History has seen its fair share of prolific killers flit in and out of existence. But very few have flown under the radar for as long as Samuel Little did.
Samuel Little was born in Reynolds, Georgia on June 7th, 1940. Shortly thereafter, his family moved to Lorain, Ohio, where he was mostly brought up by his grandmother. If Little’s claims are to be believed, his mother left him on his grandmother’s doorstep, and then proceeded to flit in and out of his life during his childhood.
Little, himself, was a drifter, driving from place to place, town to town. In 1956, when he was only 16 years old, Little was arrested for breaking and entering in Omaha, Nebraska. He was convicted, and sentenced to a brutal juvenile institution.
For a time, in his 20s, Little lived in Florida, with his mother, where he worked odd jobs, saved up, and bought a car. He began travelling, drifting, more and more. But he was also training. Little was a large man, six foot two, was fast on his feet, and he could throw a punch. He earned some money on the boxing circuit, as a light heavyweight. He was fast, and he was furious. This earned him many nicknames, such as The Mad Daddy, The Mad Machine, and The Machine Gun.
With the travelling came more interactions with law enforcement. In quite a number of states across America, he had arrests for a long list of offences, including driving under the influence, fraud, shoplifting, solicitation, armed robbery, aggravated assault, and rape.
Of all the offences, rape offended him the most. He was not a rapist, he claimed. He loved women, he said. They liked it; it was a business transaction. Samuel Little saw women as expendable. And yet, somehow, for all his interactions with law enforcement, he was never really stopped.
In 1961, Little was arrested for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain, Ohio. He was sentenced to three years, and was released in 1964. According to various records, by the time Little had settled into his drifting lifestyle, he’d been arrested 26 times in 11 states. And every single one of those times, he was somehow released.
In September of 1976, Little’s pattern with women began to emerge – a pattern that likely began long before, but had gone unreported.
Little was arrested in Sunset Hills, Missouri. He’d attacked Pamela K. Smith. He was charged with rape, assault with great bodily injury, and robbery. Pamela had escaped his clutches, ran towards a house, and begged for assistance. She’d been tied with cloth and an electrical cord, hands behind her back. She told police that Little had “strangled, bitten, beaten, and sodomized her”.
It should have put him away for years. Instead, he was convicted of “assault with attempt to ravish”. He served three months in prison. And then he was let go.
Records show that Little’s next significant run-in with law enforcement occurred in 1982, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Little was arrested and charged with the murder of Melinda Rose LáPree. She’d gone missing in September of 1982, and her body was found a month later. A grand jury declined to indict him, despite witness testimony stating that the last time Melinda had been seen, she’d been in the company of Samuel Little. It was later discovered that Melinda hadn’t been Little’s only victim in Pascagoula.
Shorty after his arrest in Mississippi, Little was transfered to Florida. There, he was arrested and charged with the murder of Patricia Ann Mount. Once again, witnesses identified Samuel Little as the last person seen with Patricia before her disappearance. However, Little’s girlfriend Jean (Orelia “Jean” Dorsey) provided an alibi for the night in question. In 1984, Little was acquitted. And he left town in a mighty hurry.
In October of 1984, Little and Jean hightailed it to California, settling for a time near San Diego. There, he was arrested, then released on bail, for the kidnap, strangling, and beating of Laurie Barros. Thankfully, she survived the attack, and could serve as witness against him.
A month later, San Diego patrol officers caught him beating and strangling Tonya Jackson in the backseat of his car. He was arrested immediately.
Little was charged with rape, and assault with great bodily injury. He was convicted, and though his sentence is unknown, what is known is that he served roughly two and a half years. He was released in February, 1987. He and Jean moved to Los Angeles. And from there, Samuel Little all but disappeared.
LAPD Detective Mitzi Roberts was working under a grant from the National Institute of Justice, which had instituted the Cold Cases Special Section in April 2012 when she hit pay dirt. Under the grant, the department was screening DNA evidence from cases long gone cold. Cases where hope was lost. Then, they got a match.
