Thinking Sideways BONUS: Christine Pelisek interview

As you know from yesterday's episode about the Daytona Beach serial killer, we got a chance to speak with reporter Christine Palisac about Lonnie Franklin Jr. A k a. The Grim Sleeper, and Christine recently published her book The Grim Sleeper The Lost Women of South Central which sells the story of serial killer Lonnie David Franklin, Jr. Who killed believe it's believed between thirteen to plus women between the

years of and two thousand seven. The book is available at most e book and brick and mortar book retailers, and if you want, you can go to Christine's website Christine palisc dot com at c h R I S T I N E P E L I s e K dot com. You're read an overview of the book, and she's also got a direct link on there to Amazon if you want to purchase it yourself. It's a great read. I enjoyed it and I'd recommend that you

pick up a copy. But any who, As usual, we like to share these interviews with you typically, since so much of the conversation doesn't make it into the episode. One quick thing. Bear in mind that we talked over Skype, so you may hear some odd bits of audio from time to time. We've corrected as much as we could, but we hope you enjoy hearing the conversation with Christine as much as we enjoyed having it. Let's roll that interview if you don't mind, can you introduce yourself to

all of our listeners. Sure, my name is Christine Palasac. I'm a senior writer with People Magazine, and I'm the author of The Grim Sleeper And just you know, in in as much detailer as little detail as you want, can you kind of give us an overview of the Grim Sleeper case. Sure. The Grim Sleeper case pretty much started in in the nineteen eighties and South Los Angeles. Um. He was a serial killer active. He started in ninety

five and he killed seven women from and Uh. He had a survivor who survived in November, and then he possibly took a thirteen and a half year break and then resumed killing again in two thousand two, and then two thousand three and two thousand seven, and he was finally caught in two thousand and ten through familial DNA testing, and he was uh the longest operating serial killer west of the mississipp be He was one of the most prolific serial killers in Los Angeles history. His His main

targets were poor, young black women. Most of them had drug addictions, UM, a few of them had prostitution arrests. Um. He shot them in the chest with the caliber. The bulk of his victims and his later victims, he strangled a few of them. And the women you know, basically ranged an age from fifteen to thirty five. One of the things I was I'm kind of curious about and I Steve gave me a copy of your book to read, and I haven't been able to start it yet, but I did read some of your articles in l A

Weekly about him. Now I just lost my question. Well, yeah, but did he ever confess to any of these things? Did he ever own up to it? And did he ever confess to any others outside the eleven killings that he did? I think it doesn't sound like you. No, No, he never confessed, not even to the ones that he

was convicted for. No, No, not at all, he didn't, and I know that some of you know, the police actually listened to his conversations he had with some family members and you know, he denied having, you know, anything to do with the crime. Times. You know, he denied that he made excuse. They found a lot of photos in his home. After he was arrested, they went and they did a three day search. Well actually they found

more than that. They found. They found like dozens and dozens of videotape as well as photos, and they actually weaned them down because some of them were duplicates, so they weaned it down to a hundred and eighty. But

they found like, you know, way more photos. And so when they did the search in his house, um, you know, family members and friends you know, asked him, like what about these photos, and he basically said that because he was a car mechanic, he led, he said, he told them that basically the photos were left you know, in cars, and he just happened to have them. And that's why, like he didn't admit that he was taking photos, even though he definitely had a bunch of cameras and things

like that. So now he didn't admit anything, I mean, all he admitted to his friends was that he's a philanderer. I mean, he admitted that he had a lot of girl friends. He bragged about having numerous girl friends. I mean, he was married at the time when he was caught. He had been married for thirty two years. He was a grandfather, and but he told some of his friends that, you know, he had a number of girl friends over

the years. And then he also picked up girls on the streets, and you know, he had nicknames for them and stuff like that. So he was he was quite a bragger when it came to, you know, his love life. Besides you know, the murders. Of course, he didn't talk about those. What what drew you to this case? I mean, and what and at what point did you kind of decide to really invest as much time and energy into it as you did. I mean, I personally would have

a really hard time with the case like this. Well, I mean it just kind of fell in my lap really. I mean I found out about it through the corner's office. I used to go over to the corners office all the time, and I talked to the corner there and asked him, uh, you know, if there was any cases over the weekend, you know that I should write about.

And one of the times I was over there, he basically said that the Corner's Office had started the Serial Killer Task Force to look into these body dumps, which were you know, basically women that were found dead around South Los Angeles and all actually all over l A County. And some of the women were found in parks, some of them in you know, field some of them in

alley ways, some of them in garbage dumpsters. And they found thirty eight women in between two thousand two and two thousand six, and so the Coroner's office decided to look into it to see if there was any you know, links if there was a serial killer, and I mean they tried talking to the police, and a lot of the police were just say, mind your own business. You're the corner you know, you don't need to worry about

you know, homicides things like that. And so he actually told me how they were looking into this, and so I asked him, you know, how it was going, and he said that, you know, they were overwhelmed by so many a case bees. I mean, at the Corners Office, they have like, you know, ten to thirty cases a day, you know, so they were all the investigators were really busy and they didn't have time to look into these cases. And so I kept bothering them about it, just asking.

