Samuel Little

Samuel Little was an American serial killer and serial rapist who was convicted in 2012 of the murders of three women in California between 1987 and 1989, and in 2018 of the murder of one woman in Texas in 1994. He claimed to have killed as many as ninety-three women, and investigators have linked him to over sixty murders. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least fifty murders, the largest number of proven cases for any serial killer in United States history. He allegedly murdered women across nineteen states over a third of a century ending around 2005. Early life: Samuel Little was born on June 7, 1940, in Reynolds, Georgia, to a mother he claimed was a prostitute. Soon after his birth, Little's family moved to Lorain, Ohio, where he was brought up mainly by his grandmother. He attended Hawthorne Junior High School, where he had problems with discipline and achievement. In 1956, after being convicted of breaking and entering into property in Omaha, Nebraska, Little was held in an institution for juvenile offenders. Little moved to Florida to live with his mother in his late 20s, working at various times as a cemetery worker and an ambulance attendant (by his own account). He said he then "began traveling more widely and had more run-ins with the law”, being arrested in eight states for crimes that included driving under the influence, fraud, shoplifting, solicitation, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and rape. Little claimed that he took up boxing during his stints in prison, referring to himself as a former prizefighter. Crimes: In 1961, Little was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain; he was released in 1964. By 1975, he had been arrested 26 times in 11 states for crimes including theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials. In 1982, Little was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and charged with the murder of 22-year-old Melinda Rose LáPree, who had gone missing in September of that year. A grand jury declined to indict him for her murder. However, while under investigation, Little was transferred to Florida to be brought to trial for the murder of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount, whose body was found in September 1982. Prosecution witnesses identified Little in court as a person who spent time with Mount on the night before her disappearance. Due to mistrust of witness testimonies, Little was acquitted in January 1984. Little moved to California, where he stayed in the vicinity of San Diego. In October 1984, he was arrested for kidnapping, beating, and strangling 22-year-old Laurie Barros, who survived. One month later, he was found by police in the backseat of his car with an unconscious woman, also beaten and strangled, in the same location as the attempted murder of Barros. Little served two and a half years in prison for both crimes. Upon his release in February 1987, he immediately moved to Los Angeles and committed more than 10 additional murders. Little was arrested on September 5, 2012, at a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, and extradited to California to face a narcotics charge, after which authorities used DNA testing to establish that he was involved in the murders of Carol Ilene Elford, killed on July 13, 1987; Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, killed on September 3, 1987; and Audrey Nelson Everett, killed on August 14, 1989. All three women were killed and later found on the streets of Los Angeles. He was extradited to Los Angeles, where he was charged on January 7, 2013. A few months later, the police said that Little was being investigated for involvement in three dozen murders committed in the 1980s, which until then had been undisclosed. In connection with the new circumstances in Mississippi, the LaPree murder case was reopened. In total, Little was tested for involvement in 93 murders of women committed in many US states. Trial and incarceration: Little was tried for the murders of Elford, Nelson, and Apodaca in September 2014. The prosecution presented the DNA evidence as well as testimony of witnesses who were attacked by the accused at different times throughout his criminal career. On September 25, 2014, Little was found guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. On the day of the verdict, Little continued to insist on his innocence. Prior to his death, Little was serving a sentence at the California State Prison, Los Angeles County. Later confessions: On November 9, 2018, Little confessed to the 1996 fatal strangulation of Melissa Thomas. On November 13, 2018, Little was charged with the 1994 murder of Denise Christie Brothers in Odessa, Texas after having confessed the crime to a Texas Ranger in May 2018. Little pleaded guilty to the murder of Brothers on December 13 and received another life sentence. The Ector County, Texas District Attorney and Wise County Sheriff's Office also announced on November 13 that Little had confessed to dozens of murders and may have committed more than 90 across 14 states between 1970 and 2005. On November 15, 2018, the Russell County, Alabama District Attorney announced that Little