Thousands of photographs and home videos were among the bizarre detritus that the Los Angeles Police Department found in July in the apartment of the Grim Sleeper, a serial killer who police suspect is Lonnie Franklin Jr.

Now that Franklin is under arrest, police are seeking the public's help in

identifying the photos of 180 women who may have been the Grim Sleeper's victims.

The announcement comes on the heels of months and months of "slogging" through missing persons files and attempting to match the photos to no avail. 

Police hope that some of the women are still alive or that acquaintances will recognize him. 

According to the LA Times:

The discovery of the photographs came at the end of a long, frustrating search for the killer, whom the LA Weekly dubbed the Grim Sleeper for the long stretch between killings.

The killer's first known slaying occurred in the summer of 1985, when a 29-year-old woman was shot three times in the chest and her body left in an alley near West Gage Avenue, police said. Three years passed before ballistics tests alerted police that the same handgun used to kill the first woman had been used in seven other killings.

He is believed to have committed at least 10 murders since 1985. The LA Weekly gavethe killer his monicker because of his characteristic long stretches between murders.