Maliaya Tademy, died at a hospital, but her mother survived the attack.
The woman was believed to be about five months pregnant.
Police said Gray was not the toddler’s father.
“A 2-year-old innocent victim, stabbed multiple times ... this was one of the most vicious incidents that I have seen and been part of in my 28 years in this police department,” LAPD Capt. Peter Whittingham said.
Phillip Gray told ABC7 that his son called him from a hospital, where he was being treated for cuts to his hand, and he told his son to turn himself in.
“Well, I had to, before they kill him,” Gray said. “I hooked him up on the line with the detective.”
Phillip Gray added that the crime was “a terrible thing, and I’m not feeling good about it at all.”
“(The woman) is a beautiful person, and it blew me out of the water for this to happen,” Gray said. “But like I said, I really don't know what happened.”
Lataz Gray faces up to life in prison if convicted, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
May 12, 2016
By Charlene Muhammad
Contributing Writer
A jury found Lonnie Franklin, Jr. guilty of killing 10 Black females and attempting to kill another, over a span of nearly three decades.
After 1-1/2 days of deliberating, the seven woman five man jury brought the packed courtroom to tears. A clerk read their verdicts. With each count, it seemed the heads of some victims’ families sunk lower and lower, their shoulders shaking more rapidly as they cried.
During a press conference outside, the families told reporters just how they have been scarred.
“It’s a big day today that the jury came in and rendered their verdict: guilty. It’s a great relief to have heard that … It’ just a relief … but as far as anything else, he took my daughter’s life along with the other lives that were taken with no feeling whatsoever,” said Porter Alexander, Jr.
His daughter, 18-year-old Alicia Alexander, was found in an alley under a blue foam mattress with a gunshot wound to the chest. That was on September 11, 1988.
Mr. Alexander said he would never understand how a human being could be so cold and uncaring. “He was the judge and executioner. He judged my daughter in the sense of what he felt and he took her life. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth,” he said.
Irene Ephriam was in her 20s when her 34-year-old aunt Henrietta Wright’s body was discovered on Aug. 12, 1986. She recalled having to identify her aunt’s body.
“It’s closure. It’s been 30 years, and we needed this. It hurt our family to lose her. It kind of destroyed us. She had five kids,” she said. She also said she will pray for Mr. Franklin.
“I forgive him, but he didn’t give them a chance to do that,” she continued.
After all these years, she said she never gave up hope, especially given today’s advanced science and technology.
Mr. Franklin’s victims also included:
• Debra Jackson, 29, body discovered on Aug. 10, 1985;
• Barbara Ware, 23, body discovered on Jan. 10, 1987;
• Bernita Sparks, 26, body discovered on April 16, 1987;
• Mary Lowe, 26, body discovered on Nov. 1, 1987;
• Lachrica Jefferson, 22, body discovered on Jan. 30, 1988;
• Princess Berthomieux, 15, body discovered on March 9, 2002;
• Valerie McCorvey, 35, body discovered on July 11, 2003; and
• Janecia Peters, 25, discovered shot to death on Jan. 1, 2007.
The jury also found the former city sanitation worker guilty of the attempted, willful, deliberate and premeditated murder of the sole surviving victim, Enietra Washington. She was 30 when she was shot and thrown from Franklin’s car after accepting a ride on Nov. 19, 1988, she testified during the three-month trial.
Jurors return on May 12 to decide how Mr. Franklin should be punished. Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman of the Major Crimes Division and Deputy District Attorney Marguerite Rizzo of the Forensic Science section are prosecuting the case and seeking the death penalty.
Meanwhile, the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, founded by local activist Margaret Prescod, vowed to stay vigilant to see to it all of the women believed victimized by Mr. Franklin or whomever are brought to justice.
“As we move forward from this place and go on to the next phase of things, we know that this is one stage of justice,” Ms. Prescod stated.
She underscored the very conditions exist in South L.A. that existed when the beloved sisters were murdered. “We are recommitting ourselves today to continue that fight for justice for the 35 women in the photos that were found in Lonnie Franklin’s home that remain unaccounted for. We want justice for them as well,” said Ms. Prescod.
May 05, 2016
By BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press
Closing arguments in the trial of the man charged in the "Grim Sleeper" serial killings lurched from a whodunit crime thriller Tuesday to science fiction as attorneys sparred over evidence.
Defense lawyer Seymour Amster revealed for the first time in the long-running trial that a "mystery man," an unnamed nephew of defendant Lonnie Franklin Jr., was the real killer.
"Each and every murder in this case could have been done by a mystery man with a mystery gun with mystery DNA," Amster said.
Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman shot back during her rebuttal that Amster had concocted an imaginary scenario at the last minute in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt.
