CASE STUDY

Samuel Little: The True Story of the 93 Confessions and the Most Prolific Serial Killer in U.S. History

By Domonique Luchin · Published November 2, 2026 · 15 min read

Watch: Convicted in 2014. Then He Confessed to 93 Murders #shorts

In September 2012, police in Louisville, Kentucky, picked up a 72-year-old drifter at a homeless shelter. He was wanted in California on a narcotics charge. Nothing about the arrest looked historic. Six years later, that same man sat across from a Texas Ranger and began going through the map of the United States, city by city, listing how many women he had killed in each place. His name was Samuel Little, and by October 2019 the FBI had confirmed him as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. He confessed to 93 murders committed between 1970 and 2005. FBI crime analysts said they believed all of his confessions were credible.

This is the true story of how a career petty criminal with dozens of arrests got away with murder for more than three decades, how DNA finally caught up with him in Los Angeles, and how an FBI database, two crime analysts and a patient Texas Ranger turned a prison-transfer request into the largest set of confirmed confessions any American serial killer has ever given. It is also the story of the women he killed, many of whom were never counted as homicide victims at all, and some of whom have still not been named.

On The Sealed Docket, host Domonique Luchin works from the record: real names, real documents, real FBI interview tape. The Samuel Little case files on the channel use the FBI's own public interview footage, and this write-up is built mainly on the FBI's published case stories, with dates checked against the public record. A note before you read on: this case involves the murders of women, and the details are disturbing. Where the FBI chose to publish details in order to identify victims, they appear here for the same reason.

Who Was Samuel Little?

Early life in Georgia and Ohio

Samuel Little was born Samuel McDowell on June 7, 1940, in Reynolds, Georgia. According to the public record summarized on Wikipedia, his family soon moved north to Lorain, Ohio, where he was raised mainly by his grandmother. Little later said his teenage mother had left him as an infant. He attended Hawthorne Junior High School in Lorain.

His record with the law started early. The FBI says his "run-ins with the law date back to 1956." That year, after a breaking-and-entering conviction in Omaha, Nebraska, he was held in an institution for juvenile offenders. In 1961 he was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain and was released in 1964.

A nomadic life of petty crime

What followed was decades of drifting. The FBI describes a man who dropped out of high school, left Ohio in the late 1950s, and "lived a nomadic life." He shoplifted and stole in one town after another to pay for alcohol and drugs, and he never stayed anywhere long. ViCAP analyst Christina Palazzolo told the FBI he could drive from New Jersey to California in a matter of days. By 1975, according to the public record, he had been arrested 26 times in eleven states, for crimes including theft, assault, attempted rape and fraud. The FBI notes that when police did stop him, they often just wanted him out of town.

Little had also boxed competitively. That detail mattered more than anyone realized at the time. The FBI says the "one-time competitive boxer usually stunned or knocked out his victims with powerful punches and then strangled them." There were no gunshot wounds and no stab wounds, and that made his murders easy to misread.

How Samuel Little Got Away With Murder for Decades

The FBI's own account of the case is blunt about why Little went undetected for so long. Three things worked in his favor.

He chose victims society overlooked

According to the FBI, Little "chose to kill marginalized and vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs. Their bodies sometimes went unidentified and their deaths uninvestigated." Many of the women were Black. Many were living on the street or moving between cities. When they disappeared, there was often no missing-persons report, or one that went nowhere.

The deaths were not ruled homicides

Because he strangled his victims after beating them, many of the deaths did not look like murders to the officials who handled them. In its October 2019 update, the FBI wrote that many of his victims' deaths "were originally ruled overdoses or attributed to accidental or undetermined causes. Some bodies were never found." In its November 2018 story, the Bureau said many of the deaths were "attributed to drug overdoses, accidents, or natural causes."

He never stayed in one jurisdiction

Little killed across the country, from Florida to California, with concentrations in Miami and Los Angeles. A death in Mississippi and a death in Ohio years apart would land on the desks of two different departments that had no reason to talk to each other. Many of the killings happened in the 1970s and early 1980s, before DNA profiling existed as an investigative tool. The FBI also notes that even after DNA analysis arrived, the circumstances of many victims' lives made it harder for police to collect telling physical evidence.

Close Calls: Mississippi, Florida and San Diego

Little came close to being stopped more than once. The FBI says that in the early 1980s he "had also been charged with killing women in Mississippi and Florida but escaped indictment in Mississippi and conviction in Florida."

