Grim Sleeper: LAPD Unidentified Women Photographic File

When Los Angeles Police Department detectives arrested 57-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr. on July 7, 2010, at his South Los Angeles home on 81st Street, a forensic search of his residence uncovered an extraordinary and chilling repository. Concealed inside walls, garage compartments, and old refrigerator units were over 1,000 photographs and hundreds of hours of video footage depicting women in various states of dress, unconsciousness, or distress. While Franklin was ultimately convicted of ten murders and one attempted murder, roughly thirty-five women from his photographic collection remain completely unidentified.

The Photographic Evidence & The LAPD Public Appeal

Franklin operated as a predatory serial killer in South Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007, targeting vulnerable African American women along the Western Avenue and Manchester Boulevard corridors. His moniker, the "Grim Sleeper," stemmed from an apparent fourteen-year hiatus between 1988 and 2002—a gap that law enforcement now strongly believes was populated by additional unrecorded homicides.

In December 2010, the LAPD took the unprecedented step of publishing 180 photographs of unidentified women found in Franklin's home, pleading with the public to help identify them. Over the subsequent decade, aggressive community outreach resolved dozens of images, confirming many women were alive. However, approximately thirty-five women remain unidentified, leaving detectives with the agonizing possibility that several are victims whose remains have never been found.