Was Samuel Little married? How serial killer's long-term girlfriend Orelia ‘Jean’ Dorsey taught him shoplifting
The deadliest serial killer in American history, Samuel Little, died at age 80 on Wednesday, December 30, in California. After suffering from a prolonged illness including diabetes, heart trouble and other ailments, he was pronounced dead at a California hospital, according to the State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
According to California corrections department spokeswoman Vicky Waters, there was no sign of foul play, and his cause of death will be determined by a coroner. Shocking as it may seem, the career criminal had confessed to killing 93 people between 1970 and 2005 in Florida and Southern California. Back in 2018, he opened up about his crimes to Texas Ranger James Holland in a heavy 700 hours interview.
A strong boxer at one time, his health started deteriorating while serving a life sentence in a California prison and he used a wheelchair to get around. A skilled artist, an AP report says of Little, “he even provided Holland with dozens of paintings and drawings of his victims, sometimes scribbling their names when he could remember them, as well as details such as the year and location of the murder and where he’d dumped the body.”
Samuel Little's crimes
Born on June 7, 1940, he lived in Reynolds, Georgia, with his mother, Bessie Mae Little. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Lorain, Ohio, to his grandmother Fannie Mae McDowell's house on Macon Street. cared for him. In his interviews later, he claimed that his mother was a prostitute. The census listed the 16-year-old’s job as “maid”. According to Cleveland Magazine, he also identified his father as 19-year-old Paul McDowell, who lived in Reynolds, near the railroad depot.
Calling him both a “genius and a sociopath”, James Holland said in interviews later that he could never explain why Little chose to open up to him. “Nothing he’s ever said has been proven to be wrong or false,” Holland told the CBS newsmagazine '60 Minutes' in 2019.
According to AP, he strangled most of his victims, soon after meeting them during chance encounters. He drowned one, a woman he met at a nightclub in 1982. “I don’t think there was another person who did what I liked to do,” Holland said. “I think I’m the only one in the world. And that’s not an honor, that is a curse.”
Holland used to call him by his childhood name Sammy and bring his favorite snacks such as pizza, Dr Pepper and grits while chatting about sports, a topic they were both mutually passionate about. “It was like drugs,” he told Holland. “I came to like it.” Reportedly, his last killing was in 2005.
Was Samuel Little married?
Not much was known about his personal life but authorities said he often went by the name Samuel McDowell. If old interviews and reports are to be believed, he married once and was involved in two long-term relationships. According to AP, he once said he has a fetish for women’s necks. It first sparked when he saw his kindergarten teacher touch her neck and was sexually aroused.
In a tell-all feature, The Cut elaborated on his confessions. “We talked that first day about our childhoods, about my kids, about his family tree, which he claimed includes Malcolm X. We talked about his teenage mother abandoning him as an infant by the side of a dirt road. We talked about his late long-term girlfriend, Jean, who’d been a master shoplifter and supported them that way for years. We talked about how he liked to travel. We talked about his art. He had learned to draw during his first prison stay — three years for robbing a furniture store in Ohio in his 20s — and it was still his preferred pastime.”
When asked what he likes to draw, Little said, “Oh, girls. I mean women. I mean ladies (perhaps he meant victims),” adding, “I can draw anything. Paint, pencil, whatever I can get. I can do all the light and dark. Just like I see you right now.”
Who was Orelia ‘Jean’ Dorsey?
Samuel Little crossed paths with Orelia “Jean” Dorsey in 1971 and they remained together until her death in 1988. But she was not the only one he dated. On May 28, 1971, he was charged with robbery of a gas station with his girlfriend, Lucy Madero, according to a Cleveland Magazine report. Madero told a cellmate named Orelia Jean Dorsey that she intended to testify against Little.
The report further reads, “Before the trial, Dorsey met Little and warned him about Madero. Dorsey was right. Madero testified against Little when the case came to trial in March 1972. But with the tip-off from Dorsey, Little was prepared. Dorsey, Little said, even testified on his behalf. Records show a jury found him not guilty.”
Little once described her as “no beauty” and 30 years his senior but he admired her loyalty. According to the outlet, Dorsey taught Little“ how to fence stolen goods, a skill that subsidized their life of wandering.” She wasn't a part of his murder plans. Reportedly, Little and Dorsey would find an apartment or cheap motel wherever they traveled to, and he would hunt victims after Dorsey fell asleep. Calling her his “traveling companion, shoplifting expert and surrogate mother”, the report reads she remained his “old lady” until she died of a brain hemorrhage in Los Angeles in 1988.