Grim Sleeper Returns: He's Murdering Angelenos, as Cops Hunt his DNA

The most elusive serial killer west of the Mississippi took a 13-year break. Now he's back

Comments (0) By Christine Pelisek Wednesday, Aug 27 2008

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Some of those answers may come from much further north, where Attorney General Brown earned a few headlines in May by publicly backing the use of familial DNA testing. However, his spokesman, Gareth Lacy, tells the Weekly that Brown is still months away from allowing any comparisons to the existing 1 million profiles in the state felon DNA archives. Brown, who is almost certainly running for governor in 2010, has been walking a political tightrope, trying to look like a law-and-order guy when he was mayor of crime-riddled Oakland, but more recently trying to woo liberal voters as the state attorney general who most hates global warming.

Until Brown gives the go-ahead to his lab, allowing state Department of Justice scientists in Richmond to compare prisoners’ DNA with saliva and other DNA taken from Grim Sleeper murder scenes, Kilcoyne says: “It will take old-fashioned police work. We just can’t wait for [Brown] to give us a link.” If the killer “is a family man or goes home to his wife or kids ... we might never find him.”

Ted Soqui

Left in limbo: Holding Monique's portrait, Mary and Porter Alexander, with sons Donnell, Keevin and Darin

Ted Soqui

Urban hunt: Detective Dennis Kilcoyne and five other cops are tracking the Grim Sleeper's DNA.

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Victims’ families are demanding more transparency — and they have words of caution for Angelenos. Mary Taylor, the aunt of Valerie McCorvey, suggests that if the 11 known victims had been relatives of a City Hall politician or police officer, authorities would have cracked these cases long ago. But her niece Valerie lived a wild life, and that, Taylor believes, damned her — first with the killer, and then with the powers that be. “Hers,” Taylor says, “is going to be one of those cold cases they never solve.”

Monique Alexander’s father, Porter, sits in a chair in his quiet, hospitable home in South Los Angeles, wondering if the killer will strike while Brown, Bratton and Villaraigosa hide behind their bureaucracies. “He’s a guy who has the area mapped,” Alexander says. “He’s a guy with a mindset, who is smart enough to back off and wait. I don’t think he has left. He ... can start this mess all over again.”

Gina Pollack contributed research assistance. Reach the writer at cpelisek@laweekly.com.