I'm like, what's the progress, you know, if you found anything, and he said, you know, they really hadn't been able to start looking at it. And so I was like, let me look at it, you know, let me, I'll look you know, look into it. And he was like no. And but finally, after a few months, he actually gave

me the list of thirty eight women. And so at that point, you know, I didn't know anything, and you know, so I just started calling all the law enforcement agencies because the women were found all over l A County. So there was like Downey Police, you know, l A p D. L A County law enforcement agencies that had some of these cases. And so I started calling them all to see if there was any connection, if they thought there was any connection, if any of the cases

had been solved. And I mean in some of the cases, I mean, they had a case where a woman was found burned to death in a car and it turned out that she was with a john and she had died of an overdose and he didn't want to take her to the hospital or anything. So he actually started the car on fire and tried to burn her because he was hoping that his DNA wouldn't be left on her, you know. So yeah, no, And so there was other case.

Actually a couple of the cases were like natural causes and you know, things like that, and some of them were you know, the boyfriend killed the woman, you know sort of thing. But as I was going along, I got to the thirty seventh case, and it was Princess Birth of Mew and she was a fifteen year old runaway from Inglewood, which is kind of next to Los

Angeles in l A County. And uh, I ended up finally talking to the Englewood detective that was working on the case, and he told me that her case, which was in two thousand and two, was linked to a case in two thousand and three and that was an l A. P D case, and those two cases were linked to a series of twenty five caliber murderers back in the eighties. And so he was the one who actually told me about this link, and then I found it.

I ended up writing a story about it. But you know, like the police basically didn't tell anyone in the community, like no one knew, like none of the family members knew. I mean I was sort of the first one. Well, I was the first one to tell some of the family members that their daughters had been killed by a

serial killer. And so I ended up just I kept looking into it, and then basically about a year later, um, I found out that the killer had struck again in two thousand and seven, and at that point the L A. P. D Um decided to like admit, you know, that there was a serial killer out there, and then they ended up they had a task force going and the city council put a five thousand dollar reward looking for information.

And I don't know, I mean, I was just it was something that I fascinated with and I was hoping that they would, you know, catch the guy. And I mean one of the victims, her and I would drive around the neighborhoods together, you know, trying to find the house because there was one survivor. And he picked her up at a liquor store and then told older she was going to a party. He said he was going a driver to the party, but instead he stopped at

He said it was his uncle's house. But the police believe he went into the house, got a gun, went out and shot her about two minutes later, and she

actually was able to back. She took the detectives back to this house, which was owned by a guy named Othis White, and it turned out that it was three doors down from where Lonnie Franklin, the killer lived, And so her and I on a number of occasions, like drove around the streets looking for the houses, you know, the house, and so, you know, on a number of occasions we did that and she was like, there's definitely

it was a side door and it was white. And you know, there's like a zillion houses set you know, have an entrance to the side and that are white. So, you know, we went around and we did some interviewing together as well as I tried to find out my own stuff. And I got a lot of people contacting me, like psychics, and I had a few people that believed that their friend or their husband were the killer, and I ended up getting like DNA from them to take it to the you know, to take to the police.

So it was kind of crazy at times. Yeah. Now, now the victim that you were just talking about, that's miss Washington, correct Washington. Yeah, yeah, okay, she's she was the the sole survivor. And that was what year was that that attempt made? That was the eighties, right, it was it was novemb okay, you know, So that that does lead us into another question. You know, she's the

only surviving witness. But what I've always wondered about when I was reading about Lonnie, and of course then you know the other serial killer cases is and this is just your opinion, it's really what I'm after here, but how is it that nobody saw him? Like, there was no witnesses to what he was doing? Well? Um, and it ended up that, I mean, he had his trial last year, already got convicted, and during the death penalty, another woman came forward and said that she was also

a victim of his. So there's actually possibly two survivors. And she actually said that she was um at a bus stop and it was about ten o'clock because a lot of the victims, like a ny Tria, it was late at night. With this woman, Laura More, it was

late at night. She was at a bus stop. He drives up, you know, he drove up to both of them and just said, hey, you know, could I give you a ride and be Tria actually talked to him for a few minutes before she got into the car, and Laura Moore actually turned him down, and he just kept going around and going around until finally she got in the car with them, and then he takes them right to an alley. And I mean a lot of the victims, you know, were picked up late at night,

