Media: A reporter's vigilance in serial killer case

[DrakeS]

LA Weekly's Christine Pelisek got hesitant detectives to drop the veil of secrecy in the serial-killing case and alerted South L.A. to a menace in the community.
July 14, 2010|James Rainey

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Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

How deep did reporter Christine Pelisek get into the Grim Sleeper serial killer case?

So deep that the victims' families demanded she sit in on one mass meeting with police. So deep that people she had never met delivered hunches and, in one case, a napkin smeared with a semen sample. So deep that the mystery figure killing young black women in South Los Angeles seemed to pop up everywhere, even in her dreams.
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When police finally identified and arrested Lonnie David Franklin Jr. last week in connection with a string of 10 killings dating to the 1980s, the credit went largely to an innovation that allowed criminals to be tracked through their relatives' DNA.

But that the terrible, slow-motion slaughter even became known to the public owes to the obsessive reporting of Pelisek, a star investigative reporter for the LA Weekly.

An inherently inquisitive Canadian with a knack for winning the trust of people unlike herself, Pelisek pushed to get authorities to tell her about their suspicion that the killings of seven young women in the 1980s might be connected to a skein of new deaths that began in 2002.

The reporter battled and succeeded in getting hesitant Los Angeles police investigators to drop the veil of secrecy around their work and acknowledge their hunt for a suspect Pelisek described as "a monstrous phoenix." Her resulting story in summer 2008 spread the word to poor and working-class residents of South L.A. about the menace lingering in their community.

"From the day she called to say 'I want to talk to you about your daughter' until today, she has been there all the way," said Laverne Peters, whose 25-year-old daughter, Janecia, was one of the last of those killed allegedly by Franklin, a backyard mechanic. "She made sure people knew. She made sure they stayed in the limelight."

Pelisek grew up around Ottawa, the granddaughter of a reporter. "I think I was born being nosy," she said. "I had to know everybody's business."

After college she covered hockey for a couple of small papers. She moved to Japan, where she freelanced and taught English. About a decade ago, a trip to L.A. got her interested in the city. She landed a job as a researcher at the Weekly.

[coldharvest]

Her resulting story in summer 2008 spread the word to poor and working-class residents of South L.A. about the menace lingering in their community.

Wow, what a hero.

[DrakeS]

Yes well look at the job and career history of the man they caught and charged. Lot boy and maintenance person at the LA garage of LAPD. In terms of alerting citizens and community to a veiled threat, in South Central LA, epcicenter for gangland killings for the city and the country, sure, Id say shes a hero. About the time of these murders, people would no doubt be aware their end of LA was known for the countries worst spate of tit for tat gang killings along with the crack cocaine epidemic. How easy it would have been lost to the tune of corollary statistics in that whole huge mess of drugs and death. The arrest of this man has now led to re-opening of 30 cold case files. So of course a little media attention doesnt hurt. Pelisek brought the story to the families so they learned what the police were doing. Till then, they had not even known about a 911 call made by a potential witness.