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Thread: Samuel Little Sentenced to 3 Consecutive Life Terms in CA Serial Stranglings of Three Women in the 1980's

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    Samuel Little Sentenced to 3 Consecutive Life Terms in CA Serial Stranglings of Three Women in the 1980's


    Carol Alford, 41


    Samuel Little


    Man with local ties convicted in serial stranglings


    By Chronicle-Telegram Staff

    LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles jury has convicted a career criminal with ties to Lorain and Medina counties for the serial killings of three women in the 1980s.

    Related:

    http://theconservativetreehouse.com/...cious-murders/



    The jury on Tuesday found 74-year-old Samuel Little, who also is known as Samuel McDowell, guilty of three counts of murder.

    The victims were 41-year-old Carol Alford, whose body was found July 13, 1987; 35-year-old Audrey Nelson, found Aug. 14, 1989; and 46-year-old Guadalupe Apodaca, found Sept. 3, 1989.

    Los Angeles police detectives have said the three women were strangled in sexually motivated killings and their partially clad bodies dumped.

    The prosecution was made possible by advances in DNA technology that linked evidence from the three crime scenes to Little. Little was arrested in 2012 after detectives from Los Angeles found him living in a Kentucky homeless shelter.

    Prosecutor Beth Silverman has said Little is likely responsible for at least 40 killings nationwide, dating to 1980. Authorities in Ohio, California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and Mississippi are scouring their cold-case files for possible ties to Little.

    Elyria police Capt. Chris Costantino said Tuesday that detectives have worked with the LAPD in recent years to see if there was a connection between Little and unsolved homicides or disappearances in northern Ohio.

    Although investigators weren’t able to tie Little to any local slayings, Costantino said it was still good police work to make certain.

    Little was born in Reynolds, Ga., in 1940, but grew up in Lorain and appears to have had his first criminal conviction in Lorain County, when he was sentenced to an Ohio juvenile detention facility in 1957 for breaking and entering.

    After being released in 1961, he was quickly convicted as an adult for another break-in and spent three years in prison. From there, court records indicate, Little racked up convictions in Lorain and Medina counties and in about half the states in the union before his arrest two years ago.

    Although many of the crimes he was arrested for were relatively minor, others involved violence, including robbery, assault on a police officer and for attacking two women in San Diego in the 1980s.

    Despite a large number of arrests, Little wasn’t always convicted.

    A jury cleared him in the 1982 strangulation death of a woman in Gainesville, Fla., and aggravated assault and sodomy charges against him in Cuyahoga County were dropped in 1977.

    http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2...l-stranglings/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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    Former Pascagoula prostitutes testify of escapes from convicted serial killer Samuel Little

    By April M. Havens
    blog.gulflive.com

    PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- A year after another Pascagoula prostitute narrowly escaped a violent strangling, Lelia Johnson scratched, clawed and ran topless into heavy shipyard traffic to get away from Samuel Little, her would-be murderer.

    Johnson, now 55 and living in Moss Point, was in her early 20s when she fought off Little's brutal attack inside a car in November 1981.

    "He got his big hands around my neck, but I'm a fighter and I was scratching him in the eyeballs, kicking and fighting, fighting, fighting," she said. "He was evil. You could tell he hated women and he liked having control."

    Johnson was just one of Little's many victims, but she was one of very few survivors.

    Earlier this week, a Los Angeles jury convicted Little of strangling three LA women to death in the late 1980s. He was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in the 1987 killing of Carol Alford and the 1989 murders of Audrey Nelson and Guadalupe Apodaca.

    Little is suspected of killing 40 or more people across the country in about a dozen states, authorities have said.

    When Johnson escaped the man's station wagon in 1981, she ran through some woods and onto U.S. 90 -- dodging vehicles -- and finally fell at the feet of a man who helped her.

    Johnson never reported her attack "because I didn't think anybody would care or believe me," she said Thursday morning.

    Johnson and another severely injured Pascagoula prostitute, who asked not to be named, were in California last week the testify against Little.

    Each identified the now 74-year-old wheelchair-bound man as their aggressor and said he was extremely violent and intended to kill them.

    "He beat me severely, and I guess the only reason he didn't kill me is because a friend of mine came and knocked on my door," a now 60-year-old victim said.

    She was attacked in July 1980 and was near death after Little entered her Carver Village home, knocked her unconscious and pulled a scarf tightly around her neck.

