It took years of old-fashioned detective work with a little bit of modern science thrown in, but the Los Angeles Police Department finally have arrested the man they believe to be the Grim Sleeper.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 57, is suspected of killing at least 10 women in South Los Angeles and wounding another between 1985 and 2007. There was a nearly 14-year break between killing sprees.

The victims were: Debra Jackson, killed Aug. 10, 1985; Henrietta Wright, found dead Aug. 12, 1986; Barbara Ware, killed Jan. 10, 1987; Bernita Sparks, found dead April 15, 1987; Mary Lowe, killed Nov. 1, 1987; Lachrica Jefferson, slain Jan. 30, 1988; Alicia Alexander, found dead Sept. 11, 1988; Princess Berthomieux, killed March 19, 2002; Valerie McCorvey, slain July 11, 2003; and Janecia Peters, found dead Jan. 1, 2007.

All of the victims were found in alleys and trash bins in South Los Angeles, Inglewood and surrounding unincorporated areas. Some were raped before being shot to death with a small-caliber handgun.

Enrieta Washington, the lone survivor, was attacked Nov. 20, 1988. According to Washington, she met the suspect while walking home. He offered her a ride and upon her initial refusal, he said “you Black women are ungrateful.”

She said she decided to accept the ride because he was handsome, had a nice complexion, was clean shaven and drove a vehicle — an orange Ford Pinto — much like “those matchbox cars,” she said.

But no more than 10 minutes into the ride, her assailant shot her in the chest. Washington said she passed out from the loss of blood, only to awaken with him on top of her. She said she pleaded for medical assistance and her life. The man pushed her from his vehicle, leaving her to die in a ditch and drove away.

Washington said she had to muster the strength to trek roughly a mile to a friend’s house, where she eventually got aid.

Nearly 22 years later, Washington told the Wave she wasn’t sure whether Franklin was her attacker. He would have been in his mid 30s at the time and her attacker was much thinner than Franklin is today, she said.

But lead investigator Detective Dennis Kilcoyne told reporters at a press conference last week that he was “100 percent” confident that they had arrested the right man.

Franklin was arrested July 7 outside his home in the 1700 block of West 81st Street by a task force that compared DNA samples from Franklin and his son. The latter was arrested about a year ago and is not a suspect because he was too young at the time, police said, to commit the murders. But in this case, said Attorney General Jerry Brown, because DNA from convicted felons is required, Franklin’s son’s DNA closely matched the DNA evidence investigators had been searching for.

Investigators then worked on obtaining a sample of Franklin’s DNA. They followed him around until they were able to obtain a discarded piece of pizza. The tactic, according to some critics, raises ethical and legal questions about constitutionality and the right to privacy.

“We are in the midst of very powerful new technology and also legal battles to make sure we can use,” Brown said at the press conference. “In this case, in our 1.5 million data samples, there was no evidence of the suspect in the case. In recent months — actually, it started about a year ago — I authorized, and there’s a lot of questions about whether its constitutional, but we concluded that it was, that we can search not just from a suspect in the database, where we have a link to a crime scene, but we can search for someone in our database who has a family member — a brother or a father — who is related to DNA taken from a murder scene. And that’s exactly what happened in this case.”

Brown added that scientists developed a unique software that cannot be found anywhere else in the country. And it was with that software that they were able to identify the suspect.

“We follow a lot of procedures, so we are protecting people’s privacy,” Brown said. “We have a number of safeguards before we turn the name over to the Los Angeles Police Department. And that’s happened just in the last 10 days.”

According to Police Chief Charlie Beck, the new technology will change the way policing is done in the country and will bring justice to victims who did not previously have it. The method, he added, has been successful in parts of Western Europe.

While some public officials at the press conference — held outside LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles — patted themselves on the back, co-founder of the Black Coalition Fighting Back Serial Murders Margaret Prescod said detectives and public officials were not so vigilant in the beginning stages and only through constant pressure from the coalition and the victims’ families did they solve the case.

“Public officials who have done little to support community efforts to resolve these crimes are now congratulating themselves,” Prescod said. “If indeed the LAPD has found the killer, we cannot whitewash the reality that if the investigation had been taken seriously earlier — for example back in 1987 when there was a 911 eyewitness call when Debra Ware was killed — lives could have been saved.

“The fact that the victims were Black and found in an inner-city neighborhood resulted in the lack of priority of these murders,” she added, “and impacted the handling of the investigation — particularly in the earliest phases.”

And it was because of this that the coalition — made up of eight founders, as well as residents and families of the victims — was formed in 1985. Prescod said they were even more outraged by the LAPD’s late warning to the community, saying that the department waited until a number of lives were lost before they addressed the community about dangers that were lurking.

Beck praised the victims’ families, saying “they have been with us for the last 23 years, have been patient with us for the last 23 years and ensured that this case has never been forgotten,” he said. “The courage that they have displayed has energized the detectives of every homicide division and my office in making sure that this case was the number one priority. So for the families, this case was solved because of you. Yes it was science, yes it was good detective work, yes it was never saying no, never letting go, but it was because of the families. It was really important.”

The coalition contends that they pushed to get a composite sketch of Franklin at the time he committed the murders, and later had to press the department to issue an age-enhanced composite.

Porter Alexander, Alicia Alexander’s father, said he “had doubt in my mind after all the years had passed that I would not live to see this day. … I felt that the police department had given up, I had the feeling that they didn’t care that much about them. … We were only interested in one thing and that [was] finding this man out there taking lives that he did not give.”

Prescod also congratulated those involved for pulling through in the end. But she has another challenge: To not give up on other victims who have been killed in South Los Angeles.

Though the LAPD believes they have their suspect, there is still work to be done. Police detectives said they will continue to comb through scores of unsolved murders of women in South Los Angeles that may also be linked to the Grim Sleeper.

According to authorities, there are at least another 30 murders that have similarities to the 10 slayings attributed to the Grim Sleeper.

Franklin was scheduled to be arraigned July 8 in the downtown Criminal Courts Building on 10 counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, but it has been postponed to Aug. 9 at the request of defense attorney Regina Laughney. If convicted, Franklin could face up to life in prison.

Video via ABC News.