Pascagoula and Gainesville, 1982 to 1984

In 1982, Little was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in connection with the death of 22-year-old Melinda LaPree, who had gone missing that fall. A grand jury declined to indict him. He was then sent to Florida and tried for the murder of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount, whose body had been found in September 1982 in Alachua County. Witnesses testified they had seen him with her the night before she disappeared, but the jury did not trust the identifications, and Little was acquitted in January 1984. Decades later he would confess to both killings.

San Diego, 1984

Later in 1984, Little was in California. In October he was arrested for kidnapping, beating and strangling a 22-year-old woman named Laurie Barros, who survived. About a month later, police found him in the back seat of his car with another woman who had been beaten and strangled and was unconscious. The FBI says he served time "for the assault and false imprisonment of a woman in San Diego"; he had also served time for assaulting a woman in Missouri. According to the public record, he served about two and a half years for the San Diego crimes and, after his release in February 1987, moved to Los Angeles.

Those surviving women would matter later. When Little finally went on trial for murder in 2014, the FBI notes, "a string of women testifying for the prosecution told of narrowly surviving similarly violent encounters with Little."

The Arrest That Changed Everything: Louisville, 2012

On September 5, 2012, Little was arrested at a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, and extradited to California, where he was wanted on a narcotics charge. Once he was in custody, Los Angeles Police Department detectives ran his DNA. It matched evidence from three unsolved Los Angeles homicides:

Carol Linda Alford, 41, found in a Los Angeles alley on July 13, 1987.
Audrey Nelson Everett, 35, found in a dumpster behind a nightclub on August 14, 1989.
Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, found in an abandoned auto repair shop on September 3, 1989.

The FBI summarizes all three cases the same way: the women "had been beaten and then strangled, their bodies dumped in an alley, a dumpster, and a garage." Little was charged with three counts of murder in January 2013.

The 2014 trial

Little went on trial in Los Angeles in 2014. He insisted he was innocent throughout. Prosecutors put on the DNA evidence and the testimony of women who had survived attacks by him over the years. On September 25, 2014, he was convicted of all three murders and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole. As far as most of the country knew, the case was closed. In reality, it had barely started.

ViCAP Connects the Dots

When Los Angeles got the DNA hit, it asked the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) to build a full background on Little. ViCAP is the Bureau's national database of violent crimes, designed to link cases across jurisdictions that would otherwise never be compared. According to the FBI, analysts "found an alarming pattern and compelling links to many more murders."

The Odessa lead

One case stood out. In Odessa, Texas, Denise Christie Brothers, a mother of two, had been reported missing on January 1, 1994, and was found dead on February 2, 1994. "We found a case out of Odessa, Texas, that sounded very much like him, and we could place him passing through the area around the same time," ViCAP crime analyst Christina Palazzolo told the FBI. ViCAP sent the lead to the Texas Rangers, who, in the FBI's words, were "eager to follow up on the long-cold case."

Ranger James Holland and the May 2018 interview

In the spring of 2018, Palazzolo and Angela Williamson, a Department of Justice senior policy adviser and ViCAP liaison, went with Texas Ranger James Holland to California to interview Little. Little had a reason to talk: he wanted to move prisons. The FBI says that in exchange for a move, "Little was willing to talk."

What came next stunned the investigators. "Over the course of that interview in May," Palazzolo told the FBI, "he went through city and state and gave Ranger Holland the number of people he killed in each place. Jackson, Mississippi—one; Cincinnati, Ohio—one; Phoenix, Arizona—three; Las Vegas, Nevada—one."

After that interview, Little was indicted for the Odessa killing and extradited to Texas. He was housed in Wise County to be closer to Holland, who, according to the FBI, conducted "nearly daily interviews to create the most accurate accounting possible of Little's crimes." On December 13, 2018, Little pleaded guilty to the murder of Denise Christie Brothers and received another life sentence.

93 Confessions: What the FBI Confirmed

November 2018: "Convicted Killer Linked to 90 Murders"

On November 27, 2018, the FBI went public. Its story described "a 78-year-old man sitting in prison in Texas" who "may be among the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history." According to the Texas Rangers, Little had confessed to 90 murders. ViCAP had confirmed 34 of them, "with many more pending confirmation." The Bureau said it was working with the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Texas Rangers and dozens of state and local agencies to match Little's confessions with the deaths of women "who turned up dead in states from California to Florida between 1970 and 2005."

The analysts described a strange kind of memory. Williamson and Palazzolo said Little remembered his victims and the killings "in great detail." He remembered where he was and what car he was driving, and he drew pictures of many of the women he killed. What he could not reliably remember was dates. That made verification slow: the team had to work through mortuary records, death certificates and cold case files to match a remembered face and place to a real death.