    "He put me in a bathtub and was submerging my head in and out of water," the Pascagoula woman said. "I think he was trying to bring me to before he took me to my bedroom to choke me to death. It probably wouldn't have been any fun for him to choke me while I was expressionless."

    She said she was unconscious for 95 percent of the assault, and she woke up at the hospital, where authorities had been called to take a statement.

    Her case was not investigated, however, "until a white girl turned up dead" two years later, she said.

    Little is still the prime suspect in the 1982 death of 22-year-old Melinda "Mindy" LaPree, who was strangled and dumped in a cemetery in modern-day Gautier, according to Pascagoula detective Darren Versiga.

    Versiga has worked the LaPree cold case and also testified in Little's California trial.

    He called Little a "professional shoplifter" who left a trail of bodies as he traveled across the country.

    "He was a thief by day and a murderer by night," Versiga said. "He would steal, steal, steal all day long and then flash his money to get these girls in his car and then strangle them."

    According to a 1982 memo in the Pascagoula case file, Little was suspected then of having killed as many as 40 people -- mostly prostitutes and drug addicts who wouldn't be reported missing for while -- across the country, he said.

    "He preyed on the weak," Johnson said. "He preyed on people he could use and abuse and kill."

    Little had a ferocious appetite for violence, and he's suspected of committing crimes in states including California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio.

    "We were a small part of a much bigger case," Versiga said.

    Beginning in his teens, Little has been arrested in connection with crimes in 24 states but has served less than 10 years in prison.

    Those arrests were on assault, burglary, armed robbery, shoplifting and drug violations charges.

    The serial killer first showed up in Pascagoula in 1977, Versiga said, and he was back in 1982 for the killing of Mindy LaPree.

    Little was arrested in Pascagoula in connection to the LaPree murder, but authorities lacked sufficient evidence in the case and the district attorney at the time decided not to prosecute.

    In the process, however, authorities learned that Little had been indicted on a similar charge related to the 1982 strangulation death of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount in Gainesville, Fla.

    The Florida jury ultimately acquitted Little, however, because prosecutors had lost a key witness.

    There's another cold case in Pascagoula that could also match Little's murder method, Versiga said.

    "Our first skeletal remains were found in December 1977, about four months after Little left Pascagoula," he said. "The remains are still unidentified, but that might be another victim. I can only imagine."

    Versiga said he was thrilled to deliver the good news of Little's conviction to local victims this week.

    "He's been getting away with it for 50 years," Versiga said. "He had a little smirk on his face in court. I think it's him saying, 'it's about time somebody caught me.'"

    Justice has been served for the families of the California victims, Johnson said, and she feels blessed to have helped prove a case against the man with "mean green eyes."

    "I asked God all the time what my purpose was in life, but now I know he saved me so I could testify and get justice for those other ladies," she said. "I want him to sit in that wheelchair and rot every day and think about what he did to us."

    http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi...ostitutes.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
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    Samuel Little gets three consecutive life terms for murders of three L.A. women

    By Associated Press

    LOS ANGELES -- A 74-year-old man suspected in a Pascagoula murder has been sentenced to three consecutive terms of life in prison without chance of parole in the murders of three Los Angeles women.

    Samuel Little was convicted earlier this month of the killings, which occurred in the late 1980s.

    Little shouted out in court during sentencing Thursday that he didn't commit the killings and said he hoped for a new trial. His lawyer has filed an appeal.

    Little amassed an arrest record in 24 states over 56 years, but spent less than 10 years behind bars. He was arrested at a Kentucky shelter two years ago after DNA connected him to the LA crime scenes.

    Little lured his victims with dope and then beat them and strangled them for his sexual pleasure, prosecutors said. He dumped their half-naked bodies in garbage.

    Little is a suspect in the 1982 death of 22-year-old Melinda "Mindy" LaPree, who was strangled and dumped in a cemetery in Pascagoula.


    Pascagoula police detective Darren Versiga as well as two former Pascagoula prostitutes who were attacked by Little testified in the California trial.


    Over 56 years, Little served less than 10 years in prison for crimes ranging from shop lifting to drug use to assault to armed robbery to rape, authorities said.

    The murder convictions three weeks ago were firsts for Little, though he was arrested in two out-of-state killings in 1982.

    He was acquitted of murder in a Forest Grove, Florida case. A grand jury didn't indict him in the Pascagoula killing. Both those killings had similarities with the LA cases.

    "I just be in the wrong place at the wrong time with people," he told Los Angeles police after DNA linked him to the killings and they arrested him two years ago in a Kentucky shelter.