had earlier that month confessed to the 1979 murder of 23-year-old Brenda Alexander, whose body was found in Phenix City. On November 16, 2018, Macon, Georgia sheriffs announced that Little had credibly confessed to the 1977 strangling murder of an unidentified woman and the 1982 strangling murder of 18-year-old Fredonia Smith. In the fall of 2018, Little confessed to the 1982 murder of 55-year-old Dorothy Richards and the 1996 murder of 40-year-old Daisy McGuire; both of their bodies were found in Houma, Louisiana. On November 19, 2018, Harrison County, Mississippi sheriff Troy Peterson said that Little had confessed to strangling 36-year-old Julia Critchfield in the Gulfport area in 1978 and dumping her body off a cliff. On November 20, 2018, Lee County, Mississippi law enforcement officials announced that Little had admitted to killing 46-year-old Nancy Carol Stevens in Tupelo in 2005 and that the case would be presented to a grand jury in January 2019. On November 21, 2018, Richland County, South Carolina authorities announced that Little had confessed to murdering 19-year-old Evelyn Weston, whose body was found near Fort Jackson in 1978. Little also confessed to having killed 20-year-old Rosie Hill in Marion County, Florida, in 1982. On November 27, 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that a Violent Criminal Apprehension Program team had confirmed 34 of Little's confessions and was working to match the remainder of Little's confessions to known murders or suspicious deaths. Little began making the confessions in exchange for a transfer out of the Los Angeles County prison in which he was being held. One included his confession to a previous cold case homicide in Prince George's County, Maryland, previously one of only two homicide cases in that county with unidentified victims. In December 2018, Little was indicted for strangling Linda Sue Boards, 23, to death in May 1981 in Warren County, Kentucky. Her body was found on May 15, 1981 near U.S. Route 68. One of Little's victims was identified in December 2018 as Martha Cunningham of Knox County, Tennessee, who was 34 years old when Little murdered her in 1975. On May 31, 2019, Cuyahoga County, Ohio prosecutors announced indictments, with four counts of aggravated murder and six counts of kidnapping, that accuse Little of killing Mary Jo Peyton in 1984 and Rose Evans in 1991 in Cleveland. Both victims were strangled and dumped. The body of Rose Evans, 32, was found on August 24, 1991, in a vacant lot on East 39th St. She left her hometown of Binghamton, New York when she was 17. Evans had been strangled according to coroner Elizabeth K. Balraj. As for Peyton, an anthropologist had to create a model of what she looked like, but she remained unidentified until 1992 when Cleveland put her thumbprint in an FBI data base and got a match. Little picked up Peyton at a bar near East 105th and Euclid avenues. He described her as a short, plump woman in her 20s with brown hair. Little also confessed to killing another Cleveland woman in 1977 or 1978. The woman murdered in 1977 or 1978 was found on March 18, 1983, in Willoughby Hills according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). She was likely black and somewhere between 17 and 35 years old. The woman's body had been dumped down a grassy slope, near a fence in a wooded area just off Interstate 271; when her body was found by a man walking his dog, only her skeleton, some clothing and jewelry remained. Little had also confessed to killing one woman in Akron; two in Cincinnati – one of the bodies was dumped outside of Columbus; and one woman he met in Columbus and disposed of in Kentucky. Of the two women Little murdered in Cincinnati, one was identified as Anna Stewart, 33, whose body was dumped in Grove City. Stewart was last seen on October 6, 1981, getting out of a cab at General Hospital to see her sister in the hospital (now UC Medical Center). She was killed on October 11. He killed the other woman between 1980 and 1999. The "Jane Doe" was anywhere from 15 to 50 as the details of her age and the date of her murder are unclear. She was black, slender, wore glasses and lived in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati with a "heavy female Hispanic." Little left her beside a cigarette billboard in Ohio. On June 7, 2019, Little was indicted in Hamilton County, Ohio for murdering the two women killed in Cincinnati. Little had drawn portraits of many women he killed. These portraits were released by the FBI in hopes of someone identifying the women. At least one portrait has solved a cold case in Akron, Ohio. In November 2020, Little confessed to two Florida murders, one of which another man was wrongfully convicted. Confirmed victims (partial list): -Annie Lee Stewart -Mary Jo Peyton -Carol Elford -Guadalupe Abodaca -Audrey Nelson Everett -“Jane Doe” -Rose Evans -Denise Christie Brothers Personal life: Little had a long-term girlfriend, Jean, since deceased, who supported them both through shoplifting for years. Little used a wheelchair, and had diabetes and a heart condition. Little died from an unspecified health condition on December 30, 2020, in a Los Angeles County area hospital.