Media Trials

While many trials fit the bill for this assignment, my other choice being O.J. Simpson, I decided to go with The Grim Sleeper, because while it wasn't as notorious, it also wasn't as obvious. It did receive quite a bit of attention, as most serial killer trials do, but interestingly, most people don't talk about it now. Unlike Ted Bundy, or Amanda Knoxx, who are still talked about now, The Grim Sleeper was a sudden uproar, followed, for the most part, by almost complete silence.
This serial killer, whose name is Lonnie Franklin Jr., murdered women who were not likely to be missed (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-grim-sleeper-serial-killer-trial-20160216-story.html), women of minority who used drugs, and whom he was able to lure to his car. He killed from the 1980's to 2007, a long career of murder. In that time, however, there were two victims that escaped, Einatra Washington and Laura Moore, both of whom testified at the trial. He was found guilty of 10 counts of murder, and sentenced to death (http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-grim-sleeper-sentencing-20160810-snap-story.html)
While there was not much media attention while the murders were happening, the trial brought to light the injustice that had been done to that community, where it was known for years that someone was targeting the women, and no one did anything.
According to Surette, this trial falls into the 'evil strangers, psychotic killer' category, being someone that the victims didn't know, and who was a complete predator, hunting down his victims, and brutally murdering them.
This case brought media attention because of the length of time that Lonnie Franklin Jr. was able to keep murdering women. In the 1980's, police corruption was a real problem, African American women, some of whom were prostitutes, didn't really 'matter' enough to put the effort in to find who killed them. Also to be noted, DNA wasn't available yet, and it took Lonnie's son's DNA in 2010 to find Lonnie. Even now, it would be difficult to find The Grim Sleeper without his son's DNA. This case does portray the criminal justice system as moderately corrupt in past years, discussing the lack of police intervention as the 'only' reason that The Grim Sleeper's reign continued for so long. While it did acknowledge that the victims were prostitutes and drug addicts, the articles don't really portray them negatively, but rather attempting to portray them as innocents. As Surette has discussed before, the truly evil criminal, killing the sweet innocent lamb.
Overall, this media trial event exemplifies the ability of the media to influence how we look at crimes, and criminals. With this 'psychotic killer', it portrays that serial killers are common, strangers are the most dangerous, and the police will hush murders they can't solve.