REOPENED: The Grim Sleeper Part 1

Summary

Cold Case Files – REOPENED: The Grim Sleeper Part 1

Podcast Date: July 23, 2026
Host/Narrator: Marisa Pinson (with narration and interviews throughout)
Episode Overview:
This episode revisits the chilling case of "The Grim Sleeper," a serial killer who terrorized South Central Los Angeles beginning in the 1980s. Through interviews with family members, survivors, detectives, and journalist Christine Pelzek, the episode unravels the failures of the justice system, the devastation wrought upon families and communities, and the painstaking developments that ultimately led to renewed hope in solving these cold cases.

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Main Theme & Purpose

The episode’s focus is on the unsolved murders of dozens of Black women in South Central LA, perpetrated by a killer later known as "The Grim Sleeper." It explores systemic neglect, the community’s pain, the complex investigation, and the early twists and dead ends that perplexed police for decades.

"If I was a different race, maybe if I came from Beverly Hills... maybe then it would have been something different. But we were all Black women. He was called a Grim Sleeper. He preyed on the weak and druggies. He preyed on prostitute women."
— Rochelle Johnson (01:47)

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Community Awareness and Systemic Neglect

• Early 1980s: South Central LA residents, especially Black women, are acutely aware that a serial killer is targeting their neighborhood, but their concerns are largely ignored by law enforcement and media.
• Victims are predominantly Black women, often struggling with addiction or working as sex workers, contributing to systemic disregard:

"It was like, we don't matter. Black folks don't matter. You never think you'll be one of the victims of a serial killer."
— Enietria Washington (02:02)

2. Journalistic Involvement and Public Revelation

• Christine Pelzek, crime reporter for LA Weekly, is introduced to the case at the coroner’s office and uncovers a list of 38 murdered women spanning the 1980s and beyond (03:03).
• Initial media silence: The murders receive little press, in contrast to similar cases involving white victims.

3. Personal Stories of Loss and Survival

• Henrietta ("Cody") Wright (Victim)

  • Mother of five, remembered as loving and fun, whose life unraveled following addiction and tragedy.
  • Family’s pain is compounded by societal assumptions and lack of progress in the investigation.
  • Family perspective: “People don't understand. You don't just kill that person. You kill everybody that loved that person. And it goes on and on for generations." (09:41)

• Barbara Ware (Victim)

  • Young mother, identified via fingerprints due to her involvement with the court system.
  • Her stepmother, Diana, highlights Barbara’s charisma and the instability after her birth mother’s death (12:20-13:31).

• Enietria Washington (Survivor)

  • Survived an attack in 1988, lending investigators their first living witness.
  • Vivid, harrowing first-person account of her abduction, shooting, rape, and survival after being left for dead.
  • Her experience with detectives was marred by their skepticism and stigmatization:

    "When the police and everybody came, I overheard these cops talking smack. You know, why should we help her? This Black girl, you know, I got to be a hooker because I had a short skirt on."
    — Enietria Washington (26:56)

4. Drug Epidemic and Social Context

• Detective Cliff Sheppard discusses the devastating impact of crack cocaine in South Central LA, which exacerbated the murder crisis and spread mistrust between the LAPD and the community (05:06-05:56).
• Explains how the sheer volume of violence overwhelmed detectives and allowed a serial killer to operate mostly unchecked.

5. Emergent Patterns and Initial Investigation

• Early murders are linked by the use of a .25 caliber firearm and consistent victimology—young Black women found discarded in public places.
• 911 calls, often from anonymous or reluctant witnesses, point investigators to crime scenes but rarely yield usable leads.
• Ballistic evidence connects multiple murders, forming the first definite pattern (14:20-14:42).

6. False Breakthroughs and Dead Ends

• Multiple suspects, including acquaintances of victims and law enforcement personnel, are pursued but ultimately eliminated:
  • Jimmy Spencer and Dennis Pinkney: Arrested after an informant implicates them in Henrietta Wright’s murder; ballistic evidence and subsequent murders exonerate them (19:43-23:06).
  • Ricky Ross: LA County Deputy Sheriff suspected due to firearm possession, but ballistic analysis disproves his involvement (32:30-34:13).
• These false leads epitomize the frustration and slow progress of the multi-year investigation.