and I think that's why there wasn't any witnesses. I mean, there was one witness, alleged witness actually for the Bernida Sparks. She was one of the victims. And one woman said she thought that she saw BERNIEA. Sparks that night getting into the car with somebody, but you know, a lot of them was I think the only reason. I think a lot of it was that it was late at night and there wasn't a lot of people out on

the street. Eat. I think that's why. And I mean he and also too, I mean, he knew what he was doing, so you know, he's going to be stealthy, right, He's not going to do it when there's a hundred people around. You know, He's going to make sure it's

late at night. And I mean when the police were following him around, you know, after they got the familiar DNA from the sun the match with the Sun. They followed him around and he left his home one night at like three o'clock in the morning, and he went to forty second and Western, which was like kind of a popular prostitution hanging out and there was two girls standing on the street and it was really secluded in the detectives there was this undercover cop following him, and

he made a point to say to the detectives, He's like, I'm afraid that he's going to find out that I'm following him because there was like literally no one on the street. So he picks times when there's not a lot of people around, you know, that's why I think there's no witnesses. And then he brings them to alley ways and not a lot of people hanging out in the alleyways at four o'clock in the morning. Do you think their line of work had something to do with

the lack of witnesses as well? That may be. You know, people that were around were other other you know, women who were prostitutes or whatever, and weren't paying so much attention to the fact that you might just get in a car with a John Well, I think it was. I mean, some of the girls definitely had prostitution records, but I mean some of them, like I mean Deborah Jackson, she was gay and she was just taking a bus, you know, to her home, like where she was living.

So how he came across her, It's it's hard to say. I mean, Laura Moore was picked up at a bus stop, you know, in Natria, was at a liquor store, you know. So it's hard to say whether any of the girls were like on a stroll because a lot of the girls, like you have to remember back then it was like the crack cocaine era, and so there weren't a lot of the girls weren't like technically prostitutes. Like they walk up,

you know, down the streets. Some guy would pull up and he'd be like, hey, do you want to smoke some crack? And you know, the girls were so dope, doped up, They're like sure, and they just jumped in the car and they need to drive off. It wasn't like standing on a owner with ten girls, you know what I mean, Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So so so it appears and he did actually probably put some of them in by offering them drugs instead of cash. Oh for sure. I mean yeah, I think he definitely

did that. And I mean he, you know, according to what the police told me, I mean, he didn't smoke, and he really didn't drink very much himself, but he knew that, you know, he could lure girls in with drugs. So I think that that's exactly what he was doing. I mean I know that he was also you know, paying some girls, because there was a videotape that the prosecutor show during his trial, and he video taped this girl and she didn't It looked like she had no

idea he was videotaping her. And she kind of comes out of this bathroom and she's got a T shirt on, the jeans, and then she takes her jeans off, and you know, he's taking he tells her to take her top off, so she takes her top off and he's taking you know, he's taking photos of her, and then they do like a sex act and then he sort of just put some money on this table, just really like non slantly, just put some money on the table, and then she just sort of while she's talking to him,

sort of reaches her hand up, grabs the money, puts in her pocket. They talked for a few minutes and then he turns off the video when she goes into the bathroom and then that's that. So yeah, he was definitely paying some of the women. So he didn't videotape himself committing any of the murders? Did he? Now they can find They didn't find, but they found so most

of the videos. Actually he wasn't in the videos. It was mostly women in the videos like doing you know, dancing for him or touching themselves or whatever the scenario was, and you could see his hand. But they only had like one or two videos where he actually was in it. So he was pretty he was smart. Where thee Where were the most of the women in the videos? Were they his victims? Or were they women who turned out to be found alive and well, well some of them

like they did. They never identified the bulk of them, but they did find photos of They found a photo of Nittzure Washington, who was a survivor. They found a photo of Geneva Peters, who was his victim in January first, two thousand seven, the last known victim. And they also found the I d like a driver's license in a student identification of two women that went missing in two thousand five, I La Marshall and Rolina Morris. Both women

went missing right near them. They were known to hang hang out around Franklin's house on around eighty one and Western, and they found their identification tucked in an envelope along with Genesia Peters photo in this mini fridge in his garage, But none of the video was of any of the women that were confirmed his victims. Is that correct? That's right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, so um so. I one of the questions I wanted to ask you, and this relates to

both Lonnie and the Daytona Beach serial killer. Is there hunting grounds is the term I'm going to use? And how far they roam from essentially their home base? Because not very far? Well Lonnie, Yeah, he didn't seem to go very far afield, which feels weird to me. I mean, he like like a mile or three? Is that about how far he roamed? I think the far farthest victim was about five miles away. But yeah, no, he he operated. He hunted in his own backyard, and that's like most