In 1989, just days apart, Audrey Nelson and Guadalupe Apodaca were found brutally murdered. DNA had been taken from Guadalupe’s shirt, and from under Audrey’s fingernails. The tests showed that the cases were linked – both women were killed by the same man. And that man was Samuel Little, who’s DNA had been taken during one of his many arrests in the past.
Samuel Little needed to be found, and he needed to be arrested. Detective Roberts had a gut feeling that these two cases weren’t Little’s only offences – they were just the two that were going to get him off the streets.
Slowly, Detective Roberts and her team began combing through records, and piecing together Samuel Little’s life. They came across his aliases: Samuel McDaniel, Samuel McDowell, Willy May Clifton, and Willie Lewis. She saw his pattern – he drifted in and out of places, and didn’t stay too long when he got where he was going. In order to find him, she’d have to comb police records.
With his lifestyle, Detective Roberts figured that Little would often be stopped and questioned. If this occurred, there would be a record of this in a nation-wide database. However, the database sometimes took days to update, which would mean that the LAPD could be days – or even weeks – behind Little. Anticipating this, Roberts began reaching out to other law enforcement agencies, seeing if they’d seen Little in the area.
Roberts’ cold calls panned out. An officer from Louisiana put out some calls, and found a lead. This led to Roberts discovering that Little was receiving disability payments directly to a debit card of some kind. So, patiently, she called the company, and found that Samuel Little had las used this card in Louisville, Kentucky.
Thinking quickly, Roberts reached out to the U.S. Marshals, and asked them to put him under surveillance. It was time to act on the next part of Roberts’ plan.
Little had fled California after being convicted of a narcotics charge. The judge had been lenient – rather than serve a prison sentence, Little would be released if he reported to a mandatory drug program. He never reported in. Instead, he’d fled. And the judge had issued a warrant for his arrest. A warrant that was still active in 2012.
On September 5th, 2012, with the help of the Marshals, Samuel Little was arrested in Louisville, Kentucky, and held for questioning from LAPD detectives. During questioning, Little admitted to being in LA from 1987 to early 1990. Moments later, when presented with evidence of the murders of Audrey and Guadalupe, he claimed to have not even been there during that time. It didn’t matter. The DA’s office were already building their case. And they had time.
Samuel Little was extradited to California, where he was sentenced to three years in prison on the narcotics charge. With some breathing room, Detective Roberts set about nailing Little to the wall.
While scouring his records to establish his whereabouts, she came across his very, very lengthy history. Over the course of roughly 56 years, Samuel Little had committed numerous crimes, but only served a grand total of just under 10 years in prison. Most alarming were the reports of the abuses Little displayed against women. Abuses that were given lenient sentences, if charges went through at all. A predator had been given free reign to terrorize the nation for over half a century. And that simply would not stand.
Roberts and her partner, Rick Jackson, made calls, and tried to find witnesses, survivors, acquaintances, or just anyone who could help them establish a pattern, and confirm timelines. They wanted to show the court, and the jury, that Little had a history of abusing women. It needed to be established that Little had done it before, had continued to do it after every single arrest, and could very likely do it again.
Detectives Roberts and Jackson travelled to Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spoke to two women who had survived being attacked by Little – Hilda Nelson and Leila McClain. They’d been attacked by Little in 1982 – the same year Melinda LáPree was murdered.
Hilda and Leila identified Samuel Little from photos as their attacker, and agreed to travel to LA to testify against him in court.
To really solidify their case, Detective Roberts sought out an acquaintance of Little’s who would have had intimate knowledge of his routines. Treading lightly, Roberts and her team found Danny Beckless, and had a tense conversation with him.
Danny had been ‘hired’ by Little to act as his driver. It was the early ‘80s, Danny was 17, young, broke, and easily intimidated. Little used that, and, more or less, kidnapped Danny. Danny’s job was to drive Jean, Little’s girlfriend, from store to store in whatever town or city they’d stopped in. Jean would then shoplift from the stores, and would hock, or fence, the goods later on. In the meantime, Little would troll for vulnerable, marginalized women to attack, abuse, and rape.
Danny was candid with detectives, after a time. He still feared Little, and was terrified of the implications of speaking to police officers about him. But he opened up.
