LORAIN, Ohio — A 78-year-old man already serving three life sentences for murder may be one of the most prolific serial killers ever in the US.
Samuel Little, convicted in 2014 of slaying three women in California in the late 1980s, has provided authorities from across the nation with information about more than 90 murders committed over some 30 years, NBC reports.
Little, who often went by the name Samuel McDowell, grew up with his grandmother in Lorain, Ohio. His criminal history shows his first arrest came at age 16 on burglary charges.
A grand jury in Ector County, Texas, indicted Little in the 1994 cold case murder of Denise Christie Brothers in Odessa, the Odessa American reports. Little was extradited from California to Texas and, while in custody there, he “has cooperated with federal, state, and local law enforcement from around the country in cold cases,” Ector County DA Bobby Bland said in a statement.
Texas authorities also contacted the Louisiana State Police to notify them that Little had implicated himself in a pair of murders in the Houma area. Detectives there have reopened the investigations into the murders of 55-year-old Dorothy Richards in 1982 and 40-year-old Daisy McGuire in 1996, according to WGNO.
Investigators from Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, Ohio, and South Carolina have met with Little, who has reportedly provided information about murders that occurred between 1970 and 2005.
For years Little had denied to investigators in different states that he was responsible for any killings. Bland speculates that he finally confessed after the appeals to his life sentence in California were ultimately rejected and he no longer had any reason to hide his role.
“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,” Bland said.
“He was cooperative,” a Wise County Texas sheriff’s deputy tells the Wise County Messenger. “He didn’t have trouble explaining his role in all of those cases.”
Little, being held in the Wise County jail, was suspected of a cold case murder in that county as well but denied involvement.
If the number of killings Little claims to have committed proves true, it would make him one of the most prolific killers in U.S. history.
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