serial killers do that. I mean they had back in the eighties and South Los Angeles there was um, you know, six serial killers operating at the same time, and they were able to identify all of them actually, and all of them lived in South Los Angeles. I mean, Chester Turner was one of the serial killers, and he hunted like literally within two blocks of where his mud where he lived with his mother. You know, they like familiar territory, you know, they don't want to be surprised. They want

to know. Lonnie was a garbage man and he knew the alleyways like he knew the dumpsters of South Los Angeles because that's where he worked, right, So they want to have they want to feel comfortable. So that's why most serial killers actually operate, you know, in the same area where they dumped their bodies. I was always kind of wondering too if if one of the reasons they do it is they're just trying to clean up the neighborhood.

What I'm saying, I mean, I don't mean that, I don't mean that in a harsh judgmental way, but I mean, you know, seriously, is that possibly a motivator for some of these guys that they're they don't really approve of that activity, and they'd like to see it sort of discouraged. Well,

I mean obviously that was the case for Lonnie. I mean he considered I mean, it's obvious he considered the women brash, right, and so he dumped their bodies and trapped you know, so he considered them trash, you know. And his wife was there, yeah, and dumpsters, and his wife was very religious, so he maybe there was something for him. He you know, I think he had this like compulsion, you know. I think that he couldn't control himself. I mean, he had there was he was always after women.

You know, he was like addicted to women. And I think that in his case, I think that, you know, you also had this deep seated hatred and you know where it came from. It's hard to say, because it seemed like he had a good relationship with his mother and his sister, you know, so it's hard to say exactly why how he ended up, you know, hating women so much, But you know, I think that's what he thought. I think he thought he was cleaning the streets. Yeah

that's crazy. Okay, So let's back up a little bit, because I realized we haven't asked this question yet. Um, where did the name the grim Sleeper come from? Um? My editor and I made it up. Oh good one score. Now, well she was when we I mean when she um when I told her about the story. We're writing the story, and she actually she was like, you know, we have to name him. And I didn't want to name him.

Actually I was like, no, I don't think that's right to do that, and she said, yes, I think you know, you should and everything like that. We just sided that it was a good idea just because you know, a lot of the serial killers out there, like Son of Sam and all these guys Zodiac. I mean I think that they're known because they were nicknamed, right, so everyone

knows about them. And I wanted in this case. I didn't want this case to go away, you know, like all of sudden you get media attention and then the next day no one, nobody cares. And so our hope was that by nicknaming him, people would remember the name and they couldn't forget about the case. And so her and I started, you know, trying to go through different names, and she was like, Ripper van Winkle was one of the ones she was unaware night no, no, no, no,

as I was. And then I was like, what about grim Sleeper because of the break in the case. She was like yes, I'm like no, no, no, no, I was kidding. I hate that name. And she's like, no, no, we're calling him that's too bad. Bad? Exactly was it? I can't tell what you're done talking when you just dropped out because of the because the skype, hopefully you're hopefully you're done. I was gonna say, you should have named in the Tooth Fairy after the serial killer in

Red Dragon. I don't know if you ever read that book or not, No, but I heard about him. Actually yeah, yeah, but the tooth Fairy. What was great about that? As they called him the tooth Fairy and it really made the killer angry and then he sort of uh contacted the reporter, uh well in a kind of brewal way. So it's probably good that you didn't. Probably really what we're getting at um? So with Lonnie no um. Lonnie

took what was it a fourteen year break? Is that correct? Well, I mean at first they thought it was a thirteen and a half year break, but then they lived. They found a victim in two thousands, so it was it was it was ten years now as opposed to like thirteen and a half, it might keep narrowing to I was. So that was my question is you know, we hear about stories like Lonnie where somebody is supposedly taken a break.

Do you think that he actually took a break or do you think that it just happened to be that we haven't been able to draw the links from found victims to him. Are victims that weren't found that would be my guess. Well, the detectives definitely don't think that

he took a break. Um. They think that because two of the victims, Bernita Sparks and Genesia Peters, were found in dumpsters by you know, homeless people looking for like recyclables and stuff like that, and so um, there was a good chance that they would have ended up in a landfill. So the detectives think that a lot of his victims ended up in landfills because they think like, he's known to have killed fifteen women, but they think

it's probably closer to thirty. And that's some of the women you know are in landfill, you know landfills right now. So I don't know, like I think that. I mean, I know that there was a case in two thousand, so I mean his last known victim was in and then there was a case in two thousand. During the nineties, it was also a time when his kids would have been teenagers, you know, so you know who knows. I mean, you know, maybe they were like, Dad, what are you

