Solved

The Murder of Lee Selwyn

On the morning of October 9th, 1988, 26-year-old Lee Selwyn, a disc jockey, was attacked by a deranged killer in the streets of Los Angeles. Lee would die from the attack.

Earlier in the evening on October 8th, Lee and three friends were at a Hollywood nightclub when they decided to cruise around the deserted street on their motorcycles. A few moments later, a pickup truck sped past them, almost hitting them. An argument ensued, and one of the members punched the car. Eventually, the group decided to try to leave. They sped off, but the truck followed them.

Eventually, the group came to an intersection with some turning right. Lee decided to turn left. The driver also turned left, and Lee became the target of the rage. The chase between Lee and the driver ended with the driver hitting Lee and driving him into a telephone pole, where Lee then flew almost 180 feet before he hit the sidewalk.

Lee was soon rushed to the hospital, where he died within hours. The coroner later concluded the cause of death to be a massive skull fracture from the collision.

When detectives began looking for a suspect, many witnesses, including those with Lee, said the pickup truck was either a Ford Bronco II or a Chevy Blazer. They also described the driver as a Caucasian male, between 28 and 32 years of age, with green eyes & reddish brown hair, and a beard.

On March 15th, 1993, four years after the attack, a tip came into the Los Angeles Police Department that would lead to an arrest. The tipper said that a man in prison in Moultrie, Georgia, was bragging about running down and killing a biker in Los Angeles. The police identified the man as 36-year-old Franklin Legrand Perkins, who was in prison at the time of arrest due to a sentence for possession of a firearm by a felon. Perkins was also a member of the Vagos motorcycle club.

In 1994, Perkins was convicted of second-degree murder. A year later, in 1994, he was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.