LAPD REPORTS ARREST OF "GRIM SLEEPER" AFTER NEARLY A 25 YEAR CRIME SPREE.

An arrest has been made in the Grim Sleeper serial killer case. The killer is believed responsible for 11 deaths over the last three decades. The suspect was identified as 51-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr. The series of killings included victims, mostly female, in the city of Los Angeles, in unincorporated areas of L.A. County and in Inglewood since the 1980s. A survivor in 1988 described her attacker as black, in his 20s, 5 feet, 8 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall, about 160 pounds, soft-spoken and articulate, with neatly trimmed hair and a pockmarked face. DNA and ballistics evidence have connected the killings of 10 women and one man from 1985 to 2007, police said. After 1988, the killer did not commit any known homicides until 2002. He last struck on Jan. 1, 2007. The victims the killer targeted were all black and most were apparent prostitutes or drug addicts who were sexually assaulted. A 12th victim escaped after being shot and raped. In February, the LAPD released a 911 tape of a call made more than 20 years ago by a witness who reported having seen the killer dispose of a woman's body in South Los Angeles. The witness called police from a pay phone shortly after midnight Jan. 10, 1987, and described a man removing a woman's body from a blue-and-white 1976 Dodge van. The caller told the dispatcher the van's license plate was 1PZP746, and police found it later at the now-defunct Cosmopolitan Church at 6075 S. Normandie Ave. The suspect has also been seen driving a 1970s two-door orange, white-striped Pinto hatchback with tinted windows, a green interior and tan seat covers, police said. Franklin's arrest was the first successful use of a DNA investigative tool known as "familiar" searching in California. Familiar searching, approved by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown at the urging of Cooley and other prosecutors, allows investigators to pursue partial genetic matches to crime scene evidence when the suspect's DNA profile is not in the state database. Councilmember Bernard C. Parks join Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa , Chief Charlie Beck and State Attorney General Jerry Brown announcing the arrest of Lonnie David Franklin Jr.