October 2019: the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history

On October 6, 2019, the FBI published its most complete update. It said Little had confessed to 93 murders and that "FBI crime analysts believe all of his confessions are credible." Law enforcement had verified 50 of the confessions, with many more pending. The FBI stated that it had confirmed Little "to be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history." Later public tallies, summarized on Wikipedia, put the number of deaths formally connected to him at about 60.

"For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims," Palazzolo said in that release. "Even though he is already in prison, the FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim—to close every case possible."

The confessions spread across the map

Through late 2018 and 2019, prosecutors and sheriffs across the country announced one confession after another. According to the public record, those included the 1979 death of 23-year-old Brenda Alexander in Phenix City, Alabama; the 1982 death of 18-year-old Fredonia Smith in Macon, Georgia; Julia Critchfield, 36, in the Gulfport area of Mississippi in 1978; Evelyn Weston, 19, near Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in 1978; Linda Sue Boards, 23, in Warren County, Kentucky, in 1981; and Nancy Carol Stevens, 46, in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2005. One victim, Martha Cunningham of Knox County, Tennessee, was 34 when she was killed in the mid-1970s; her death had been dismissed as natural until Little confessed.

In Ohio, where Little grew up, prosecutors in 2019 brought charges in the deaths of Mary Jo Peyton (1984) and Rose Evans (1991) in Cleveland and two women in Cincinnati, including Anna (Annie Lee) Stewart, last seen in October 1981. In total, Little was convicted of eight murders. Most of the other cases were never taken to trial; he was already serving life without parole, and the main value of each confession was to give a family an answer and to close a file.

The Drawings and the Unmatched Confessions

One of the most unusual parts of this case is the artwork. In prison, Little drew portraits of many of the women he said he killed. The FBI published those drawings alongside a map of his confessions, in the hope that someone would recognize a face. Wikipedia counts sketches for 26 victims, not all of them linked to known deaths.

It worked at least some of the time. The public record notes that one portrait helped solve a cold case in Akron, Ohio. And in April 2022, a woman found on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River in 1990 was identified as Zena Marie Jones, 30, of Memphis, after her family noticed the resemblance between her and a sketch Little had drawn.

The five cases the FBI asked the public about

In October 2019 the FBI released interview video, transcripts and drawings for five unmatched confessions, with a warning that Little's "recollection of dates is not always accurate" and that he "sometimes struggles to remember the exact clothing worn by a victim." The five were:

Miami, Florida, 1971 or 1972: an 18- to 19-year-old woman he remembered as Marianne or Mary Ann, whom he said he left in water in the Everglades off Highway 27.
North Little Rock, Arkansas, 1992 to 1994: a 24-year-old woman he believed may have been named Ruth. Little said he was arrested for shoplifting at a North Little Rock Kroger during the time he knew her. The FBI checked: records show North Little Rock police did arrest him for shoplifting from a Kroger on April 20, 1994. He said he killed her outside Little Rock and left her body near a corn field.
Covington, Kentucky, about 1984: a 25-year-old white woman he met outside a strip club while driving from Lorain to Cincinnati.
Las Vegas, Nevada, 1993: a woman of about 40 he met on Owens Avenue or Jackson Street, whose body he said he left down a steep slope outside the city.
New Orleans, Louisiana, about 1982: a woman of 30 to 40 he met at a club during a birthday party. He told investigators he drove to the Little Woods exit off I-10 and down a dirt road along a canal that was being dredged, killed her there, and drove back to the motel where he was staying in Pascagoula, Mississippi.

Those details are what make the FBI tape so haunting. They are specific and checkable: a Kroger, a canal being dredged, a yellow Cadillac. Some of them have been checked and confirmed. Others still point to women who have never been identified. The Sealed Docket's shorts on this case, including the New Orleans dredge confession and the North Little Rock confession, play the FBI's own interview footage for exactly that reason. The FBI's request still stands: anyone with information can call 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit a tip at tips.fbi.gov.

Death, Unanswered Questions and Legacy

Little's death in 2020

Samuel Little died on December 30, 2020, at a hospital in Los Angeles County, at the age of 80. He had been serving his sentences in the California prison system. According to the public record, he suffered from diabetes and heart problems. He never stood trial for most of the killings he described.

Why the case still matters

The FBI drew its own lesson from the case. "The biggest lesson in this case is the power of information sharing," ViCAP supervisory crime analyst Kevin Fitzsimmons said in 2018. "These connections all started in our database of violent crime." A single DNA hit in Los Angeles led to a background check, the background check led to an Odessa cold case, and the Odessa case led to a Texas Ranger's interview room.

The harder lesson is about who gets counted. Little told investigators he picked women he thought no one would look for, and for decades he was right. Deaths were written off as overdoses. Bodies went unidentified. Cases in different states were never compared. The confessions only exist because analysts and detectives decided, years later, that every one of those women deserved a name and a file.

