S01.E09: The Grim Sleeper

[Drogo]

A serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper is sought in South Central Los Angeles.

[Christina]

I just caught this episode and found it very disappointing. To tell the complete story with all the twists and turns, chances to catch Lonnie but not even trying, the people in the community who fought for justice for their loved ones because the cops ignored the murders, the other serial killer's DNA that was found on some of the victims that had been attributed to The Grim Sleeper, etc would take six hours, but what they chose to include and cut made this episode not very interesting. 

This is one of those stories that can suck you in and you spend days reading about it. Most of the victims were drug addicts and/or prostitutes who lived in a rough neighborhood full of gang violence, and the police seemed to be all, "Eh, another one." When Lonnie Franklin, Jr. was finally arrested, the neighbors had no idea it was for being the Grim Sleeper, they thought he was finally being arrested for the stolen car business he had going, so maybe he wouldn't have been their first choice, but he did have women escape his house and tell the police he had tortured them, but the cops found them unreliable because he worked for the City and they were drug addicts. And there was the one 911 call that told the police he had just dragged someone into his van, described his van but didn't name him, and they didn't look into it or even let the families know about that call, when they were telling the families they were sharing everything. Some of the victims' families knew him and his van at the time, and would have known who it was, years and dozens of victims before he was caught.

The cops didn't deserve the good edit they got in this program. They were understaffed, underfunded, trying to work an area with high crime rates, but dropped the ball routinely. There were several victims that didn't even have DNA swabs taken, and many more that had the forensics disposed of because they weren't deemed important enough to keep. The first officer that they arrested was framed for these crimes, and it was barely acknowledged on this show. They showed that one LEO sputtering how the forensics weren't as good as they originally thought. The forensics cleared him months before he was released. They framed many people that way.