When Los Angeles Weekly reporter Christine Pelisek wrote the story of the Grim Sleeper's sole survivor — gutsy Enietra Margette — some of us in the media wondered how the churchgoing, life-loving woman could be so brave.

After all, the horrible, sick monster was still out there in Los Angeles, lurking, mocking the Los Angeles Police Department's every move for the past 25 years (and if police are correct, he was now-retired LAPD mechanic Lonnie David Franklin Jr.)

Margette was fearless. She told Pelisek in 2009:

“I believe in God and kept going. I really owe Him for restoring my faith.”

As Pelisek reported in her cover story, Margette, his only known survivor, was an exhibit of sorts in the evidence collected by police against the Grim Sleeper.

A bullet fired by the Grim Sleeper and containing ballistics evidence was dug from her chest, and Margette was the only living victim to have seen him up close.

She sat inside his car before the killer shot her at point-blank range, shoving her out the door in South Los Angeles and leaving her for dead.

But she refused to die.

Now, this wonderful, bubbly woman can perhaps sleep better at night. For victims everywhere, here's to you, Enietra.

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