doing leaving? The was at three o'clock in the morning, Like where are you going? Like I don't, you know, I don't know if there was something going on in his family life that you know, stopped him from doing it, because you know, like with for example, like Gary Ridgeway, the Green River killer, I mean, he would stop at times too, you know, when he was happy in his relationships, So I think sometimes he's like serial kill as they

might stop if they're happy in their relationships. Like maybe you know, Lonnie was happy and you know with a girl he was dating. You know, who knows, But the cops don't don't actually think that he did. But you know, it's hard to tell, so I don't I'm not really sure, but he did, you know, he was definitely, I mean, there was a flurry right from then, all of a

sudden there's not a lot going. But then again, in nine eight eight, they had a suspect, a sheriff deputy deputy named Ricky Ross, So maybe he decided to lay low because they were focused on this, you know, deputy. He's probably it's hard to say, probably hoping the deputy would like take the fall for you know, and that

never wind up happening. Well, the deputy actually got arrested and charged with them like these three unrelated murders, but the detectives actually thought that he was responsible for the caliber murders because he admitted that he owned a twenty

five caliber gun. But it ended up that the ballistics didn't match with this gun that they found in his car and the bullets that were pulled out of these three prostitutes that were killed around the same time and Netria was attacked, so they ended up dropping the case.

But the detectives actually believed up until I talked to one of the detectives back in two thousand six, and he still believed it was Ricky Ross who was the deputy, you know, So I think that you know, Lonnie, for a while, they're probably thought that, you know, they were focused on somebody else, so he was gonna lay low and now Lonnie. Lonnie would eventually get caught because of familiar DNA. But did they ever find his gun, that that twenty five caliber that he was using on all

these girls. I don't remember seeing anything that I've ever actually got found. Well, they didn't find the gun that he used um for the victims from up to eight. But when they searched his home, they found the gun that was used to kill Genesia Peters, the two thousand seven victim, and that gun was also used they found After like they arrested him and charged him with the ten murders, they ended up finding out that he was

also responsible for this murder. Found out they found the gun and basically traced to Sharon Dismuke the bullet that was pulled out of her. So the gun that they found in one of the Genesia Peters. So they did find one of the guns, and they found a receipt for the gun they think was used to kill the other victims in the eighties, but they never found that gun.

Okay Okay. Now, Also when I was doing the reading, I know that there's there's a lot of controversy around the use of familiar DNA and what what is what is the uproar about that? I personally don't get it. Well. I think that you know, a lot like a c l U and you know, civil liberty be organized nations

and civil rights organizations. You know, they believe it's an invasion of privacy and they think that it unfairly targets minorities, you know, because there's more minorities like African American, Hispanics, et cetera, in prison, So they're saying that in fairly targets that population. Like England did a study many years ago and they found that like if you're for the familiar DNA because as you know, like Lonnie, they had his DNA, but Lonnie had never gone to prison, so

he had never been swabbed. So that's why they didn't know who he was. But they knew he was matched to the victims in the eighties and the victims in the tooth and the two thousand's because of they found saliva on many of the women's breasts and so they knew he was, you know, there was one killer, but because he wasn't in any felon data bank, they couldn't find him. So that's why they decided to use that

familiar DNA. And it was the first time actually in California, actually in the US, that they used familiar d in testing to find a serial killer. And they checked it in two thousand and eight. And how it goes with the familiar DNA, I mean, they had been UM England had been using it for many years. And basically they said that if you're a felon, there's at chance that you're going to have like a male relative, like a cousin and uncle, a brother, a father who's a felon.

So if you're not in the data bank, there's a chance that you're gonna have a relative who's in the data bank and so and so that's why they did it in two thousand eight and it came back nothing. And then they did it two years later and the felone data bank had grown four hundred thousand, and so

they did it again. And Lonnie's son Christopher had been charged with UM carrying a weapon and he pled guilty and as a result of his plea, he got swabbed and that was in two thousand nine, so he was in the system for she's just like close to a year you know, before they did that second d in a swab and it came back as a match to him, but he was They knew it wasn't him because he would have been about two years old when the murder started, so they knew he right, So they knew he had

to be you know, he They knew he was related to the killer, and so they actually looked for any relative and there was an uncle, well, they thought there was an uncle in Rancho Cucamonga, but they ended up checking checking it out and finding that there was no relation. And then they found out that his father, Lonnie, lived like on eight one and Western, which was like at the epicenter of where all the murders took place. And so that's why they ended up you know, following you know, Lonnie.