7. Family and Community Frustration

• Victims' families voice their pain over being ignored and dehumanized:

  "If they wanted to catch him, the police could have caught him. They thought of us as just crackheads, but we still was humans. We were being hunted."
  — Rochelle Johnson (16:35)

• Media and institutional apathy in cases involving Black women is contrasted with the attention given to white victims.

8. Enietria Washington’s Survival and Aftermath

• Enietria survives being shot and sexually assaulted, providing police with a suspect description and route mapping.
• Despite her efforts and a recovered firearm from a likely location, the weapon and suspect’s identity remain elusive (29:05-30:35).
• Post-attack, a temporary lull in murders leads to speculation about the perpetrator’s changing habits or disappearance from the area, until the case eventually goes cold (31:19-35:08).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Racism and Victim Blaming:

  "They thought of us as just crackheads, but we still was humans. We were being hunted."
  — Rochelle Johnson (16:35)

• On Systemic Failure:

  "It don’t take you 39 years to catch a mother."
  — Rochelle Johnson (02:10)

• Survivor Trauma:

  "You never think you’ll be one of the victims of a serial killer."
  — Enietria Washington (02:02, recurring)

• On the Weight of Loss:

  "You don't just kill that person. You kill everybody that loved that person."
  — Barbara Ware’s Family Member (09:41)

• Detective’s Perspective on the Pace of the Investigation:

  "The most recent murder gets the most attention. Over time, they're pushed further and further back… The case will likely be forgotten about."
  — Detective Cliff Sheppard (34:13)

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Key Timestamps & Content Segments

• [01:33] – Rochelle Johnson and her testimony on the early awareness of the killings and perceived indifference from law enforcement.
• [03:03] – Journalist Christine Pelzek discovers the cold case at the coroner’s office; beginnings of public awareness.
• [05:06-05:56] – Detective Sheppard and the crack epidemic's impact on South Central crime.
• [06:09-09:41] – Henrietta Wright’s murder and her family’s account; emergence of .25 caliber as a murder weapon link.
• [11:01-14:42] – Barbara Ware murder, further .25 caliber connections.
• [16:35] – Family and community outcry over the lack of urgency from police.
• [19:43-23:26] – Informant points to possible suspects, but new murders prove their innocence.
• [23:33-31:10] – Survivor Enietria Washington details her attack and the aftermath; investigation’s biggest break and subsequent disappointment.
• [31:10-35:08] – Murders halt, cases go cold, families and survivors grapple with trauma and uncertainty.

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Episode Tone and Style

The podcast is deeply personal and empathetic, centering victims’ and families’ voices. It balances emotional testimony with methodical breakdowns of investigative hurdles, always foregrounding community experience and the pain caused by systemic neglect. The narration is factual yet compassionate, while interviews range in tone from raw and sorrowful to determined and reflective.

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Closing

This first part of "The Grim Sleeper" case lays bare the devastation felt by victims and their families, the failures of institutions to protect marginalized people, and the immense challenges faced by those fighting for justice across decades. The episode ends with the case still unresolved, a community still fearful, and a system struggling with the scale of tragedy.

Next episode: The story continues as the search for "The Grim Sleeper" resumes, and new forensic advancements begin to shift the path to justice.

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For More:
Visit AETV.com for related content and archives from Cold Case Files.

Transcript

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[Enietria Washington]

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[Narrator]

of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

[Rochelle Johnson]

I grew up in south central Louisiana back in the early 80s. We all knew that it was someone out there killing women.

[Family Member of Victims]

I found out my mom was killed by a serial killer when I was like 8 years old.

