Worst serial killer? Elderly man in jail for murder confesses to taking 90 lives across the US

29 Nov, 2018 22:05 / Updated 6 years ago

A convicted killer serving three life sentences in a Texas prison has confessed to killing 90 women over the course of almost four decades. If proven true, it would make him one of the worst serial killers in US history.

Samuel Little, 78, is already serving three consecutive life sentences without parole after being convicted of murdering three women. Perhaps that's why he was more than willing to speak to the FBI when the bureau's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) suspected him of another crime in Odessa, Texas. He also agreed to talk in exchange for a move to another prison.

But when FBI crime analysts and a representative from the Texas Ranger division of the Texas Department of Public Safety went to visit Little in prison, they had no idea that the 78-year-old was about to confess to many more murders – a total of 90 women killed between 1970 and 2005, the crimes spanning 16 states.

"He went through city and state and gave Ranger Holland the number of people he killed in each place. Jackson, Mississippi—one; Cincinnati, Ohio—one; Phoenix, Arizona—three; Las Vegas, Nevada—one," ViCAP Crime Analyst Christina Palazzolo said. 

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Authorities are now working to match up his confessions with any evidence available. A total of 34 killings have been confirmed, with many more pending confirmation and some currently uncorroborated. If his confessions are verified as true, it would make Little one of the "most prolific serial killers" in US history, according to the FBI.

"Little chose to kill marginalized and vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs. Their bodies sometimes went unidentified and their deaths uninvestigated," the FBI wrote on its website, where it has listed the locations and approximate dates of all of the killings Little has confessed to. 

Little was arrested at a Kentucky homeless shelter in 2012 and extradited to California on a narcotics charge. Once he was in custody, Los Angeles Police Department detectives obtained a DNA match on victims in three homicides from 1987 and 1989. He was convicted of those murders in 2014 and has been locked away ever since.

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