Grim Sleeper Trial Coverage: Even Reputable Newspapers are Getting The Facts Hopelessly Wrong!

I don't often read newspapers and choose to watch the news on television instead.  Today, I decided to read what has been written in the Grim Sleeper Case and to see what the papers are saying about the Trial.
Mentioning no names, I was shocked to see the blatant mistakes in some well respected Newspaper publications.  To make matters worse, the same 6 or 7 mistakes are the exact same mistakes that are in the other Newspapers and online magazines!  Now, I may not be great with my grammar, punctuation or even keeping the continuity with spacing, quotes, itallics etc, but I do the job I am paid/commissioned to do ~ GET THE FACTS OUT THERE AND SPEAK FROM MY OWN WORDS.  Meaning that once my book is completed, I am assigned to an 'on staff' editor to fix the mistakes I will probably be making, from time to time, and to also make my writing flow better. However one thing you can be sure of with me is that I won't be changing the facts, or sugar coating anything.  Most of all, I won't be 'copying' anyone else's writing out of respect to my fellow 'writers' and their hard work.

To mention only a couple of mistakes of today, I will write them below:

Various Newspapers stated that:  

1. Washington said that during the attack she lost her purse containing her driver’s license 

This is very wrong!  When Enietra Washington rolled out of the Pinto after being shot almost to death, she did have her purse with her.  She very clearly stated this on the stand 2 days ago that she had it when she was taken to the hospital.  However it was not returned to her (by the Hospital) when she was released from the hospital to return back home.

2. "That's what's wrong with you black women.  Men can't be men to you."  

According to the Newspapers this was the 'exact' quote of the words quoted by Franklin to Enietra Washington when she kept tying to reject his suggestion of driving her to her friends house.
This is wrong!  The correct quote was in fact: "That's what's wrong with you black women, people can't be nice to you."

Ok, maybe you don't think these mistakes aren't really that bad even though there were quite a few other errors made like this that I read this morning on a number of other online publications, including getting the ages wrong for some of the victims.    I won't mention them here as I certainly don't want to appear petty.  


However, the most outrageous of all is this next one:

3.  After Franklin was arrested, police searched his property and say images of Enietra Washington were found inside.

This may be true but this hasn't even been mentioned in the Trial yet.  This is very damaging indeed for the Prosecution.  Yes, District Attorney Beth Silverman put a picture of Enietra on the Elmo (the Projector) showing when she lay dying in the assailant's car.  However she made no mention of the fact that this picture was taken from Franklin's home during the search!  This was written in one Newspaper and then blatantly copied to a whole load of other publications.  I do hope that Seymour Amster doesn't read this or he'll have a very good reason to say that the Jury might be 'tainted'.


The moral of the story, according to me ~ Victoria ~ is:  

"If you are going to copy another persons' hard work, make sure you have the correct facts and you don't also copy their inaccuracies too."

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