[Rochelle Johnson]

If I was a different race, maybe if I came from Beverly Hills and came down here and bought some rocks and, and he got me, maybe then it would have been something different. But we were all black women. He was called a grim sleeper. He preyed on the weak and druggies. He preyed on prostitute women.

[Enietria Washington]

It was like, we don't matter. Black folks don't matter. You never think you'll be one of the victims of a serial killer.

[Rochelle Johnson]

We were left behind because we were drug addicts. It don't take you 39 years to catch a mother.

[Narrator]

There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's January 2006 in Los Angeles, California, and reporter and author Christine Pelezek is out looking for a case to cover.

[Christine Pelzek]

I was covering crime for the LA Weekly. Everything from, you know, gang killings to love affairs gone bad. I used to go and visit the coroner's office just to see if there was any cases. The coroner told me about these body dumps. There were 38 women on the list, and it was women whose bodies were found in alleyways and parks in South Central.

[Narrator]

The majority of the women were African American and many of them were sex workers.

[Christine Pelzek]

I started making calls to different detectives about it. They were not used to getting calls from the media on cases like that. But as I was going through the list, I ended up coming to two cases that were linked through DNA to a series of.25 caliber shootings back in the 80s. And I was completely shocked when I heard this because I had never heard anything before about any serial killer in South Central. And so that's actually how I ended up getting involved in the case. Was there a serial killer that nobody knew about? Eventually we would call him the Grim Sleeper. Because of this very big gap between the killings.

[Narrator]

Christine would eventually write a book about the case called the Grim the Lost Women of South Central where she details the lives and deaths of the victims. Some women were fortunate enough to escape with their lives, but the memory of their brush with a serial killer is hard to shake. Survivor Pamela Brooks remembers a time before the man hunting women in her community had a nickname.

[Rochelle Johnson]

We all knew that it was someone out there killing women. At that time, he wasn't called the Grim Sleep. He was just called a man killing prostitutes. So now we're gonna go back. I'm gonna take it back.

[Narrator]

Former LAPD detective Cliff Sheppard worked on many of the murder cases in the city.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Los Angeles has become famous for many different reasons, not all of them good. I'm a retired detective from the Los Angeles Police department. My last 10 years working unsolved murders, I worked in Southeast Division. Beginning around the mid-80s, rock cocaine started getting its hold in South Los Angeles in particular. People were becoming addicted to it and you could find dealers making a fortune almost overnight.

[Narrator]

By 1984, crack cocaine fueled drug wars were ravaging South Central Los Angeles.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

We had an epidemic of murders in South Los Angeles where young black women were being found murdered on the streets, in abandoned homes, in alleyways.

[Christine Pelzek]

Detectives didn't know whether the women were getting killed by their pimp or it was their boyfriend. It really wasn't until there were more murders and then a pattern started emerging.

[911 Caller / Pluto TV Announcer]

Foreign

[Narrator]

12th, 1986 and police are called To West Vernon Avenue. A woman's body has been found beneath a mattress in an alleyway and investigators find a piece of cloth stuffed down her throat. Although it's obvious the victim has been shot at least once, there are no shell casings found at the scene, leading investigators to believe she had been killed elsewhere before being dumped in the alley. The woman is identified as 34 year old Henrietta Wright, a mother of five, who is known to friends and family by the name Cody.

[Family Member of Victims]

My name is Rochelle Johnson and I'm Henrietta Wright's daughter. I found out my mom was killed when I was like 8 years old. When you're 8, 9, it's hard to go to an adult like, can you tell me what happened to my mom?

[Narrator]

Cody's niece Irene recalls what she was like.

[Family Member of Victims]

She was a darn good mom. Cody was very bubbly. She was a lot of fun. She worked for the LA Unified School District. She was always on the go. She used to love to play pool. She had several trophies from when she would win tournaments.

[Narrator]

Cody is close to her niece Irene and the family, and they all spend time together and help each other out.