    Several women testified at trial about surviving attacks in which Little beat and choked them.

    Little's lawyer argued during trial that his previous record had nothing to do with the LA killings.

    Jurors deliberating about two hours before finding him guilty of the murders of Carol Alford, 41, in 1987; and Audrey Nelson, 35, and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, in 1989.

    After his arrest in those killings, authorities began re-examining old cases in California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio.

    http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi...ree_conse.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Suspected Serial Killer Samuel Little Suspected in More Than 90 Murders

    By Jack Phillips
    The Epoch Times

    Samuel Little, a convicted serial killer, may be connected to more than 90 murders across the United States. If the claim is true and he’s convicted of the charges, he would be the worst serial killer in U.S. history.

    Little, also known as Samuel McDowell, is serving three life sentences for killing three women in the Los Angeles area in the late 1980s. Texas authorities on Nov. 13 told NBC News that the 78-year-old may be connected to dozens of murders in a dozen states over a three-decade span.

    Currently housed in a facility in Wise County, Little provided investigators details of a “multitude” of killings that might have committed between 1970 and 2005 in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio, California, Indiana, Arizona, New Mexico, and South Carolina, the network reported.

    He was convicted in 2014 for the slayings of three Los Angeles women, a Fox affiliate reported. In the past three years, investigators from all over the U.S. have been sent to Wise County to speak with Little about their cases.

    In July, Little was charged in the 1994 killing of Denise Christie Brothers in Ector County, Texas, before he was extradited to California. An investigator “was able to use this case as a catalyst to continue to gain trust and information from Little in order to solve dozens of other cases,” Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland told NBC.

    Bland added that if he’s found guilty of the murders, he “will be confirmed as one of, if not the most, prolific serial killers in U.S. history,” NBC reported.

    “Little has provided details of more than 90 murders committed in multiple states,” the sheriff’s office stated, Newsweek reported.

    Gary Ridgway, the so-called “Green River Killer” who terrorized Washington state and Oregon, was convicted of killing 49 people between 1982 and 2000. He claimed to have killed 71 people, but he was suspected in 90 murders. John Wayne Gacy was convicted of killing around 33 people in the Chicago area, while Ted Bundy confessed to killing 30 or more people in the 1970s. Both Bundy and Gacy were sentenced to death and were later executed, while Ridgway, 69, is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Bland noted that none of Little’s confessions have been disproven.

    “When you lose someone like this, you don’t know what happened to them or why it happened, it’s important to get the answers,” Bland said, CBS7 reported. “And now there are people across the country that are getting those answers.”

    “There are people all over this country that haven’t had answers, haven’t had justice, but now they will,” he elaborated, ABC13 reported. “So even though it was delayed, it will not be denied.”

    ABC13 reported that 30 of the murders have been confirmed by authorities.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/suspec...s_2715653.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Elderly prisoner claims he's America's deadliest serial killer with 90 victims and police believe him

    The Washington Post

    A group of friends slashing their dirt bikes through the woods outside Saucier, Mississippi, found Julia Critchfield. It was January 1978. The 36-year-old mother of four was naked, her body sprawled on a roadside. She had been strangled. Her killer had draped a black dress over her frame.

    Nearly 500 miles away and four years later, Rosie Hill's body was discovered near a hog pen in Marion County, Florida. The 21-year-old was last seen four nights earlier leaving a bar with a stranger in August 1982. She also had been strangled.

    Nearly 700 miles east, Melissa Thomas turned up in a church cemetery in Opelousas, Louisiana. It was January 1996. Again, strangled.

    The three cases - separated by hundreds of miles and spread over three decades - each stumped local law enforcement. Eventually, the crimes slid into obscurity. The passing years chipped away at witnesses' memories. Evidence sat in storage, or was misplaced, or swallowed up by hurricanes. Family members mourned publicly, then sank into the private ritual of grieving for the victim of an unsolved crime. Over the years, cold-case detectives would try to kick loose new information. A local television station might run a story to mark a grim anniversary.

    Unbeknown to anyone, there was an invisible thread running through each murder - and possibly many more. Authorities learned about the link only this summer, when a 78-year-old serial killer began talking in his Texas jail cell.

    In September 2014, Samuel Little was convicted in Los Angeles of the cold-case murders of three women between 1987 and 1989. DNA evidence linked Little - also known as Samuel McDowell - to the slayings. He was given three life sentences, the Los Angeles Times reported at the time.