"The theory of the defense is basically the equivalent of the skies opening up, a space ship descending and murdering all these women," Silverman said as members in the audience snickered.
The lawyers wrapped up two days of closing arguments in Los Angeles Superior Court after months of testimony in the case that spans more than three decades. Jurors are to begin deliberations Wednesday.
Franklin, 63, a former garbage man and mechanic for the Los Angeles Police Department, could face the death penalty if convicted of the slayings of a 15-year-old girl and nine young women. He has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder.
The killings spanning from 1985 to 2007 were dubbed the work of the "Grim Sleeper" after an apparent 14-year gap in the violence after 1988, when one victim survived a gunshot and escaped.
Much of the killing occurred during the crack cocaine epidemic and the killer preyed mostly on young black women, some of whom worked as prostitutes.
Several other serial killers were active at the time in South Los Angeles and community members criticized police for not aggressively investigating the slayings because the victims were black and poor.
Margaret Prescod, who founded the group Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders, said she and other women weren't taken seriously when they confronted police in 1985.
"Why are you concerned about it? He's just killing hookers?" Prescod said she was told.
Police and prosecutors believe that the killer had more victims and may not have paused during the apparent hiatus. Photos of nearly 200 women were discovered in Franklin's house after his arrest and some of the women in those photos have never been found.
Photos of Janecia Peters, killed in 2007 and the final slaying in the case, and Enietra Washington, the only known survivor, were among the trove of snapshots.
Washington's testimony provided the blueprint of how Franklin preyed on women, Silverman said. He lured her into his car, shot her in the chest, sexually assaulted her and then dumped her from the vehicle, Silverman said.
The bullet removed from Washington came from the same gun used to shoot or kill seven previous victims, most of whom had Franklin's DNA on them, Silverman said.
But Amster said that the case collapsed on Washington's testimony because of inconsistencies in her statements to police.
Washington described an assailant who was younger than Franklin and pock marked, Amster said.
Amster then introduced the new theme of the defense. He said the real killer had access to Franklin's Ford Pinto and had told Washington he was stopping at an "uncle's house" — believed to be Franklin's — to get money while she waited in the car.
"It was not Mr. Franklin," he said. "It was the nephew, this mystery man."
Silverman said Amster had distorted the evidence and that Washington's descriptions of Franklin were always consistent.
Washington identified a photo of Franklin and she pointed him out in court. She said she was 100 percent sure he was the man who shot her and left her for dead.
Amster said prosecutors had built a circumstantial case using inferior science that found the DNA of unknown men on the victims.
But Silverman said Amster had twisted the evidence so the expert testimony favored his case when it was convenient and that ballistics evidence or DNA connected Franklin to each victim.
"If there is some mystery man out there, how come we didn't pick up his DNA on victim after victim?" she said.
May 05, 2016
By Danny J. Bakewell, Jr.
Executive Editor
A jury deliberated for over two weeks before returning with a guilty verdict on two men charged with fatally shooting Brotherhood Crusade Sports Founder Victor McClinton with an errant bullet intended for a rival gang member on Christmas Morning 2012.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Larry Darnell Bishop, and Jerron Donald Harris, guilty of first-degree murder in McClinton’s death.
It was the second trial for the two men. The original trial which occurred last year was declared a mistrial.
A special circumstances ruling that the crime was gang related and that the shots were part of a drive by shooting, was added to the murder in the first conviction. Harris was convicted of actually shooting McClinton though Bishop was found guilty of also firing a gun.
The two men were also found guilty of one count of attempted murder. The special circumstances made both men potentially eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors did not seek capital punishment. They are expected to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sentencing is scheduled for July 15.
McClinton, a married father of two worked for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and founded the Brotherhood Community Youth Sports League in Pasadena. Thousands of family members attended a candle light vigil as well as his funeral in January of 2013 including then Sheriff Lee Baca who McClinton worked for. McClinton was walking a friend on Christmas morning to his car when the shooting occurred.
“This is not a day to celebrate this is a tragedy on all counts,” said Danny J. Bakewell, Sr. Chairman of Brotherhood Crusade and Executive Publisher of The Los Angeles Sentinel.
“Three families have been devastated by this senseless crime. The McClinton’s Family without a doubt has been devastated, but the Harris and the Bishop’s families have been destroyed as well. I am just glad that this trial has come to an end so that (McClinton’s wife) Shelly and her boys can move forward as best they can and turn the page on this horrific event.
Victor built the Brotherhood Sports League and dedicated his life to providing young people with an alternative to this kind of lifestyle and it is terrible that his life was taken at such an early age from the very lifestyle he was trying to give young people an alternative to.”
McClinton was struck by a stray bullet when Harris and Bishop spotted and opened fire on, a rival gang member. He succumbed to his wounds at Huntington Memorial Hospital later in the day.