[Family Member of Victims]

We did things as a family. It was a village raising everybody's children. The neighborhood was rich in respect, you know, just wholesome. But I guess around the 80s, when the drugs came in, it just went all bad. I think that's just around the time Cody had got involved in that stuff. But it didn't show right away, you know what I mean? She was a functional person that was getting high.

[Narrator]

After her home is destroyed by arson, Henrietta Cody Wright's life begins to spiral out of control.

[Family Member of Victims]

She came to my mom's house crying, saying she had to start over again. And then she moved in with us and she was pregnant and she was just devastated. And then she just started living to get high. She stopped working for the school. It was a very addictive drug and it was like a snowball effect real quick. Growing up, I always knew my mom did drugs. I was raised with two of my mother's sisters. I just was blessed and glad that she did not raise me in that environment that she was struggling in.

[Narrator]

The news of Kody's murder stuns her family. Their memories of seeing her after her body was discovered haunt them.

[Family Member of Victims]

The day after that, we went to identify the body. Oh, wow. They say it's Cody's, but the only thing I could recognize on her was the braids in her head because she was in the alley for a little bit of time. We were all really, really messed up behind this,

[Narrator]

The coroner discovers that Cody was sexually assaulted before being killed by a bullet fired from a.25 caliber pistol. The investigators struggle to find any witnesses or anyone who can provide a lead. Cody's friends and family are left to form their own conclusions as to what happened to her.

[Family Member of Victims]

We was always under the impression that some guy killed Kody because she stole his drugs for years. That's what we believe. People don't understand. You don't just kill that person. You kill everybody that loved that person. And it goes on and on for generations.

[Narrator]

Five months pass and another similar case is opened when a puzzling 911 call comes in.

[911 Caller / Pluto TV Announcer]

Yeah, I might report a murder or a dead body or something. You know, he like he threw her out like he threw a gas tank on top of her and the only thing you can see out is her feet.

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[Narrator]

It's shortly after midnight on January 10, 1987.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

911 police dispatchers receive a phone call from an unidentified male saying, hey, a guy just dropped off a body in an alley. He describes the vehicle as it being a blue and white van. He provides a license number for the van. The operator asked for a description of the man. The caller just kind of laughs and says, I can't see him, it's too dark.

[Family Member of Victims]

Okay, what's your name, sir? What's your name?

[911 Caller / Pluto TV Announcer]

Oh, I don't stand enough. I know too many people. Okay then. Bye. Bye.

[Narrator]

Officers respond to the call and arrive with flashlights to try and illuminate the pitch black alleyway. They walk partway down the alley and as they're coming back they spot a pile of debris. They can see someone's legs sticking out from beneath a gas tank tank. Upon closer inspection, they find a woman's body and it's clear that she's been shot by a small caliber firearm. Investigators use fingerprints to identify the victim as 23 year old Barbara Ware. A coroner will have to determine her cause of death, but the investigators notify Barbara's father and her stepmother Diana. Warehouse.

[Barbara Ware's Stepmother]

My husband was notified and I could see he was distraught and that's when he told me. He says they found a barber murdered over on Main Street. The detectives couldn't tell us anything else. It was a Very bad time. We just didn't know what to do, what to think, what happened. So we were very, very, very distraught and upset at that time. Barbara Ware was my bonus daughter. I consider my bonus children my bonus children, not stepchildren. When the children were growing up, Barbara and her brother were into roller skating. That's what they liked to do on the weekend. Barbara was just a very charismatic person for her age. There was nothing shy about her. They came to live with us when they were still in junior high after their mother passed away. Suddenly, she had an aneurysm. That was kind of when things started to go kind of bad for her.

[Narrator]

Like Kodi Wright, who had been murdered five months earlier, Barbara had also fallen victim to the streets and the drug epidemic that was raging.

[Barbara Ware's Stepmother]

She was running the streets with the wrong people, doing the wrong things, and she was doing drugs. Barbara was just. She just wanted to do what she wanted to do. She got beat up one time, and we figured this would turn her around. But I think the drug problem really was a bad thing that she got into. Barbara had her child when she was 16, she had her child taken away. She got into the court system. That's how the police were able to identify her immediately, through fingerprints, because they had her fingerprints in the system.