    But last summer, Little's DNA also connected him to the unsolved 1994 murder of an Odessa, Texas, woman named Denise Christie Brothers - another young woman strangled and dumped. In July, Little was indicted on a charge of the crime, and transferred to Texas. According to a release from the Ector County District Attorney's Office, a Texas Ranger named James Holland struck up a rapport with Little, and the elderly man began talking.

    "People for years have been trying to get a confession out of him and James Holland is the one who finally got him to give that information," Bobby Bland, the Ector County district attorney, told the Associated Press.

    His words delivered a shock. Little claimed he was responsible for more than 90 murders nationwide between 1970 and 2013. If the those numbers prove true, the serial killer's run would be historic.

    "If all of these are confirmed, I mean, he'll be the most prolific serial killer, with confirmed killings, in American history," Bland said.

    Since Little's confession, he has already been linked to 30 unsolved crimes. Authorities have confirmed his role in at least nine cases, including Critchfield, Hill and Thomas. Right now, law enforcement officials from across the country continue to trek to his jail cell, hauling along their open case files, hoping the convicted killer can offer answers.

    "So far we don't have any false information coming from him," Bland told the Associated Press.

    Little's 90 murders would rank him among the most deadly American killers. Ted Bundy is suspected of killing at least 30 victims. Randy Kraft, who claimed he killed as many as 65 people, was convicted in 1989 of 16 deaths. Convicted of 49 murders, Gary Ridgway, the "Green River Killer," is thought to be the country's most prolific serial killer.

    Now hobbled by poor health and confined to a wheelchair, Little was once a towering 6-foot-3, tipping the scales at more than 200 pounds, the LA Times reported in 2014. Born in Georgia, he was raised by his grandmother in Ohio. By the time he was 16, Little was picked up on his first criminal charge for breaking and entering, the AP reported.

    Jail would be the common denominator in his cross-country vagabond life. Between 1957 and 1975, he was arrested 26 times in 11 states on charges ranging from shoplifting and fraud to rape and aggravated assault on a police officer. As Little told California police in an interview, during his incarceration, he put his large hands to use boxing fellow inmates. "I used to be a prizefighter," he told investigators, according to the AP.

    Those hands would be his weapon of choice as he turned to murder, prosecutors at his Los Angeles trial alleged. Little purposely preyed on troubled targets - drug addicts and prostitutes. He would knock them unconscious with the punches he had fine-tuned in jail, then strangle his victims while masturbating.

    That violent streak first came to the attention of authorities in 1976, when a St. Louis drug addict named Pamela Kay Smith was found banging on a random house door for help. The AP reported she was naked below the waist and her hands were tied behind her back with electrical cord. The woman told police a man had picked her up, choked her, then beat and raped her before she escaped.

    Police arrested Little in a car matching the victim's description. Smith's clothes were inside. "I only beat her," he reportedly told police.

    Little served only three months in jail after being convicted of assault with the intent to ravish-rape for the crime in December 1976.

    The Missouri conviction would set a pattern for Little for the next decade. A peripatetic loner with no fixed address, he was regularly arrested or suspected of violent attacks on women. But he always managed to squeeze free.

    In 1982, the remains of a Pascagoula, Mississippi, woman named Melinda LaPree were discovered in a cemetery. She was last spotted with Little. As police investigated, two prostitutes came forward to allege Little had attacked them both. He was arrested for both LaPree's murder and the two assaults. But a grand jury failed to indict, the AP reported.

    That same year, Little was charged with the murder of Patricia Ann Mount in Forest Grove, Florida. His January 1984 trial ended in acquittal.

    Months later, in October 1984, Little was charged in San Diego for attacking a woman. The jury deadlocked in an attempted murder trial, and Little agreed to plead guilty to assault and false imprisonment. He served two and half years. After his release, Little relocated to Southern California.

    According to NBC Los Angeles, Carol Alford was found murdered in a South Los Angeles alley in 1987. Two years later, Audrey Nelson was found murdered in a downtown trash bin. Also in 1989, Guadalupe Apodaca's body turned up in an abandoned building. All three cases went cold until April 2012, when a detective put DNA evidence found on the bodies into a national database. The results linked to Little.

    In 2014, he was finally put on trial and convicted. "This is a man . . . who believes he can take whatever he wants from women," prosecutor Beth Silverman told the LA jury, the Times reported.

    The conviction put Little away for the rest of his life.

    But as the killer's current confessions now show, a much darker current of violence ran beneath his official criminal record.