And after three days they got his DNA off a pizza slice. He went with his girlfriend to a pizza parlor and yeah, I read about that one of the articles. Yeah, I'm the LAPD cop. Impersonated waiter or something like that bus boy and went around and had like a bus band and half the stuff was Lonnie's and the other half was you know, just people at the table and it was like a kiddie's birthday party for kids, and

kids are running around eating pizza. So the cop you know, just went and grabbed his dishes and they ended up they grabbed he had a plate with a piece of cake on it, and they ended up they were able to get the swab from a hardened piece of cheese from the pizza. Um, So did I hear you correctly? Um? Prefer to some psychics they were involved in this case. Well, I had when when the story broke into do I

did another store? I did one in two thousand and six, and I did one in two thousand and eight, and that's when we nicknamed him the Grim Sleeper. So I ended up getting a lot of calls from people, and I want you know a few of them I got were from psychics. And one of them was this woman who believe that, you know, she knew who the killer was and he was killing women. He was a really good looking guy, and she said he was like a cross between what was his name? That what's his name?

The tennis not the tennis player, you know. She said he was a cross between tiger Woods and I forget somebody. I forget who the other person was. She said he was a cross between and she said that, you know, he was a lawyer. His no, his wife didn't know I know. And I'm gonna have to look through my book to see what I what I wrote. For some reason, I can't remember. But yeah, so you know, I had

a few people that did that. I had this one woman who contacted me and said that, you know, her house, she believed that her husband was a killer, but she didn't really have any good reason. Yeah, I think she just she just felt he was shady. Wasn't it something like that? Well, I mean, she just it was more like this gut feeling, she said. And she was like,

I just want to make sure. And I said, well, just you know, touch to the police, and she's like no, when she was afraid that the police would basically, you know, like target him and whatever. And so she was like, if I get d N A, will you give it to the cops or test it. I'm like, well, we don't test DNA at the only weekly And I said, but I guess, And I said, I guess we could.

I could give it to the police. And I just thought, you know, I was getting a lot of calls like you end up and I talked to so many people who I thought they were like, oh my god, it's so and so, and you're completely convinced. You're like, oh

my god, it's got to be this person. And then all of a sudden, the next thing out of their mouth mouth is that, you know, the FBI is tapping their phone and the CIA is knocking on their door, and you're like, oh my god, said you had me for you know, so this woman, I didn't think i'd get a call back. And then and she called called me back and she was like, can we, you know,

meet up? You know I have his you know d n A. And so I ended up meeting up with her and she told me she passed me it was like a not a like a Jason Bourne thing, and she's I met her on a bench near work and she sat down next to me and passed me in this bag and in there she was like, it's a cop and inside there's like the napkin. And she said it was a napkin and she said it were Simon

on it. And I was like, oh my god. I thought it was supposed to be like a saliva sample and she's like no. I was like, oh no, And So I ended up calling the detective who was the main detective on the case, and I said, this is what I have, and all of a sudden there was a complete silence on the line and I'm like, one of my it was like a hundred degrees in l A. And I'm like, what do you want me to do? Can I drop it off? He's like, I'm out of town.

He's like, put it in your fridge. I'll and I'll you know, to the l A. P D the next morning or whatever. I'm like, put in my fridge. He's like, yeah, I put it next year like veggies. And I'm like, oh my god. So I ended up putting it in the US. Was it at least like sealed at the ziplock bag? I hope? So it didn't stick up the

your fridge. No, there wasn't any ziplock bag. Um. One of the things that I so I was wondering about is I noticed a lot of the girls, at least in the neighborhoods in the writing, they're referred to as strawberries. What is that and where exactly does that come from? Do you know, well, I know, like I know that it was a police term term used in the eighties and it was basically women, you know, who exchanged sex

for drugs. But I don't know why how they got strawberry out of it, Like I just know that's what the term means, but I don't know why, Like who came up with strawberry? Okay, I was just curious if it just it struck me as a bit strange. Yeah, So let's talk a little bit about the task force that was formed in the two thousands that eventually would help catch Lonnie. Normally, task force are created by police departments and they stir up a lot of dust and

then nothing seems to really come from it. Why was this particular task force, the eight hundred task force, you think so successful at what what they did? Well? I think they were success. I mean, at the end of the day, they were success. I mean the detective who is the supervisor in the case, he told me from the very beginning that the case was going to be solved through DNA. I these guys bent over backwards. You know, there was like seven or eight you know, task force members,

and they bent over backwards. I mean they went through the murder books again. You know, they literally followed hundreds of people are you know, around like witnesses from the eighties, and you know, they were getting like hundreds of calls themselves, like thousands of calls, and they were following people around like obtaining you know, DNA swabs and things like that.

Like they actually went to Georgia. There was one um they thought that there was a minister that might be involved, and so they actually flew to Georgia and he was in a crypt and they actually opened up the crypt and got a DNA sample, you know, because they were it was mostly about getting d N a right, you know, because it's like this case was like trying you know, it's trying to find a needle in a haystack. I

mean how difficult. You know, it's a body dump left there, you know, back in the eighties and even two thousand to two thousand three, two thousand seven, I mean, no witnesses. You know, the bodies were dumped, They were killed somewhere else and dumped in the alley. I mean it was a miracle that they actually were able to find him and so soon too. I mean a lot of the case. Look at what happened with the Green River killer. It was like twenty something years before they finally caught him.

