FBI Ask Public For Help In Identifying Victims Drawn By Serial Killer
The FBI is asking for the public’s help in identifying victims of serial killer Samuel Little, USA Today is reporting. Little confessed to over 90 murders in May 2018 in hopes of scoring a prison transfer. The 78-year-old was originally arrested in 2012 in a shelter in Kentucky due to a narcotics charge. He was then extradited to California, and Los Angeles police were able to make a DNA match to Little on three unsolved murders in the area in 1987 and 1989. After being charged with three counts of murder, Little was found guilty and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without parole.
It turns out that Little killed tons more than just three people, however, and had actually been carrying out killings for over three decades. Authorities weren’t able to catch him in the past as he didn’t stick to one area for his murders. He allegedly committed murders in 16 different states, and the technology of the time made it difficult to link crimes that may have happened hundreds of miles away or months or years later. After Little’s confessions, authorities have been able to confirm at least 30 of the murders.
According to a lieutenant with the Pascagoula Police Department, Little has a “photographic memory,” and has made detailed drawings of his victims. These drawings have already helped crack three cold cases, and the FBI is releasing 16 more drawings in hopes of making breaks in even more cases. The portraits are said to have accurate eye colors, hairstyles, and attire. Little had written on each drawing a possible city and year in which the murder happened.
“We are hoping that someone – family member, former neighbor, friend – might recognize the victim and provide that crucial clue in helping authorities make an identification,” FBI spokeswoman Shayne Buchwald said in a statement. “We want to give these women their names back and their family some long-awaited answers. It’s the least we can do.”
Do you know recognize any of these women? The FBI and local authorities are seeking the public's help in identifying victims that were slain by Samuel Little, the confessed serial killer. Little painted portraits in prison of 16 of his victims. https://t.co/kBCqfD28HV pic.twitter.com/yXO3I4faB7
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) February 12, 2019
The three cold cases that are seeing progress due to his drawings include a case in Maryland, where the victim had never been identified, and a 1984 murder of a woman in Arkansas, who had also been unidentified up until Little’s confessions. The third murder happened in Pascagoula, Mississippi, a city along the Gulf of Mexico about 35 miles east of Gulfport. Little was able to give a detailed description of how he met and killed a woman, and they were able to link his account to an unidentified body found in the woods by hunters in the 1970s. Little is said to have been an active murderer from 1970 to 2005.
Anyone with information about the victims or the case is encouraged to call the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program at (800) 634-4097.