[Narrator]

Investigators look into the case more and realize that there's something else the victims have in common. The murder weapon.

[Christine Pelzek]

At first, I think they believed it was maybe a drug deal gone bad type situation. When she was taken to the coroner's office, they found that just like Henrietta Wright, Barbara had been shot in the chest with a.25 caliber pistol. And ballistically, the bullets matched Henrietta Wright's murder.

[Narrator]

The investigators know that the gun links the crimes, but it doesn't direct them to the killer. They go back to the 911 call and conduct a DMV check on the license number of the van that was allegedly spotted at the scene.

[Christine Pelzek]

It came back to a van from a church in south Los Angeles called the Cosmopolitan church. When the police got there, the van was warm. They were having a revival at the church. The officers took the whole group of them down to the police station and interviewed them. You know, did anyone use the van?

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

And I said, yeah, we use it. We're dropping off other congregational members, taking them home, but that's it. That van was impounded and then processed for fingerprints, but it was all church members, and they had nothing to do with the murder. So another frustrating lead that seemed to go nowhere. We still have a serial murder out there.

[Narrator]

By the mid-1980s the drug epidemic in South Central had intensified an already strained relationship between the community and the police. The families of the slain women are worried that the case would never be solved.

[Barbara Ware's Stepmother]

The detectives would come by periodically. They would ask my husband questions, but they didn't tell us anything else. No leads, nothing. We just wanted to be treated like. Like we matter. We moved out of Los Angeles about a year or so after Barbara was murdered. We just wanted to get out of the area. But we didn't hear anything else, nothing else about Barbara being murdered. We didn't think they'd ever find out whatever happened.

[Rochelle Johnson]

If they wanted to catch him, the police could have called him. They thought of us as just crackheads, but we still was humans. We were being hunted.

[Narrator]

It's now February 1987, one month after Barbara Ware's murder.

[Christine Pelzek]

There were a lot of press conferences about serial killers in white areas. But there was very little about the serial killers focusing on black women. A lot of the family members thought that the police and people just didn't care.

[Narrator]

What most people of South Central LA don't know is that since 1985, the LAPD is operating a secret task force looking into the murders of more than 25 young African American women.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

We obviously knew we had a big problem. I mean women were being murdered and we're not solving them. But then our firearms unit started comparing bullets recovered from the bodies of Henrietta Wright and Barbara Ware.

[Narrator]

The ballistics experts discovered that those slugs matched the bullets recovered from two other murder victims.

[Christine Pelzek]

There was a murder on January 15, 1984. Her name was Sharon Alice Desmucki. Then Deborah Jackson was found murdered in August of 1985 in an alleyway in South Los Angeles. They realized that the same.25 caliber gun that was used to kill Deborah was also used to kill Sharon.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

By the fourth murder, we know we have a serial murderer who's using the same firearm. We don't know when they will murder again.

[Narrator]

The answer comes soon enough. On the evening of April 16, 1987, just three months after Barbara Ware's murder, 26 year old Bernita Sparks body is found in a dumpster behind a Church near 94th street and Western. She has been shot in the chest with a.25 caliber. And like the other victims, she's also been sexually assaulted.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Her body has been redressed and she was also struck over the head.

[Christine Pelzek]

The police realize now that you know, this killer is speeding up. The murders are happening a lot closer together. The newspapers and media started calling him the so called society slayer.

[Narrator]

The media coverage is Critical of the LAPD because there have been so many murders and no suspects developed. The task Force assigns two detectives to the 25 caliber killings. Once they get a call and see that there has been a.25 caliber involved, they go to investigate and check for any possible links. It's slow paced, but the detectives soon get a break. A tip from a woman named Shelly Brown.

[Christine Pelzek]

She was arrested for a robbery and she said that she knew information about the murder of Henrietta Wright.