    In recent months, since Little began talking in Texas, law enforcement have linked the convicted killer to nine murders in five states so far.

    Authorities in Macon, Georgia, say Little was behind two unsolved slayings there, the 1977 murder of a still-unidentified woman, and the 1982 strangling of Fredonia Smith. According to the Macon Telegraph, Little "gave investigators specific details and information which linked him to both."

    Police in Mississippi say Little has admitted to two killings - Melinda LaPree in 1982 and Julia Critchfield in 1978, WLOX reported.

    Authorities in Russell County, Alabama, now know Little was behind the 1979 murder of Brenda Alexander, 23. In Texas, Little told investigators about picking the woman up at a local disco. "He wringed his hands together, smiled and said, 'I knew she was mine,'' an investigator told the Ledger-Enquirer.

    Rosie Hill's 1982 murder in Florida has also been tied to the killer, WCJB reported.

    According to the Advocate, Little has confessed to three murders in Louisiana: the 1982 murder of Dorothy Richards, 55; the 1996 death of Melissa Thomas, 29; and the 1996 murder of Daisy McGuire, 40.

    These jurisdictions now face the tricky question of whether to prosecute Little. He is already set to spend the rest of his life in prison. For some victims's families, knowing Little is responsible might be their only consolation.

    But the killer's newfound openness should not be read as remorse. As one detective who recently interviewed Little wrote in a report, Little "advised that God put him on this Earth to do what he was doing."

    https://www.cleveland.com/nation/ind...rt_river_index
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Sheriff: Serial killer admits to murdering 2 more Coast women on the same day

    By Lyndsey Knowles
    WLOX News

    BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Samuel Little, the serial killer who has confessed to killing as many as 90 women across the country, is now facing murder charges for the deaths of two more women on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

    Harrison County Sheriff Troy Peterson said Little has been charged with the murders of Alice Taylor and Tracy Johnson, two women who were killed in December 1992. Earlier this month, Little was charged with the murder of Julia Critchfield, who was murdered in 1978.

    Authorities say Alice Taylor’s body was found on Dec. 11, 1992, under a pile of tires on the side of the road between Mississippi Avenue and Alabama Avenue. An autopsy showed that she had been strangled. At the time, police were also investigating the disappearance of Tracy Johnson, a close friend of Alice’s who was seen with her on the day before her body was discovered.

    Less than three weeks later, Tracy’s body was found on a dirt road off Highway 49 in Saucier. She had been strangled, as well. At the time, investigators believed that the two friends were killed by the same person, possibly at the same time, but all of their leads dried up and the case eventually went cold.

    In October, Harrison County investigators were contacted by the Texas Rangers after Little reportedly confessed to dozens of murders across the country. Authorities said Little admitted to killing Critchfield at that time and also said he had killed two women on the same day in the early 90s.

    Little told investigators the women were together when he met them in North Gulfport. He said he picked them both up on the same but at different times, murdering each of them separately and then disposing of their bodies.

    Harrison County investigators went to Texas, where Little is currently serving three life sentences for murders he committed in Los Angeles. After confirming details in the cases, Little was charged with the murders of Alice Taylor and Tracy Johnson. Sheriff Peterson said Little will be extradited back to Mississippi to answer other indictments against him, which include the murder of Julia Critchfield. According to the sheriff, Harrison County investigators are now going over every cold case they have between 1978 and 1995, searching for any other murders that may be linked to Little.

    Little is also a suspect in the death of Melinda LePree, whose body was found in a Gautier cemetery in 1982. Jackson County authorities say all of the evidence will be brought before a grand jury so they can make a rational decision about how they want to move forward with this case.

    https://www.wlox.com/2018/11/27/sher...omen-same-day/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    So far Samuel Little has been linked to 34 murders with many more pending confirmation. Little confessed to 90 unsolved homicides between 1970 and 2005.

    Below is a FBI update that has a map of where the crimes occurred and a detailed list of his confessions.

    https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/vic...-killer-112718
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Edited:

    Serial killer who may have committed 90 murders is linked to yet another killing


    By Paulina Dedaj
    Fox News

    Police in Washington, D.C., have attributed an unsolved murder from 1972 to convicted serial killer Samuel Little, just weeks after he admitted to committing at least 90 killings since the early 1970s.

    Prince George’s County Police said Wednesday that officials received a call in October about an unsolved murder dating back to the summer of 1972, in which a hunter discovered human remains in a wooded area off Route 197, along the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Laurel.

