US’ deadliest serial killer Samuel Little left trail of over 90 bodies by evading authorities using special MO
Samuel Little, known as the most prolific serial killer in the history of the United States, deftly maneuvered his way in and out of the criminal justice system without being sentenced for a single murder over decades of his killing spree. Little murdered dozens of women across 19 states over a quarter of a century before he was finally nabbed. But it wasn't until he opened up about the murders himself that the authorities knew the depth of his depravities.
Little, born in 1940, grew up in Lorain, Ohio. He was born to a very young mother who was unable to take care of him. He took on his mother's last name Little and sometimes also used his father's family name McDowell. With no parents to carefully guide him, Little began having problems at school from a very young age. He also got involved with the criminal justice system at the age of 13. In 1956, he was held in an institution for juvenile offenders for breaking and entering a property. After his release, he moved to Florida with his mother and spent his 20s there working odd jobs, at times as a cemetery worker. It was after his mother's demise in 1973 that Little hit the road and launched his own sordid criminal history. By this time, he had been arrested dozens of times for crimes including theft, assault, fraud, and even attempted rape. He, however, received very light sentences and managed to get out every time. Little never had a concrete address.
The first time he was arrested on a murder charge was in 1982 in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He was charged with the murder of 22-year-old Melinda LaPree. A grand jury at the time declined to indict him for LaPree's murder. Little, while under investigation, was also transferred to Florida where he was accused of murdering 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount. Witnesses identified Little as the person who spent time with Mount on the night she disappeared. However, Little was acquitted in January 1984 because of witness testimonies. Little was adept at finding his targets, the victims were always either sex workers, homeless women, hitchhikers, or mentally and emotionally troubled women. He knew these were the kind of victims their families and even authorities would focus less on.
After the cases in Mississippi and Florida, Little decided to move to California. However, in October 1984, he was arrested again, this time for kidnapping, raping, and strangling 22-year-old Laurie Barros. She had survived the assault and gave a detailed description of Little and his vehicle to the authorities. Nearly a month after the incident, police found him in the backseat of his car at the same location where he had assaulted Barros. He was asked to step out, and as he walked out he pulled up his pants and told police that he and his wife were making love after a fight. When authorities checked his car, they found another victim, a partially nude unconscious woman, also beaten and strangled. Tonya Jackson was rushed to a nearby hospital and she survived. Little was asked to give his DNA sample during the process. Despite the severity of his crimes, Little served just two and a half years in prison for both of them as the witness account lacked credibility. Barros had lied about being raped, she was instead doing part-time sex work at the time while Jackson arrived for her testimony drunk.
Little, after his release in 1987, began traveling again. In 1994, Odessa, Texas, authorities found a severely decomposed body of a woman in a vacant lot. The woman was identified as Denise Brothers. There was no forensic evidence found at the scene but the cause of death was determined as strangulation. Brothers was a troubled person and had gotten involved in narcotics and then sex work to pay for the drugs. With no clue about the perpetrator, authorities decided to put her data on an FBI database which was being created at the time to find similar criminal cases. Brothers, years later, eventually became a cold case.
The mystery of sex workers' deaths across the country begins to crack after the LAPD Cold Case Unit decides to run a California state database search. They get a DNA hit from two murders in LA in 1989: victims Audrey Nelson and Guadalupe Apodaca. They were found strangled to death in a dumpster and a vacant garage nearly three weeks apart. The DNA matches one suspect in the database: Samuel Little. Los Angeles police department then decided to contact the FBI in 2013 over a suspected serial killer case.
After a massive hunt, Little was traced to a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, when he encashed one of his social security checks. He was arrested on September 5, 2012. After his arrest, his DNA also linked him in the murder of Carol Ilene Elford, killed on July 13, 1987, in Los Angeles. All women were killed with his secret MO, which is extremely difficult to identify — manual strangulation. He was charged for the three murders on January 7, 2013, and received three separate life sentences. Little, however, maintained his innocence throughout.
Months went by and Little's appeals were consistently rejected. It was only after that he was resigned to his fate, the FBI decided to move in and interrogate him about more possible murders, especially of Denise Brothers, which matched Little's style mentioned in their database. It was during this conversation Little unraveled for the first time, admitting all the murders he had committed. He told a Texas ranger interviewing him that he had committed over 90 murders, including Brothers'. Possibly more.
"If I told my story, they would put me up under the gas chamber," he told the officer at the time. The FBI has confirmed his involvement in at least 50 murders so far.
ID is set to premiere Part 1 of the four-hour special 'The 93 Victims of Samuel Little' on Monday, August 31, 9 PM.