Same with B t K. I remember, yeah too. I was. I was around for living in the area, and a lot of people were very angry after all those years and they still hadn't caught the guy. And it's just like you said, though you're looking for a needle in a haystack, it's expecting a lot, really, and it's really lucky that guy's kid got busted the year before they

were nabbed him. Well, I don't think they ever if if it wasn't for that familiar DNA and that his son, I said, I don't think they ever would have caught I think it was just too difficult, you know, it was just it was just too hard. They were really they were really lucky. I think they were pretty shocked themselves. Yeah, I'm sure that that was, you know, somebody delivering the

golden goose. Well, and all these guys, a lot of them were retiring, so this was like their last big case, right, So this was kind of, uh, the big case of their career, and to be able to solve it, you know, it was just what a great way to retire, right on that note, That's pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely, so you knew these guys. Did they have a big party when the whole thing was over. Um, well, they probably did, but they didn't invite me. Yeah. Now, I actually I

did go to Uh I did you know? At first my relationship with them, it wasn't very good. But I think as the time went by, you know, like I've called them up and you know, give them you know, this person called me, did you check them out? And they'd be like, yeah, yeah, we already checked that person out or whatever. So I, you know, and they'd have you know, no police press conferences all the time, and I'd go there and you know, talk to them. So

I think they'd begrudgingly, we're okay with me. And then so when they retired, I was invited to um two of the two of the detectives retirement party. So I thought that was pretty good. And I'm still in contact with a couple of the detectives. Still nice. That very cool. Yeah, UM asked any other questions? Uh, so, well, you're you're with people now, You're not in the l A beat so much anymore. So I'm just gonna ask, just by chance,

are you following any serial active serial killers right now? Well? Not. Well, I'm working on a case actually, um, well, not working out. But there's a guy, there's another serial killer, but he was he's in jail right now pending trial. And he was a serial killer who murdered one of m well, there was a girl that was dating actually Ashton Kutcher at the time, back in two thousand and one one. And he lived in Chicago and killed allegedly killed a young girl there and then moved to Los Angeles and

then killed three women here. And so he's sitting on in County jail waiting for his trial, which is probably gonna come in November. But I'm not There's a few cases, like the Long Island serial killer. That's one that I've done a lot of work on, you know, that one that's not in l A. I do a lot of l A cases, But I don't there's one, actually, there is one case, but it's not the case. It's um

this case called the Teardrop Rapist. And there's this rapist who had been raping women like Hispanic women, and he's also Hispanic himself, and he had been raping women since the eighties, almost as prolific as Lonnie Franklin. He's he well, he raped over fifty women from like the late eighties, and they still haven't caught him, and they've tried familiar DNA testing and everything, and he's still on the loose and his last victim was a couple of years ago.

He sorry, there was a pause there. We were all just kind of yeah, I don't like to think about that. I just keep hoping that that guy is going to run into somebody who's got a big old knife or a gun, honor. That would just end the whole thing that'd become of nice, that act. Well, he was just sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just gonna say, I've actually just recently read us an article I can't remember where this woman was, of some guy who met a woman

through some website and he came over. It was very obvious that he intended to to end her life, and she turned the tables on him, and you know, he's dead in the ground and they can't figure out. I can't remember who his name is now was I just read it the other day and they she took him out and they were like, oh, yeah, I know. He had shovels, he had stuff he was he was going to remove your body. It so it sometimes that happens, Joe, I know it says. It warms my heart to hear

about it too. What they call the hero Hooker or something like that. It was really the name Wasn't Wasn't. I heard about that case too. I think it was back east right maybe around Cleveland or somewhere. And the girl he came over to her house and he jumped here and she had I forget what she had, and she just beat him, you know, beat him to a pulp. And then they end up finding all this in the back of his trunk. He had all this, you know,

like ropes and all this other stuff. And then they they found out that he was responsible for like three or four other murders. Yeah, and they couldn't figure out how he was funding his cross country tour of killing because he just he was like a night security guard or something like that. I it's the details are pretty soft at this point in my brain, but that's pretty awesome. So ahead, And I was gonna say last question about California,

since you're still living there. My this is really off serial killers, but they're kind of been my serial killer Hall of Fame, which would be Leonard Lake and Charles NG and I know Charles in the last I heard is on death row in California? Is he's still on death row? They finally together because he was sentencing and last I heard, he's still alive. Do you know if they finally knocked him off or not? You know what, I'm not sure, but I believe he's still on death row.

