Grim Sleeper Trial. Closing Arguments

May 2nd 

Lonnie Franklin was walked in at 9.10am wearing black glasses, a light blue shirt, a blue tie and black trousers.  

At 9.18am Judge Kennedy walked in and took the bench.

It was a completely full Courtroom, you couldn't even squeeze a mouse in today.  On the left side of the gallery, retired Detective Paul Coulter and retired Detective Dennis Kilcoyne were both sitting next to each other near the front.  There was a  lot of media presence and 2 cameras.

Before the Jury came in, the Judge talked about the exhibits she will and won't be allowing in to evidence.  She ended saying that that the "Objection is sustained regarding these items".

Before the Jury came in she let the Counsels speak and Beth Silverman was the first one to do so:

D.A: "Your Honour, The Defense took the books that were meant for the Jury and took them apart and then put them back together and now they are not in the order which we had marked them in.  Half of them are upside down and backwards and it hasn't been corrected".

Amster: "It's my understanding that it was corrected.  May The People let us know exactly what the problem is so we can correct it".  This was about it from Amster's side, no craziness because, according to his statement from last week, he is a 'changed man'!  Ha!

The Jury came in from the proper Jury entrance today at 9.23am.

The Judge welcomed the Jury as she always does and explained the Jury Instructions.  This took just under 40 minutes and there was more which she said she would say later.  She turned it over to Beth Silverman to begin her Closing Arguments:

D.A: "Morning ladies and gentlemen.  10 young women, all of them brutally murdered by that man - the Defendant Lonnie Franklin - and one woman, Enietra Washington, who barely escaped that tragic fate.  Now I told you in Opening Statements exactly what  the evidence would be.  And that is exactly what has been presented to you over these past few months.  Now here in Closing Arguments I'm going to talk to you about the evidence that was presented, the Law that the Judge provided to you just now and how those fit together.   It's your job in this case to decide whether the Defendant is guilty of the crimes and special allegations charges described in this case regarding the 11 victims who are the subject of this Trial.  So how do we know who committed these crimes?  None of the victims can tell you.  They can't tell you themselves because they have no voice. No voices to tell us.  The Defendant took their voices when he brutally murdered each of them.  So who or what can tell us what happened?   The evidence in this case.  And the evidence in this case speaks very clearly.  You just have to listen to what the evidence tells you.  The evidence in this case is the voice of the victims who can no longer speak for themselves.  So listen to the evidence.

You have heard an overwhelming amount of evidence over the last few months that connects the Defendant to these horrendous crimes and this is my opportunity to take all of that evidence, to piece it together for you, just like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.  You are all familiar with what a jigsaw puzzle looks like right?   You open up a box and you dump out all of the pieces.  Then you begin.  You begin with that one piece, that first piece.  So what's the first piece in this case?  How do we begin?

You heard from Detective Kilcoyne that in June of 2007 a task force was formed at LAPD's Robbery Homicide Division.  This took place a few months after the murder of Janecia Peters who was murdered on January 1st 2007.  The task force discovered that this matched a series of murders from the 1980's based on DNA evidence.  Those were the murders that occurred between the years of 1985 - 1988.  The task force found another pattern, with respect to these murders, they were all connected to a specific 25 auto firearm that was utilized in the 1980's.  Then more pieces were added to complete the puzzle.  As you heard, throughout the course of this Trial, forensic DNA technology occurred over the 20 plus years since the murder of Debra Jackson.   Law Enforcement now have DNA technology at their fingertips to solve cold cases such as these.  So the task force went back to those cases, from 1985 - 1988 and applied the science that existed in 2007 to the killing spree that began in the 1980's.  You also heard that from 2007 - 2010 more and more evidence emerged all pointing to one person as the killer.  This Defendant.  As you heard an LAPD surveillance team including Detective Art Stone and Detective Frank Trujillo followed the Defendant in July of 2010.  On July 5th they followed him to John's pizza in Buena Park and you heard that Det. Stone went into the restaurant, and after speaking to the manager first, they surreptitiously collected items from the Defendant.  Those items were then transported to LAPD's Crime Lab where they were analyzed by Surpria Rosner.  She developed 4 single source DNA profiles, one was from the Defendant's napkin and another was from a piece of his left over pizza.  This DNA profile matched in every location with the DNA profiles developed from the oral swab from Barbara Ware and sperm fraction and the Defendant's record sample.  The statistical calculation for this match was 1 in 11 quintillion that's 1 with 18 zeros.

After spending another 5 hours on this Blog last night, my computer crashed and might have lost all my writing.  I will be taking my computer in to Apple today and hope for the best.   If I have lost all the writing I did, yes I even wrote about Amster and his 'Closing Arguments' in great detail but all that writing has now disappeared as I am on my back up computer now writing this.   Please bare with me, it might take a day or so before I can update this Blog again....

To be continued....