Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of murder and assault. Reader discretion is advised.
American serial killer Samuel Little was reportedly active between 1970 and 2005, during which he confessed to having murdered 93 victims across 19 states. Fifty of the said murders were officially confirmed by authorities, while several others are still being investigated. Many of the deaths that Little claimed to be responsible for were initially ruled as overdoses or accidental deaths. In some cases, the cause of death was left undetermined.
According to the Washington Post, Samuel Little told the police that he intentionally targeted women whose disappearances, he believed would not be reported and whose stories wouldn’t be heard, in case they survived. His victims included sex workers, women of colour, other women from marginalised communities and victims of substance abuse. It is this pattern of his that has left many of his murders unsolved even today.
The lack of reportage complicated Samuel Little’s conviction, which was only one of the reasons for his delayed arrest. Most of the witnesses and victims of his crimes were reportedly unreliable. They couldn’t be counted on to show up in court. More than once, Little allegedly managed to escape sexual assault accusations. He did so by claiming that the victims had accepted money in exchange for sex.
The Texas Department of Public Safety reported that most of Samuel Little’s confessions have been confirmed as accurate after thorough DNA analysis and corroborative interviews. Texas Ranger James Holland reportedly conducted elaborate interviews with Little from June 2018 to 2020, through which many of the details of his crimes were uncovered and used to investigate his confessions. He reportedly boasted a photographic memory. This allowed him to accurately describe his victims and the condition in which he left them.
What was Samuel Little convicted of?
According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Samuel Little was serving three consecutive life sentences without a chance for parole from Los Angeles County. This sentence was for the deaths of three women who were murdered in the late 1980s. He was convicted of first-degree murder on September 25, 2014, and was admitted to state prison on November 24 of the same year.
With the investigation into his claims and confessions still going on, Samuel Little was convicted of at least eight murders at the time of his death on December 30, 2020. He was previously convicted of false imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon in 1985. He was sentenced to four years in San Diego County. Little was then released on parole in 1987. In December 2012, he was convicted of the possession of a controlled substance and served time in Los Angeles County before he was released in April 2014.
In 2023, investigators managed to determine the identity of Samuel Little’s first confirmed victim. A young woman whose remains were identified in 1977 on Arkwright Road, Macon, was previously referred to by the name of “Macon Jane Doe” until authorities, after 46 years of finding the body, confirmed her actual name, The Independent reported. She was Yvonne Pless, a 20-year-old woman who had gone missing in 1977 before her disappearance turned into a cold case. In 2018, Little confessed to two murders related to Macon. After Pless’ identity was determined, her family was tracked down using forensic genetic genealogy.
The 93 Victims of Samuel Little is an ID television mini-series released in 2020. It is currently streaming on Vudu.
