The FBI have released portraits done by serial killer Samuel Little drew of his victims in hope that they will be identified.
Samuel Little confessed to 90 killings across four decades in the US, the killings took place across the US between 1970 and 2005. Little was already serving life in prison for the murder of three women at the time of the confession.
FBI
Investigates say he targeted “marginalised and vulnerable women”, and some of their bodies went unidentified and deaths uninvestigated. Samuel Little, 78, may be among the prolific serial killers in US criminal history.
Samuel Little is a former competitive boxer who would knock his victims out with punches before strangling them meaning there was no obvious signs they had been killed. The FBI now hope Little’s drawings can help them find out who the victims were so their families can be notified.
“With no stab marks or bullet wounds, many of these deaths were not classified as homicides but attributed to drug overdoses, accidents, or natural causes,” the FBI said in its initial report in November last year.
Little was first caught in 2012 when he was arrested on a drug charge in a homeless shelter in Kentucky, he was then taken to Los Angeles. When in custody his DNA was matched to samples that had been taken from three unsolved deaths in Los Angeles in 1987 and 1989. All three were beaten and strangled before their bodies were dumped separately. Before he was convicted of murder he already had a extreme criminal record with offences for armed robbery to rape in a number of US states.
Littles case was passed to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Programme (ViCAP), which analyses people who serially commit violent and sexual crimes. They then share their findings with local law enforcement in different areas in order to check them against any unsolved crimes. ViCAP did a full background check on Little and noticed that there was three LA killings that were very similar to a number of unsolved deaths dating back to the 1970s.
Crime analyst Christina Palazzolo writes on the FBI website that they “found a case out of Odessa, Texas, that sounded very much like him, and we could place him passing through the area around the same time”.
In spring 2018, investigators had an interview with Little hoping to find more information. Then, during the interview, Ms Palazzolo says “he went through city and state and gave [us] the number of people he killed in each place”. Once he was done, he had confessed to 90 killings. The FBI says it has so far been able to verify 34 of these.
Many of Littles victims were sex workers, people with substance abuse issues and trans women, whose deaths may not have been investigated or would have been ruled to be accidental at the time.
His memory of the killings was very detailed and precise as he gave details about what happened and the car he drove.
Agents are continuing to question Little and collect drawings of his victims.
Other images are described as:
- Las Vegas, Nevada: ‘Black female, age 40, killed in 1993’
- Monroe, Louisiana: ‘Black female, age 24, killed between 1987 and the early 1990s’
- ‘Phoenix, Arizona: ‘White female killed in 1997. Victim possibly called Ann’
- White female, age 26, killed in 1983 or 1984. Victim possibly from Griffith, Georgia’
- Atlanta, Georgia: ‘Black female between 23-25 years old killed in 1984. Victim possibly a college student’
- ‘Hispanic female in her 40s. Killed in 1988 or 1996. Victim possibly from Phoenix’
- Atlanta, Georgia: ‘Black female between 35-40 years old killed in 1981’
- Miami, Florida: ‘Black [trans female], age 18, killed in 1971 or 1972. Victim possibly called Mary Ann or Marianne’
Here are the current portraits he has drawn with information.
FBI Los Angeles, California: ‘White female between 23-25 years old killed in 1996’
FBI ‘White female killed in 1984. Met victim in Columbus, Ohio. Body disposed of somewhere in Northern Kentucky’
FBI ‘White female between 20-25 years old killed in 1972. Victim possibly from Massachusetts’
FBI Black female, age 26, killed between 1976 and 1979. Met victim in St. Louis, Missouri. Victim possibly called Jo’
FBI ‘Black female between 28-29 years old killed in 1984. Victim picked up in Memphis, Tennessee’
FBI Houston, Texas: ‘Black female between 25-28 years old killed between 1976 and 1979 or in 1993’
FBI ‘Black female between 35-45 years old killed in 1977. Met the victim in Gulfport, Mississippi. Victim possibly from Pascagoula. Victim possibly worked at Ingalls Shipyard.’
FBI ‘Black female killed in 1976 or 1977. Body disposed of somewhere outside Wichita Falls (city unspecified).’