Books and documentaries

Writer Jillian Lauren interviewed Little at length in prison and wrote about him for New York magazine's The Cut in December 2018. Her investigation became the basis of Joe Berlinger's five-part Starz docuseries Confronting a Serial Killer, which premiered on April 18, 2021, and of her 2023 book Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer and Uncovering the Women Society Forgot.

Samuel Little Case Timeline

June 7, 1940: Samuel McDowell is born in Reynolds, Georgia.
1956: Held in a juvenile institution after a breaking-and-entering conviction in Omaha, Nebraska.
1961–1964: Serves a prison term for a furniture-store burglary in Lorain, Ohio.
1970: Start of the span the FBI gives for his killings (1970–2005).
1982: Arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi; a grand jury declines to indict.
January 1984: Acquitted in Florida of the murder of Patricia Ann Mount.
October 1984: Arrested in San Diego after an attack on a woman who survived.
February 1987: Released and moves to Los Angeles.
1987–1989: Carol Linda Alford, Audrey Nelson Everett and Guadalupe Apodaca are killed in Los Angeles.
2005: Last killing in the FBI's confirmed span.
September 5, 2012: Arrested at a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky.
January 2013: Charged with three Los Angeles murders after DNA matches.
September 25, 2014: Convicted; three consecutive life sentences without parole.
May 2018: Begins confessing to Texas Ranger James Holland.
November 27, 2018: FBI announces 90 confessions, 34 confirmed.
December 13, 2018: Pleads guilty to the 1994 Odessa murder of Denise Christie Brothers.
October 6, 2019: FBI confirms him as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history: 93 confessions, 50 verified.
December 30, 2020: Dies in Los Angeles County at 80.
April 2022: Zena Marie Jones is identified through his sketch.

Watch the Samuel Little Case Files on The Sealed Docket

Domonique Luchin walks through the case using the FBI's real interview footage in "Convicted in 2014. Then He Confessed to 93 Murders", with follow-ups on the deaths first ruled overdoses, the New Orleans canal confession, the North Little Rock confession and the 93 confessions on FBI tape. Reenactment scenes in the videos are labeled. For another case the FBI cracked through patient record-keeping, read the true story of the Brink's robbery, or see how real FBI tape decided the Patty Hearst case. Then browse the full Sealed Docket case index, every episode, and more about the host. New real-case files drop every week on the @TheSealedDocket YouTube channel.

Related Case Studies from The Sealed Docket

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Samuel Little?

Samuel Little (born Samuel McDowell, June 7, 1940, in Reynolds, Georgia) was a career criminal raised in Lorain, Ohio, who confessed to strangling 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. In October 2019 the FBI confirmed him as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.

How many people did Samuel Little kill?

He confessed to 93 murders. In October 2019 the FBI said its analysts believed all of the confessions were credible and that law enforcement had verified 50, with more pending. Later public tallies put the number of deaths formally connected to him at about 60. He was convicted of eight murders.

How was Samuel Little caught?

He was arrested at a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, on September 5, 2012, and extradited to California on a narcotics charge. Los Angeles police then matched his DNA to three unsolved murders from 1987 and 1989, and he was convicted of all three on September 25, 2014.

Why did Samuel Little confess?

According to the FBI, he wanted to be moved to a different prison and was willing to talk in exchange. In May 2018 he began confessing to Texas Ranger James Holland after the FBI's ViCAP analysts linked him to a 1994 murder in Odessa, Texas.

Why wasn't Samuel Little caught sooner?

The FBI says he targeted marginalized and vulnerable women whose deaths were often not investigated, and that because he beat and strangled his victims, many deaths were ruled overdoses, accidents, natural or undetermined causes. He also moved constantly between states, and many killings predated DNA testing.

Did Samuel Little draw his victims?

Yes. He drew portraits of many of the women he said he killed, and the FBI published them to help identify victims. A sketch led to the 2022 identification of Zena Marie Jones, who was found on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River in 1990.

When did Samuel Little die?

He died on December 30, 2020, at a hospital in Los Angeles County, California, at age 80, while serving life without parole.

Sources

FBI: Samuel Little: Confessions of a Killer (October 6, 2019)
FBI: Convicted Killer Linked to 90 Murders, ViCAP Connects Cases to Prolific Serial Killer (November 27, 2018)
Wikipedia: Samuel Little
Jillian Lauren, Behold the Monster: Confronting America's Most Prolific Serial Killer and Uncovering the Women Society Forgot (2023)
Confronting a Serial Killer, dir. Joe Berlinger (Starz, 2021)

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