Samuel Little was a serial killer who the FBI has called the most prolific serial killer in United States history. When Samuel Little was finally arrested in 2012 he would confess to over ninety murders throughout the US. In this article on My Crime Library we will take a closer look at Samuel Little
Samuel Little Early Life
Samuel Little was born on June 7, 1940 in Reynolds Georgia. According to Little his mother was employed as a prostitute. Samuel and his family would move soon after his birth to Ohio where he would mostly be raised by his Grandmother.
When he was sixteen years old Samuel Little would be arrested and convicted for breaking into a home and would spend time in a juvenile detention facility in Omaha Nebraska.
Samuel Little would spend his twenties bouncing from job to job and in and out of prison.
Samuel Little Crimes
Samuel Little would spend time in prisons across the United States for a series of crimes including assault, sexual assault and theft.
In 1961 Samuel Little would be convicted and sentenced to three years in prison for breaking into a furniture store. In the next fifteen years he would be arrested twenty six times in eleven different States
Samuel Little Murders
In 1982 Samuel Little was arrested for the sexual assault and murder of a woman in Pascagoula, Mississippi by the name of Melinda Rose LáPree who had gone missing in the preceding months. Little would be acquitted of all charges due to poor witness testimony.
After being released from jail Samuel Little would move to California where he would be arrested for the kidnapping, assault and attempted murder of a woman in 1984. A month later he would be found in the back of a car with an unconscious woman who had been beaten and strangled. Little would be convicted and would spend the next two and a half years in prison.
After leaving prison Samuel Little would move to Los Angeles California where he committed ten more murders according to police.
Samuel Little Arrests And Confession
Samuel Little was arrested in Kentucky in 2021 and extradited back to California for a narcotics charge. Once in custody a DNA sample was taken and Little was tied to three murders: 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. Police agencies around the country and the FBI would begin to investigate Samuel Little and soon he would be tied to over thirty additional murders.
Samuel Little would be tried for the three murders and would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After spending four years in prison Samuel Little began to talk to authorities and would confess to over ninety murders.
The FBI has since confirmed that he is responsible for at least sixty murders and the numbers could be much higher. The FBI declared Samuel Little as the most prolific serial killer in United States history.
Samuel Little Death
Samuel Little would die at Los Angeles area hospital on December 30, 2020 from natural causes. At the time of his death he was suffering from heart problems, diabetes and an assortment of other issues
Samuel Little Videos
Samuel Little More News
ive years after analysts with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) began linking cases to convicted murderer Samuel Little—and nearly 18 months after a Texas Ranger began to elicit from him a breathtaking number of confessions—the FBI has confirmed Little to be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.
Little has confessed to 93 murders, and FBI crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible. Law enforcement has been able to verify 50 confessions, with many more pending final confirmation.
Little says he strangled his 93 victims between 1970 and 2005. Many of his victims’ deaths, however, were originally ruled overdoses or attributed to accidental or undetermined causes. Some bodies were never found.
“For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims,” said ViCAP Crime Analyst Christie Palazzolo. “Even though he is already in prison, the FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim—to close every case possible.”
The FBI is asking for the public’s help in matching the remaining unconfirmed confessions. ViCAP, with the support of the Texas Rangers, has provided additional information and details about five cases in hopes that someone may remember a detail that could further the investigation.
If you have any information linked to Little’s confessions, please contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/samuel-little-most-prolific-serial-killer-in-us-history-100619
Samuel Little Other News
America’s deadliest serial killer, Samuel Little, who confessed to strangling 93 people, has died in California aged 80 with the identity of almost half of his victims still unknown.
Little said he targeted disadvantaged and mostly black women, including sex workers, in the belief that this would draw less attention from a disjointed law enforcement system that had little apparent interest in such victims – a calculation that proved grimly correct. His death means families of many of the victims may never have closure.
He was serving three consecutive sentences of life without parole for the killing of three women in Los Angeles County during the late 1980s, crimes to which he was linked through DNA matches. He was convicted of first-degree murder by a Los Angeles County jury on 25 September 2014 and began serving his prison sentence about two months later.
According to the FBI, Little began confessing to additional murders to a Texas Ranger who interviewed him in his California prison cell in 2018, and ultimately admitted to killing 93 people across the country by strangulation between 1970 and 2005.
The FBI said investigators had since verified 50 of those confessions, with many more pending final confirmation, making Little the deadliest US serial killer on record.
Authorities have said he appears to have targeted mostly vulnerable young black women, many of them sex workers or addicted to drugs, whose deaths were not well publicised at the time and in some cases were not recorded as homicides.
Describing how he killed with impunity for years, Little boasted to investigators of avoiding “people who would be immediately missed”, in an interview acquired by the Washington Post, which examined the repeated failures to catch Little. “I’d go back to the same city sometimes and pluck me another grape,” he said. “How many grapes do you all got on the vine here? I’m not going to go over there into the white neighbourhood and pick out a little teenage girl.”
Many of his killings were initially recorded as overdoses or attributed to accidental or undetermined causes, and some bodies were never recovered, according to an FBI profile of the killer.
Before his convictions in 2014, Little was linked to at least eight sexual assaults, attempted murders or killings, but he repeatedly escaped serious punishment.
Little served two prior sentences in a California state prison, including a four-year term ending in 1987 for assault with a deadly weapon and false imprisonment, and a stint of about 14 months ending in April 2014.
FBI video recordings of his jailhouse confessions showed Little sitting in front of a cinder-block wall in blue prison scrubs and a grey knit cap, sometimes appearing bemused or smiling as he recounted the circumstances of the killings.
He was incarcerated at a state prison in Lancaster, California, north of Los Angeles, and died early on Wednesday morning at an outside hospital, the state department of corrections said. It said an official cause of death would be determined by the county medical examiner’s office.
Frequently Asked Questions
Samuel Little Death
Samuel Little would die on December 30, 2020 from natural causes