He admitted to not wanting to know too much about what Little did with the women he picked up around clubs, or on the street. However, he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Little would beat, degrade, and abuse the women he picked up, all while claiming that ‘they liked it’. He was especially cruel to Jean when she ‘stepped out of line’, or didn’t do what Little wanted. Danny was terrified of the large, intimidating man.
Danny managed to escape Little’s clutches, but the trauma he inflicted on the young, vulnerable boy was palpable. His discussion with detectives gave them insight into Little’s mindset – Samuel Little hated women. And justified it by attacking, abusing, raping, and murdering them everywhere he went. Though Danny wasn’t 100% certain that Little had murdered Patricia or Melinda – he knew that Little was most likely their murderer. And he’d kept quiet out of fear.
Detectives thanked him, and let him go. They had enough for their own case, and shared their information with law enforcement in Mississippi and Florida. Then, they returned to LA where ADA Beth Silverman had some news.
In November of 2012, another DNA hit linked Little to the unsolved murder of Carol Alford in 1987. Little’s DNA was found under her fingernails, and on her bra. She’d been strangled. Just like Audrey Nelson and Guadalupe Apodaca. While in prison serving his narcotics sentence, Samuel Little was charged with three counts of murder. As the news broke, the unsolved murder of Melinda LáPree was reopened.
In September 2014, Samuel Little was tried for the murders of Carol Alford, Audrey Nelson, and Guadalupe Apodaca. The prosecution established his pattern of behaviour, presented their witnesses, and presented the DNA evidence against him. The entirety of the trial, Little was loud and belligerent, declaring his innocence at every opportunity. He was aggressive and feisty, even with failing health.
On September 25th, 2014, the jury convicted Samuel Little on all three charges. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. A monster had finally been caged.
In 2018, Samuel Little began to change his tune. He claimed that his health was failing, and he wanted to die having cleared his conscience. Bit by bit, he began to talk.
Little didn’t like his accommodations in California, and wanted to be transferred. So, he confessed to the murder of Denise Brothers in Odessa, Texas, in 1994. Little was extradited, charged, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he began serving immediately. Little befriended a Texas Ranger, and really began talking. The confessions just kept on coming.
From November 15th on, Little kept confessing – but only to Texas Ranger Holland – Jimmy, Little called him.
Sometimes, Little had names and dates, sometimes he didn’t. But he remembered every single detail of every murder he committed. From coast to coast, mostly in the south, Little confessed to killing sex workers and drug addicts nearly everywhere he drifted. He picked these women because he figured they wouldn’t be missed. He had a method, and he stuck to it for over half a century.
The FBI caught wind of the confessions, and quickly began looking into each of Little’s confessions, using VICAP, to match Little’s confessions to unsolved murders, or suspicious deaths across America.
In the course of his confessions, Little grew tired of Texas. He confessed to multiple murders in California in order to return. He was extradited, and continued to serve his sentence there.
Little also dove headfirst into a hobby – sketching and painting. Little drew portraits of women. So many women. Women he’d killed. The FBI released the portraits to the public, hoping they would help identify Little’s unknown victims.
By November of 2020, Samuel Little confessed to 93 murders – including those of Carol Alford, Audrey Nelson, and Guadalupe Apodaca – from the 1970s to 2005.
Samuel Little died in a Los Angeles County area hospital on December 30th, 2020. He was 80 years old.
Law enforcement agencies, as well as the FBI, continue to use his confessions, the portraits, and his known patterns and movements to try to connect him to unsolved murders, cold cases, and suspicious deaths. Over half of his confessions have been confirmed, and the cases closed.
Samuel Little has been called the most prolific serial killer in American history. But he was nothing but a monster.
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Sources:
How Serial Killer Samuel Little Was Caught – Jillian Lauren – The Cut
Samuel Little, Nation’s Most Prolific Serial Killer and Subject of Oxygen Doc, Dies in Prison at Age 80 – Bruce Haring – Deadline
FBI confirms Samuel Little’s confession: He is the worst serial killer in U.S. history – Doha Madani – NBC News
Sheriff: Serial killer admits to murdering 2 more Coast women on the same day – Lindsay Knowles – WLOX
Murder Book podcast – Season 2 – The Women Who Stopped Sam Little
Samuel Little Wikipedia page