When you talk about the most prolific serial killers, many people would guess Ted Bundy,
John Wayne Gacy, or Gary Ridgeway: The Green River Killer. While these might have been
true at one point or another, in recent years a new person has risen to claim this awful
and disturbing title: a man named Samuel Little. Today we’re taking a closer look at the
unfortunate life and legacy of America's most prolific serial killer, and how a failed justice
system cost the lives of over 90 women.
In Reynolds , Georgia, on June 7th, 1940, Samuel Little was born into an already broken
home. His mother was a prostitute and his father seemed to have no presence in his life,
as it seems that Samuel’s mother got pregnant from one of her clients. Now with the extra
weight and responsibility of a newborn baby, Samuel’s mother made the smart decision
to move both of them up to Lorraine, Ohio where they could live with his Grandmother.
While living there Samuel’s mother slowly but surely began to back out of the picture
and Samuel ended up being mostly raised by his Grandmother. According to Samuel he began
having sexual fantasies about strangling women as young as kindergarten, when he saw his
teacher touch her own neck. As he got older and moved on to attend Hawthorne Junior High,
his disposition didn’t improve. Not only did he struggle with grades and academic achievements,
but Samuel wass also constantly getting in trouble with the administration. It was around
this time that his obsession with choking women increased and he began collecting any
true crime magazines that featured any depictions of women being strangled.
By 16 he began to travel around the country by himself, and moved on from high school
antics to committing real crimes. In 1956 he was charged and convicted with breaking
and entering a property in Omaha, Nebraska and was sent to a Juvenile correctional institute.
Sadly, this experience did nothing to dissuade him from a life of crime, and this would not
be Samuel’s last run in with the law by a long shot. By just twenty five years old
Samuel had already served three years in prison for breaking and entering into a furniture
store in Lorraine, Ohio, and that was going to become just the tip of the iceberg for
his prison experience. In his late 20’s Samuel briefly moved back in with his Mom
down in Florida and took up some odd jobs including an ambulance attendant and a worker
at a cemetery. After this brief stint he decided that travelling was the life for him, so he
packed up, travelled the country, and continued to expand his ever growing criminal record
as he went. By this point in his 20’s he had been arrested across eight different states
for a variety of crimes that included DUI’s, fraud, solicitation, armed robbery, shoplifitng,
aggravated assault, and rape. By 1975 he would be arrested a total of 26 times across 11
states, continuing to commit crime every time he was released from prison without hesitation
or remorse. It’s both infuriating and tragic to think that if any of these arrests had
led to long term imprisonment or any actual reformation that just under 100 women might
have gotten to live out their lives.
In 1982, Samuel Little was arrested and charged while in Mississppi for the murder of 26 year
old Melinda LaPree, who had been missing since September of that same year. However, a Grand
Jury tragically decided not to indict him. However, Samuel wasn’t free from murdeer
charges, as during the LaPree investigation, Samuel was extradited to Florida were he was
charged and tried for the murder of nother woman, this time 26 year old Patricia Mount
whose body had been found in September of 1982. Despite several witnesses placing Samuel
as the one of the last people to see Melinda alive before she disappeared, Samuel ended
up being Acquitted in January of 1984, Adding to the list of failures from the justice system
that let this man continue to kill.
As if to taunt those that had acquitted him, later that same exact year Samuel was arrested
and charged for the kidnapping, assault, and strangulation of a 22 year old woman named
Laurie Barros, who thankfully survived her run in with Samuel. Then a month after that
he was caught red handed by police with another woman in the back of his car who appeared
to have been kidnapped and assaulted, as well as being rendered unconscious due to strangulation.
Not only this, but the car the woman was found in with Samuel was in the exact same spot
as it had been a month prior when Samuel was caught with Patricia. For these two counts
of attempted murder, Samuel only srved a shocking two and a half years before being let back
out into the general public. After being released in February of 1987, he immediately moved
to Los Angeles, California. To nobody’s surprise, Samuel kept up with his track record
of crime and murder, and killed 10 women while he was there, but sadly this was not the end
of his killing spree, as he would conitnue to butcher innocent women all the way until
2005.