    Officials said that a Texas Ranger informed them that Little had confessed to a murder in the Washington region that matched their case.

    Detectives set out to interview Little in Texas, where he is serving multiple life sentences for murders in that state and California. According to investigators, he revealed “specific and previously unreported details” about the case that led them to believe his confession.

    Police have never been able to identify the victim, but say Little’s confession has helped them to narrow their search.

    The medical examiner’s report described the victim as a 19-year-old Caucasian female, with dirty blond or reddish hair. The victim was between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-6.

    Little told investigators he picked the woman up at a bus station on New York Avenue in the District of Columbia and learned that she was recently divorced and had come there from Massachusetts.

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/serial-ki...nother-killing
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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    Timeline on 78-year-old man suspected of being one of the 'most prolific serial killers in US history'

    By Bill Hutchison
    ABC News

    Samuel Little has told investigators he's killed as many as 90 women, offering details of the deaths that officials say match up with evidence in at least 34 of the grisly slayings.

    The 78-year-old Little, a former boxer from Ohio, has freely shared names of his victims, places, and details of how they died, according to authorities. As investigators follow the trail of bodies he allegedly disposed of in 16 states dating back to the 1970s, a stunning FBI report described Little as being possibly "among the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history."

    Here is a timeline of the deadly path Little, who has also gone by the name Samuel McDowell, blazed across the nation:

    -- June 7, 1940 -- He was born in Reynolds, Georgia. According to investigators, Little described his mother as "a lady of the night."

    -- 1956 -- Little was first arrested at the age of 16 on a charge of breaking and entering in Omaha, Nebraska, officials said. That same year, he dropped out of high school and set out on a nomadic life that included a stint as a professional boxer.

    -- 1970-1971 -- He recently confessed to killing his first victim in 1970 or 1971 in Homestead, Florida, according to the FBI. But investigators have yet to match him to the killing or identify a victim.

    -- 1972 -- Little confessed to killing a woman in 1972 who was between the age of 20 and 25, and possibly from Massachusetts, according to FBI officials, who said his recent confession matched evidence discovered in the homicide.

    -- 1982 -- He was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on suspicion in the killing of Melinda LaPree, a 22-year-old prostitute, but he was released due to lack of evidence, Pascagoula police officials told ABC affiliate WLOX-TV in Biloxi, Mississippi.

    -- 1983-- Little was arrested in the killing of Patricia Mounts, 26, whose badly-beaten body was found on the side of a highway in Alachua County, Florida, on Sept. 12, 1982. He was acquitted of Mounts' murder in January 1984, according to ABC affiliate station WCJB-TV in Gainesville, Florida.

    -- 1984 -- He was arrested in San Diego, California, and convicted of rape and assault, stemming from the attacks on two women. He was sentenced to four years in prison and released in 1987 after serving 2 1/2 years, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

    -- 2012 -- Little was arrested at a Kentucky homeless shelter and extradited to California, where he was wanted on narcotics charges, according to the FBI. While in custody, DNA linked him to three Los Angeles cold-case homicides -- the 1987 killings of Carol Alford, 41, and the 1989 slayings of Audrey Nelson, 35, and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, according to the FBI. All three victims were strangled.

    -- 2014 -- He was convicted of murdering Nelson, Apodaca, and Alford, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    -- May 2018 -- Little agreed to speak with Christina Palazzolo, an FBI crime analyst, Angela Williamson, a Department of Justice senior policy adviser, and James Holland, an investigator with the Texas Rangers. Hoping to get a prison transfer, Little confessed to at least 90 killings dating back to the early 1970s, officials said.

    -- July 2018 -- Little was charged with murder in one of the killings he confessed to, the 1994 slaying in Odessa, Texas, of Denise Christie Brothers. He has been extradited to Texas to face prosecution.

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-7...ry?id=59493243
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #10
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    Who is she? Samuel Little admits to killing Jackson woman whose body was never found

    By Margaret Baker
    Sun Herald

    Convicted serial killer Samuel Little wants credit for the murders he’s committed, but one of the five killings he’s confessed to in coastal Mississippi has left even seasoned cold case investigators baffled and scrambling for information.

    The case involves the killing of a young woman Little described as a native of Jackson who was living in Gulfport and working as a pipe fitter at Ingalls Shipbuilding.

    “We think maybe her body was never found,” said Pacagoula Police Lt. Darren Versiga, a cold case investigator who has been tracking Little for decades. “He said he picked her up in Gulfport.”