[Narrator]

Brown tells the police that she and Henrietta Cody Wright had brought two men back to a hotel just before the murder. Brown was with a man named Dennis Pinky. Pinkney and Cody was with Jimmy Let loose.

[Christine Pelzek]

Spencer Sheldy had said that she heard this fighting go on in the next room. And the next thing she knew, Pinky went running out. And then she said by the time she got into the alleyway, she saw, you know, Pinky holding down Henrietta on the ground and then let loose shooting her.

[Narrator]

Detectives searched Jimmy Spencer's home and find a.25 caliber pistol.

[Christine Pelzek]

Oh my God. Is this the.25 caliber pistol? Is this the guy?

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

When we talk to some of the family members, they're always hopeful and what's new, we want to be able to say here, we've got the answer for you now here's the murderer. He did it and we can prove it.

[Narrator]

It's October 29, 1986, two months after Cody Wright's murder. And Detective Shepard hopes that he can finally provide the answers the victim's family needs. For three years, the LAPD has been searching for the south side Slayer, a man who'd murdered at least five African American women with the same.25 caliber gun. And the investigators believe they have caught the killer.

[Christine Pelzek]

They end up arresting Jimmy Spencer and charging him with the murder of Henrietta Wright.

[Narrator]

But a little over a year later, on November 1, 1987, another body is found in South Central.

[Christine Pelzek]

When Jimmy was in jail, there was another victim. I mean, it was unbelievable. Mary Lowe is found dead in an alleyway. And her body was found by a father and his son who were walking in the area.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

She's been shot in the chest. It appears she's been also redressed because the bullet did not penetrate the clothing. And she's placed by a wall with her purse in the alleyway.

[Narrator]

26 year old Mary Lowe is found three and a half blocks from where the killer had dumped Bernita Sparks body just six months earlier.

[Christine Pelzek]

Mary was a popular teenager and she was also a really good dancer. She danced for American Bandstand and Soul Train.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Mary Lo was at a club of sorts around 92nd street in Western. She was last seen leaving there, walking northbound on Western alone.

[Christine Pelzek]

And the next morning her body is found in an alleyway not far from the bar where she was.

[Narrator]

Women continue to be found murdered in the area. Despite Jimmy Spencer being behind bars for Henrietta Cody Wright's murder. The police have the wrong man. The case against Pinckney and Spencer is dropped and they are released. So the task force is back to square one.

[Christine Pelzek]

The killings continued on after that.

[Narrator]

It's around 8pm on November 19, 1988, and 30 year old mother of two, Enietria Washington is making her way home from work.

[Enietria Washington]

I grew up in LA. I've lived here most of my life in the 80s and I was living the best life. You would go to these parties and you get to associate with a few movie stars, you know, and it was fun, but, you know, it was too

[Family Member of Victims]

good to be true.

[Enietria Washington]

I should have known better. I was working as a physician assistant and I had just gotten off work, so I was walking home to get changed to go to this party with my play sister, Linda Hoover. I walked past the liquor store and saw this car, this orange Pinto. It looked like the exact replica of the Hot Wheel car. The owner of the Pinto started hollering, yo, you like my car? He drove up, you know, I was like, yeah, I was admiring your car. Then he goes, oh, where are you going? I said, I'm going to a party later on. He said, well, can I go to the party? And I was like, yeah, anybody can go to the party. Because Backyard Boogie was Backyard Boogie. So I said, okay, let me change clothes and I'll let you take me over to my friend's house. I changed clothes, it was still light, it wasn't dark yet.

[Narrator]

Enietria gets into the orange Pinto and the driver asks for her name.

[Enietria Washington]

So we're driving. I said, you're going right here. That's where she lived. He makes a left turn and I'm like, no. He pulls in front of this house and he said, I'll be right back. I heard him talking to somebody. I didn't see the person and I'm like, okay, if another person. I'm getting out this car. But he got in by himself. Then we're driving.

[Narrator]

The man drives away from where Enietria wants to go and randomly starts referring to her as Brenda.