A really sounds like a simple Google search. Joe, Oh yeah, I suppose that. Well. I I'm not near a computer right now except the one that we're using to talk to talk to her, so I can't really do it. I didn't occur to. He tells us, now, what's going on with Charles, saying, wonder if he's dead yet? Probably not. I don't think so. I don't think he is. Okay, Christine, you know we we've been remissing this so far, and I'll make sure that this is in the beginning of

the everything when we release. But I forgot to ask to make sure that we had given the full title of the name of your book, So can you share that with everybody real fast? Oh? Sure? It's The Grim Sleep for the Lost Women of South Central And is this your first book you've written? Others, Oh, it is okay, know, my first and probably the only book. Congratulations, that's a great accomplishment. I've been wanting to write a book for a long time now. I still haven't quite achieved it.

I haven't even written the first page. How was the experience. I just thought in this case, it was just if the detectives weren't going to write the story, or the prosecutors or you know, my members of you know, of

the victims, that they weren't going to do it. I just thought thought that I was the you know, since I had been you know, and I just and I kept you know, I had all my notes, and I knew everybody involved, so if anyone was going to write it, and and I just felt like I should, you know, And if I was ever going to write a book, I thought to myself, this is the book that I should write because this is the one I know so well. I know everybody involved, I know the case. That's why

I decided. I mean, the hurdles they came up, and the gaps and everything. I kept reading it. I I really, I will admit there was a couple of times I thought, maybe you took a little bit of artistic license. Until I figured out I was like, no, this only crap

is really happening. Well, I just think that like this case in particular, I just thought that it was a case that people should know about because I know, you know, there's a lot of cases out there that got a lot more attention, and I felt like there wasn't enough attention to this case and to the victims, and so I just really wanted to make people aware of, you know, who who the victims were, and you know, they mattered, their families mattered, you know, said to me, it was

like important for that to get out there because you know, as you know, you know, you guys do a lot of crime. There's a lot of stories that you never hear about, you know, and they're just as important as every other story, you know. So I just wanted this, you know, I wanted people to know who you know, Deborah was, and Henrietta and Bernida and Genetia, you know, all his victims. So absolutely that's why I did it. Well,

that's that's great, I mean we did. We tend to like the smaller, lesser known mysteries for that reason, because everybody could talk about Ted Bundy every day, but everybody really knows that story. Yeah, everybody talks about John Bone and we're like, we're not We're not going to do that. There's so many other more interesting cases that we could find, you know, and do more justice too. Yeah, and they

just never get the attention. So, you know, this guy was like the most prolific serial killer you know in like Los Angeles history, you know, and they should people should know about it. People should know about the victims and who they were, and you know what happened, and you know, and it's just it's just a really interesting story as well, you know, just from the very beginning. I mean, you know, him being in the military and

just you know, all the way through. So you know, I think it's you know, I just think it's a compelling tale that people should read well and and for everybody who wants to pick up a copy and and read the tale. Where are where can people find enemy? Is it an e book? Is it at certain retailers? Oh? Yeah, you could get it. It's a new release at Barnes and Noble. Um, you could get it at any bookstore pretty much. You can get it online and Amazon. You

could go to my website. Christine pelisak dot com and there's a linked to Amazon where you could you could get it on Amazon. Um, if you're in Canada, you could get it on Amazon dot c A or Indigo dot c A. I was just in Canada and I'm Canadian. That's what I'm saying that I was wondering if you like, you know, it sounds slightly Canadian. Yeah, you say a lot constantly, so yeah, I think you could pretty much

get it most places. Okay, well we are weird. We've decimated this question and list that I have in front of me was more than decimated. Yeah, we decimated. We would only have executed one out of ten. I have to keep reminding people about that. Um So, is there any any last bits that you'd like to to bring up for folks to know about the case or the book or anything like that before we wrap everything up. No, I don't think so, I think, I you know, I don't.

I can't recall anything else. I just think that people, I think. I just think it's an interesting story that people should everyone should you know, know all about it? We agree, Yeah, definitely, Well it is. It has been a lot of fun to get to chat with you again. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Yeah, well, thank you very much. I had a lot of fun and I hope it made sense, but you totally did. Uh, you know, and tell best

of luck with salesview book. I hope it's a runaway best seller and I can picture it now with Tom Cruise is a handsome police detective and Denzel Washington is a serial killer. And so we'll see and we'll see what happens. You never know. Well, I'll keep our fingers crossed for you. Yeah, and whoever you want to play you? Oh yeah, good point. Yes, I was thinking Charlie's theo on. Okay, thank you again, and you have a good evening. Yeah, thank you guys very much. I really appreciate it. Nice

talk chatting with you guys. By right, we'll see you next time.