10The Real Victim Count Is Still Unknown
Samuel Little managed to hunt down and kill 93 women then get away with it for close to four decades. Shockingly, the real victim count might be even higher than the current confirmed numbers as the FBI is still working on other murder cases they believe are also connected to the serial killer. Christie Palazzolo, a crime analyst with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or ViCAP, is currently piecing together a timeline of his whereabouts along with cold cases around the same time and location. She said, “Even though he is already in prison, the FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim—to close every case possible.” As the crimes stretch across many states, the task has took years of hard work as in many cases they don’t have a body. The task has also been difficult as states such as Ohio had destroyed missing person reports made prior to 1990. Little said he found the city of Cleveland to be the easiest to get away with murder, confessing, “They didn’t give a f— if you killin’ over there.”[1]
9He Thought Nobody Would Report The Missing Victims
Little managed to evade capture for so long as he selected only vulnerable victims he believed no one was accounting for—female sex workers and drug addicts. Many victims were unidentified and their deaths were not investigated by police. He would pick up his selected victim before driving them to a secluded area where they were beaten and strangled. Their bodies dumped in alleyways and behind dumpsters—wherever he chose to discard them. He chillingly explained in a confessional video interview, “They was broke and homeless and they walked right into my spider web.”In a separate interview with journalist Jillian Lauren for the New York Times, he told her, “I never killed no senators or governors or fancy New York journalists. Nothing like that. I killed you, it’d be all over the news the next day. I stayed in the ghettos.”[2]
8Former Competitive Boxer Turned Serial
Born June 7th, 1940, in Reynolds, Georgia, Little said his mother was a “lady of the night” and investigators believe he was born in jail during one of his teenage mother’s arrests. He claimed she abandoned him on the side of a dirt road and was instead raised by his grandmother in Lorain, Ohio. In high school, he had problems with discipline and was held in an institution for juvenile offenders after breaking and entering into properties. He eventually dropped out of school and took up amateur boxing with dreams of becoming like his hero Sugar Ray Robinson. As a light-heavyweight prize fighter, he was known for his speed and earned the nicknames “Mad Daddy” and “Mad Machine”. Later in life he used these skills to get away with murder. When it came to his female victims, he would knock them out cold with one punch before strangling them—this often meant there was no “obvious signs” that a murder had taken place. The cause of death was often wrongly listed as overdoses or accidental.[3]
7A History Of Violence
Little had a history of violence dating back to 1956. The long list of criminal charges included shoplifting, fraud, breaking and entering, assault and false imprisonment. In 1984, he was arrested in San Diego for kidnapping, beating and strangling 22-year-old Laurie Barros—she was one of the lucky few survivors. A month later, a police officer found him in his car with an unconscious woman who had also been beaten and strangled. He served just two and a half years for both attempted murder charges and moved to Los Angeles following his release. In September 2012, he was arrested on a narcotics charge whilst at a homeless shelter in Kentucky and then extradited to California. When police collected his DNA, they matched him with three unsolved murders between 1987 and 1989. He claimed he was innocent but witnesses who had barely survived his attacks began to come forward to testify. In 2014, he was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole—that was just the beginning of what was about to unfold.[4]
6He Finally Confessed To A Texas Ranger
The FBI is well-trained in extracting a confession from cold-blooded killers but despite more than 700 hours spent interviewing Little, they never got him to admit to his crimes. Then along came Ranger James Holland who did the impossible and managed to coax Little into spilling all his secrets. For 48 straight days, the two men sat in a room together as Little confessed to 65 of his murders whilst they shared pizzas together. Due to these confessions, judges and prosecutors across multiple states have been able to close long-standing cold cases.Holland said Little was a calculated killer, he revealed, “He was so good at what he did. You know, ‘How did you get away with it, Sammy?’ Did the crime, left town. The first thing I picked up on is how wicked smart he was.” Adding, “Nothing he’s ever said has been proven to be wrong or false. We’ve been able to prove up almost everything he said.”[5]