On September 5th, 2012, when Samuel would have been a whopping 72 years old, police
stormed a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky to arrest Samuel on narcotics charges.
He was extradited to California to actually face the charges, and while there police were
able to use samples of his DNA to tie him to a variety of cold cases including the murder
of Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca on September 3rd, 1987, Carol Ilene Elford on July 13th, 1987,
and Audrey Nelson Everett on August 14th, 1989. All three of these women were found
in Los Angeles around the time that Samuel was living and killing there. Samuel was then
moved to Los Angeles where he was Charged in January of 2013 for their murders. After
this, the police began to investigate Samuel for even more cases, and even the LaPree case,
for which he had not been indicted, was reopened. On September 25th, 2014. Samuel was found
guilty for the murder of these three women and was sentenced to life imprisonment with
no chance for parole. Finally, Samuel Little would be off the streets for good, but was
it too little too late? After giving this man the repeated opportunity to murder and
assault dozens upon dozens of women before taking him to prison, can you relly say that
justice was served?
Despite the evidence stacked against him, Samuel continued to proclaim his innocence,
claiming that he was wrongfully convicted. However, that was soon about to change. After
having confessed to the 1994 ,urder of Denise Christie Brothers in May of 2018 to a Texas
Ranger, Samuel was convicted of the crime on December 13 of that that same year, and
given another life sentence. It was after this that the flood gates opened. He then
confessed to the strangulation and murder of Melissa Thomas in 1996. On November 13th
of 2018, the Ector County, Texas District Attorney as well as the Wise County, Texas
Sheriff's Office released a statement informing the public that Samuel had confessed to a
multitude of murders, and that it was likely he had committed more than 90 killings across
14 different states between the years 1970 and 2005. During November of 2018 various
District Attorneys announced Samuel’s confessions which included the murder of Brenda Alexander
in 1978, an unidentified woman in 1977, Fredonia Smith in 1982, Dorothy Richards in 1982, Daisy
McGuire in 1996, Julia Critchfield in 1978, Nancy Carol Stevens in 2005, Evelyn Weston
in 1978, and Rosie Hill in 1982. The scariest part of this is that this is not anywhere
near a full list of his confessions and murders, it’s simply what was announced in one month
during 2018. By the end of November, 2018, ther FBI announced that of Samuel’s many
confessions, at least 34 had been actually confirmed. As the next year passed, Samuel
continued to confess to more and more murders, and several counties began indicting and convicting
Samuel for them. Samuel also began to draw portraits of the women he had killed with
considerable amounts of detail given how long ago he saw most of these women, and one of
these portraits was even good enough to identify a woman he had killed in Akron, Ohio. In a
disturbing showcase of Samuel’s recollection and fondness for his memories of murder and
crime, there are several videos on the internet that you can easily find where Samuel talks
about the various wome he killed and how he did it, and as he speaks you can see him get
visibly more excited and into the story as he describes it and cracks jokes. Samuel continued
to confess to murders as recently as November of 2020, where he confessed to murders in
Florida, one of which it turned out another man had been wrongfully convicted for that
crime.
On December 30, 2020 Samuel Little died in an L.A Hospital. The cause of his death has
yet to be confirmed but hy the time he died he was wheelchair bound with both diabetes
and heart-disease, so it is reasonable to assume those factors were involved. Samuel
leaves behind a disturbing legacy as America’s most prolific serial killer, and his case
really highlights the flaws in our Justice System. Would it have been better to simply
lock him away from the start with no hope of reformation, but saving the lives of over
90 women? Instead, should we rework our prisons to help reform criminals and save innocent
lives without locking someone in a cell for the majority of their life? These are tough
questions with no simple answer, but I would love to hear your thoughts down in the comment
section below. While you’re commenting, give us your thoughts on the case as a whole
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