[Enietria Washington]

The black girl came out real tough and I said, that's not my name. I don't even know you. Why are you calling Me, somebody else. And he says, why you dogging me out? I didn't answer him, and everything just went quiet. And I'm like, okay, it's time to get out this car. So I reached for the handle and he shot me in my chest point blank. He said, bitch, I'll shoot you again if you touch that door. Now I'm losing where I'm at. And I passed out. And when I woke up, it was dark, my clothes are down, and this man was on top of me taking pictures.

[Narrator]

It's been two hours since Enietria Washington was abducted by a stranger driving an orange Pinto. She's been shot in the chest at point blank range and sexually assaulted.

[Enietria Washington]

I heard about these black women getting killed at the time in South Central. I was scared. But you never think you'll be one of the victims of a serial killer. When I woke up, there's this camera flash. Oh, he raped me. I was pushing him off of me, trying to get out the car. As I opened the door, he pushed me out the door at the same time. And I remember rolling in the street and laying there. I have blood all on my shirt in the front of my chest. I couldn't believe I was shot.

[Narrator]

Her attacker speeds off into the night, leaving Enietria to die in the street. But she doesn't give up easily.

[Enietria Washington]

It was dark and I was bleeding, but I was thinking, okay, I need to go to my friend Linda's. I'm walking toward her house, leaving a trail of blood. I had walked a mile. She got a Porsche light on, so I'm bamming on the doors. Then I realized, oh, she went to the party. While I'm there laying on her porch, Linda pulls up her and her husband. I was like, call 91 1. When the police and everybody came, I overheard these cops talking smack. You know, why should we help her? This black girl, you know, I got to be a hooker because I had a short skirt on. I was going to a backyard boogie. Of course, I was cute. And he looked and he saw that the panties were hanging off, they were torn. And then he goes, oh, my gosh, she's raped. We got to get a rape thing. They finally got out in the ambulance and take me to the hospital.

[Narrator]

Emergency surgery is performed on Enitria for hours to remove a.25 caliber slug from her chest.

[Enietria Washington]

When I woke up, I had a collapsed lung. The next thing I know, these detectives walk in on me. They brought in a sketch artist and they said, can you describe him? He was a little short Guy, he looked like a guy who just came out of Circuit City. He had a polo shirt and some khakis on.

[Narrator]

A composite sketch of the man is drawn up, but aside from his car, there's nothing unique about the suspect. Enietria tells investigators she has no idea why she was shot.

[Enietria Washington]

I was still in the hospital room and the detective said, oh, we got the bullet. And I'm like, okay.

[Narrator]

The investigators don't tell Enietria that the slug taken from her body matches the.25 caliber slugs taken from nine previous victims.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Enietria, this is our first known surviving victim. That was a big break. We need all the help that we can get and there's a possibility that she could help identify him.

[Narrator]

Using DMV records, investigators tracked down and question the owners of every orange Pinto in Los Angeles.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

We had stakeouts in the area looking for anybody driving an orange Pinto. All of them were eliminated. None of them were the right one.

[Enietria Washington]

When I finally got out the hospital, the detectives asked me so I would go with them to go check over where I was, take them through it.

[Narrator]

Enietria shows the detectives the route her assailant took the night of the shooting.

[Enietria Washington]

I remembered the house and you know where I was.

[Christine Pelzek]

The police learned that the house was owned by a guy named Othis White. And they got a search warrant and there it was. They found a.25 caliber pistol. And so they thought, oh my God, this is it. This is the murder weapon.

[Enietria Washington]

And I said, thank you, father guy. I really thought they caught the guy.

[Narrator]

It's February 3rd, 1989. Three months after Enietria Washington was almost killed by a suspected serial killer.