    Versiga and Harrison County investigators Kristi Johnson and Caleb Mitchell are among officers nationwide who have traveled to Texas to interview Little since he began confessing to his crimes that have spanned decades.

    In addition to the five killings in South Mississippi, Little also admitted killing a 16-year-old male in Jackson in 1984, though his identity is unknown.

    So far, he’s confessed to 90 murders in 19 states, which include the strangulation deaths of Alice Denise “Tina” Taylor, 27, and Tracy Lynn Johnson, 19, both of Gulfport; Julia Critchfield, 36, of Harrison County; and Malina “Mindy” LaPree, 24, of Pascagoula.

    Cold cases investigators are hoping the public can help them identify the unknown fifth victim Little has confessed to killing, though her body was likely never found.

    “He kept up with the reports on what he did,” Versiga said. “He said he never saw anything in the news about her. He believes she was never found.”

    The details


    Little vividly remembers the details of his crimes because of the sadistic sexual gratification he still gets from those memories, authorities said, but his memory of the dates and years are fuzzy.

    As a result, Versiga said, authorities have to rely on details Little provides that only the killer could know — which positively link him to murders along with DNA matches in a large number of the cases.

    Little has agreed to provide additional help to identify his fifth murder victim in Mississippi by drawing a sketch of what the woman looked like.

    He’s provided other details as well.

    The victim was a young, light-skinned black woman in her early 30s and about 130 pounds with a small frame, he said.

    As for the year, authorities could say only that it was between 1977 — when Little first came to Mississippi to sell stolen goods — and Sept. 16, 1982, when Little attacked and strangled to death LaPree in Pasagoula.

    Because he was a boxer, authorities say Little had a habit of sucker-punching the women to keep them at bay once he got them in the car. His primary targets were prostitutes and drug addicts at a time when human-trafficking was becoming more and more prevalent nationwide.

    In the case of the unidentified victim, Little said he met her in Gulfport and drove her to Pascagoula, where they ate dinner at a restaurant in what he referred to as the “Village,” in Pascagoula, which is now a low-income housing area called Carver Village.

    Afterward, Little said he drove the woman about a mile down the road, then pulled off a dirt road, where he attacked and killed her.

    He said he dumped her body in what he called a “wash-out” that Versiga seemed to think was essentially a hole next to telephone pole surrounded by tall grass.

    “She probably sunk down that hole when he threw her in,” Versiga said. “He seems to think she was never really found and we are leaning that direction as well.”

    A bargain for confessions

    Little began confessing to his crimes after he was sentenced to two life terms without parole for the killings of three Los Angeles women.

    He did so after authorities agreed to take the death penalty off the the table and transfer him from a California prison to one in Texas. As of Friday, he remained jailed in the Wise County, Texas jail.

    Versiga, Johnson and Mitchell are among those hopeful that someone will be able to provide the information they need to identify the unknown victim.

    In addition, investigators have reached out to Jackson police to search their missing persons reports over the years to see if they have anyone in the system that would match the description of the young murder victim whose remains were never unearthed.

    ‘An unbearable pain’


    For the relatives of Samuel Little’s victims, finding out what happened to their loved ones is welcome, but bittersweet because of the suffering they faced at the hands of a “monster.”

    For years, Bob LaPree, oldest brother of Mindy LaPree, wanted to learn what happened to her, even though it brings back the pain of losing a sibling.

    She wasn’t your typical runaway, he said. She lost her mom at the age of 7 and had to deal with vicious attacks from their father.

    At some point, Mindy decided to run away and headed south until she ended up in Pascagoula. She got strung on drugs, mostly pot and some cocaine, and her boyfriend was pimping her out for money, Bob LaPree said.

    “Mindy came from a loving family, but she just had really some unfortunate turns in her life with her mother dying when she was just 7,” he said. “But she was brilliant and musical genius. She taught herself any instrument she wanted.”

    Despite attempts to get her to return home, she stayed in Pascagoula, doing odd jobs, even working on shrimp boats as well as selling drugs and engaging in prostitution to make money.

    Shortly before her death, she gave birth to a son. LaPree’s family adopted and raised him. He’s now 36.

    “This has such a profound effect on the on the surviving family members,” Bob LaPree said. “It’s a life-altering experience and for it to be a cold case for all these years, it becomes even more difficult to deal with.”

