This Day in Gwinnett History: Serial Killer Terrorizes Lawrenceville Square

For our readers with a taste for the morbid or maybe just looking for a good spot to take prom photos, swing by 113 South Perry off the DTL square. On March 6, 1978, white supremacist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin hid out on this very porch before unleashing mayhem on the DTL square. Franklin had already killed three people in Wisconsin and Missouri, and he was in town with his sights set on Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine, who was due in court on obscenity charges.

The above photo was taken on the day of the crime. At the time, the building was part of the abandoned hotel that occupied most of the Crogan/Perry corner of the square (now Dominick's Italian Restaurant), and Franklin fired his shots from behind the center column of the 113 building when Larry Flynt and his lawyer left a café on their way to court. Both men were hit and each survived his injuries, but Flynt would never walk again. 

Franklin, whose mugshot you see here, escaped the scene and would go on to kill at least five more people before being captured in 1980, though he is suspected of twenty or more murders. The Lawrenceville incident can be seen in the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt, starring Woody Harrelson.

It's prom season, so if you need a historic backdrop for a photo shoot, put your gowns on and come on down to the serial killer's lair at 113 South Perry, and for more details and period photos, check out the Atlanta Rewind special by our esteemed friends at the AJC describing one of Lawrenceville's most eventful days.