[Christine Pelzek]

Enietria ended up taking the detectives to this house owned by a guy named Osis White. It was kind of the local party house. You know, a lot of people would go there and hang out and drink beer. The detectives got a search warrant for the house.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Officers recovered a.25 automatic, and so they

[Christine Pelzek]

tested it and it was not the weapon that was used to shoot Enietria and kill the other nine women. Enietria said that the attacker was in his 30s and, and Osis White was around late 70s, so he was too old to be the killer. Enietria just wanted to find out who did this. She was having this really good life and then all of a sudden, not only was she shot, but she almost died.

[Narrator]

After Enietria is shot in November 1988, the four year string of 25 caliber murders comes to a halt.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

We had A quiet spell after in.

[Christine Pelzek]

Maybe he grew out of it. You know, a lot of, you know, serial killers, once they start getting older, they stop.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Did he change his MO? Maybe he's not using the.25 caliber firearm anymore. If you're familiar with Los Angeles, one of the main thoroughfares is the Harbor Freeway. It runs north and south to the ocean, passing through South Los Angeles. There were women who were found murdered alongside the freeway. A month before Enietria survived an attack, there had been three victims who had been murdered with a 9 millimeter firearm. One night, while an officer was on patrol with his partner, they see a car stopped alongside the Harbor Freeway. When they stopped, the driver, he identified himself as Ricky Ross.

[Narrator]

Ricky Ross is an LA County Deputy Sheriff. He is in the car with a young sex worker.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

The officers asked the deputy if he had a firearm. He said, yes, I do. It's in the trunk of my car.

[Christine Pelzek]

They look in Ricky Ross's trunk and they find a 9 millimeter pistol. They checked the gun and they asked him if he was involved in any of these 9 millimeter murders. He denied it.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

Then he admitted that he also owned a 25 automatic. Do we finally have the guy? When they conducted the search of Ricky Ross's house, they recovered a holster for a 25 automatic, but no gun. Our firearms unit examined the 9 millimeter pistol that was in his possession, identified that gun as being used in three murders. So he was booked for those murders. Finding Ricky in the car with the woman with the pistol that was in the trunk of the car, tying him to the 9 millimeter murders, and the knowledge that he owned a 25 caliber gun, all this made it seem that he was likely the.25 caliber murderer.

[Narrator]

As the trial against Ricky ross for the three 9 millimeter murders is set to begin with opening statements, a new report torpedoes the state's case.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

The firearms expert that Ricky Ross's team had used came to the conclusion that the 9 millimeter that was recovered from Ricky Ross was not the firearm that was used to murder those three women.

[Narrator]

The DA's office hires two outside ballistics experts. They conclude that it was unlikely that the 9 millimeter gun was used in the murders.

[Detective Cliff Sheppard]

So if it wasn't used to murder those three women, kind of put stout into the.25 automatic, which we never found. Ricky Ross had nothing to do with the murders. We're back at square zero. Typically, the first 48 hours are the best time to work the murder. The problem is the most recent murder gets the most attention. Over time, they're pushed further and further back, less and less is done, and the case will likely be forgotten about with the volume of murders that Ellie was experiencing during that next two decades. In the 90s, we hit over 1,000 murders a year. They were overwhelmed.

[Christine Pelzek]

It was very frustrating for, like, a lot of the detectives. They were so busy handling so many murders. The.25 caliber cases just sort of disappeared from, you know, everybody's, you know, view really.

[Narrator]

Tips dry up, and by 1989, the south side Slayer task force disbands. Time ticks on and the case goes cold.

[Enietria Washington]

At first, when the case went cold, I was scared, but I was trying to get on with my life. A year later, I noticed that this guy was on the bus with me, me all the time, but he would never get off where I got off. And I was like, don't pay no attention to it. Just, you know, mind your business. All of a sudden it dawned on me who it was and I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. And I knew it was him.

[Narrator]

Join us next week for part two of the Grim Sleep. Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barros. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson. Our composer is Blake Maples. For A and E, our senior producer is John Thrasher, and our supervising producer is McKamey Lin. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Maite Cueva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on AE's Emmy winning TV series, Cold Case Files. For more Cold case files, visit aetv.com Copyright 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. All rights reserved.

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