    For years, he was angry at authorities in Mississippi for initially writing off his sister’s disappearance because of her lifestyle. In fact, he said, he had to push for testing on a body discovered in a cemetery that was just sitting in a morgue.

    After work with an anthropologist and through the use of dental records, Bob LaPree learned that body was, in fact, his sister.

    Since then, LaPree said he’s let go of the anger thanks to cold case investigators like Versiga who worked relentlessly to solve his sister’s killing.

    “What’s really been difficult is how her life ended,” LaPree said. “I’ve come to know what actually happened to her in vivid and accurate details. It’s very unsettling.

    “It’s very hard to really understand how somebody could be that way and do that,” he said. “To me, it’s just mind-boggling. “It’s pretty incomprehensible what he has done to so many.

    And there’s other disturbing information LaPree has learned from detectives.

    “From what I’ve been told, the reason he remembers things in such great details is because he relives them for his own self-gratification,” he said.

    ‘They are the heroes’


    Long before Little was convicted in a killing, Versiga, Johnson and Mitchell were among investigators working cold cases Little was suspected in.

    Versiga long thought Little was responsible for LaPree’s killing, but because her body was so badly decomposed, evidence needed to prosecute the case couldn’t be collected.

    Little first went to trial for a killing in Florida, but was acquitted.

    When he ended up on trial in California in 2014, testimony from Versiga and two women from Pascagoula — who the detective calls “heroes” — led to Little’s first conviction.

    Versiga testified in part about how Little was identified early on as the chief suspect in LaPree’s killing.

    The two women had barely survived Little’s attacks.

    The first to tell her story at the trial was a Pascagoula woman now in her 60s.

    In 1980, according to police reports, she was living in Carver Village. Little told investigators he came to Mississippi after he heard about the Village because he thought it would be a great place to sell his stolen goods.

    The Sun Herald reviewed police reports from the victims and court testimony to provide the following accounts of what the two women survived.

    The woman, now in her 60s, said she was working along a street known as “the Front” where prostitutes gathered to keep an eye out for each other for safety reasons.

    It was hot night in July when she said Little picked her up outside a nightclub. She took him back to her place in the Village.

    As soon as he shut the door, the woman said Little, a former boxer, grabbed her neck and started choking her before he knocked her unconscious.

    When she came to, she said Little was on top of her, beating and choking her. She passed out and then woke up with her body submerged in her tub and naked with the exception of a scarf around her neck. She said the man used the lace scarf to yank her head in and out of the water, punching her when he pulled her and then forcing her back underwater.

    She told authorities she lost consciousness at that point and woke later to find herself in the hospital and unable to talk or communicate. She initially reported she was attacked by burglar because her parents came to the hospital and she didn’t want them to know what she was doing for a living.

    The other woman was in her 20s and selling shoes out of her car and prostituting herself to make money when she was attacked in November 1981.

    It was about a week before Thanksgiving when she told authorities a man in a station wagon with wood paneling, later identified as Little, offered to pay her $50 for sex.

    At the time, Little went by the name Samuel McDowell.

    The woman got in Little’s car and said before she knew it, the man “cold-cocked” her in the back of the head and then punched her again between the eyes and started choking her.

    The woman said he managed to escape a couple of times, but Little would catch her and drag her back to the station wagon. At one point, she said a young boy on a bicycle saw them outside the car and he asked if she was OK. Little claimed she was his wife and was drunk.

    She couldn’t speak because of the relentless choking.

    Eventually, the woman said she escaped through a cargo area in the back of the car and ran across U.S. 90 until she made it back to the Village. She said some people took her to the hospital, but she never filed a police report.

    A search for tips


    Since Little’s arrest, Mississippi investigators are among many others nationwide who are talking to Little to try to solve crimes he’s committed.

    Tying Little to unsolved murders in Mississippi is good news but bittersweet in many ways to the investigators who work the case, Johnson said.

    “It’s a lot of mixed emotions,” she said. “On one hand you are able to solve a case, and it shows cold case work is important, but at the same time you still have to tell a family a loved one was killed by a serial killer and that’s hard.”

    Still, cold case investigators are hoping someone will read about the young woman Little claimed to have killed who has yet to be found or identified and report it.

    “We want to be able to find out show she was so we can get in touch with her family,” Johnson said. “We want to try to solve this case.”

    To report information, call Versiga at the Pascagoula Police Department at 228-762-2211, the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department Criminal Investigations Division at 228-896-0678 or Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers at 877-787-5898.

    https://www.clarionledger.com/story/...st/2191690002/
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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