43 Years Worth of Murders

6/26/2024

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In 2014, Samuel Little was convicted of the murders of three women in Los Angeles. DNA had linked him to cold cases committed between 1987 to 1989. He received three life sentences. Authorities suspected he had probably committed other murders, but they never imagined what would be the final number once he decided to confess.

Samuel Little mugshot c.1972

Samuel Little's birth name was Samuel McDowell. He said his mother, a teenage prostitute abandoned him, however police believe she gave birth to him while she was in jail. The 1940 census shows that his mother Bessie Mae Little worked as a maid, and his father was Paul McDowell, 19.

The Little family moved to Ohio when he was an infant, and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. As an adult he said he had sexual fantasies about strangling women when he saw his kindergarten teacher touch her neck.

In 1956, he was sent to an institution for juvenile offenders, and his mother was listed as "whereabouts unknown" on his intake papers. In the late 1960s, he moved to Florida to live with his mother, where he worked at a cemetery and as an ambulance attendant.

Between 1957 to 1975, he had been arrested 26 times in eleven states for crimes including theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials.

Booking photos of Samuel Little the nation's most prolific serial killer looked during the years spanning 1966 to 1995.(Source - FBI)

Samuel Little (1940-2020), based on his confessions, is suspected to be one of the most prolific serial killers in the United States. He drew from memory 26 portraits of women he killed throughout his multiple decades of murder. Only three of them have been matched to a victim, and 13 remain unidentified.

The FBI released the drawings hoping to give names to these victims and close cold cases from around the country. Of the 93 women Little has confessed to killing, the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed 50 of them. Little claims that he killed 20 people in Los Angeles alone. These murders were committed between 1970 to 2005.

Identifying these victims is complicated not only because of Little's faulty recall of dates, but that most of them lived on the margin of society. They were prostitutes, drug addicts and transgendered individuals that did not come up on the radar when they disappeared.

Little strangled his victims and would dump them in wooded areas. Without obvious injuries to cause death like a gunshot or knife wound, their death was blamed on overdoses.

Julia Critchfield (1941-1978) (Source - FindaGrave)

Confessions of Samuel Little

Julia Critchfield's body was found in 1978. She was strangled and thrown off a cliff into a dirt pile on the north end of Saucier, Mississippi. Her case was unsolved for 40 years. Little eventually confessed to her murder.

Denise Brothers was strangled, and her body was dumped on the outskirts of Odessa, Texas in 1994. Leads dried up, and it became a cold case until the summer of 2018, when Little's DNA was connected to the crime. He was indicted and transferred to Texas.

James Holland, a Texas Ranger struck up a rapport with Little. Whether it was due to his age, or the fact that he knew he would spend the rest of his life in prison Little told him more than what authorities hoped for, or even suspected. He told Holland that he had committed 90 murders throughout the United States between 1970 and 2013.

If these figures are accurate it would make him one of the most prolific serial killers this country has ever apprehended. He would outstrip Gary Ridgeway, The Green River Killer. Little also used the alias of Samuel McDowell.

Samuel Little and Texas Ranger James Holland

Unlike other murderers that claim killings that are not their own, since his confession he has been linked to 30 different unsolved crimes. Law enforcement departments from across the country sent officials to his jail cell hoping they could close some of their cold cases.

Standing at 6-foot-3, was committing crimes since he was 16 years old. Before his death he was bound to a wheelchair, however in his youth he led a vagabond life leaving a trail of carnage and death in his wake.

Little targeted prostitutes and drug addicts. He would punch them into unconsciousness, and then strangle them while he masturbated.

No doubt due to the risky lifestyle of his victims, it wasn't until 1976 that he came to the attention of authorities in St. Louis. Pamela Smith, a drug addict, naked below the waist started to bang the door of a random house. Her hands were bound behind her back with an electrical cord. She told police that a man fitting Little's description had beat and raped her before she was able to escape.

Police arrested Little as he was found in a car matching the description given by Smith. Her clothes were inside the vehicle. He told police that he had only beat her. He was released in December, 1976 after only serving three months.

Throughout the years after his arrest in St. Louis he would run into trouble for the same pattern of violent attacks on women. He managed to always squeeze free.

Little was a loner who lead a nomadic lifestyle, with no fixed address, which no doubt made it difficult for law enforcement to tie him to crimes that eventually became cold cases.

Mary Gertrude Brosley left Palmer, Massachusetts for Florida at the age of 33; met Little at a bar in Miami-Dade on New Year’s Eve in 1970, and after ringing in the new year, became his first murder victim. Her body was located on January 24th, 1971, and not identified until 2017.

Little's first known victim was Mary Gertrude Brosley. She was last seen on June 12, 1970 when she abandoned her 7-year-old son supposedly to travel to Boston. Mary who battled alcoholism failed to return home after two weeks and was reported missing by her family.

Her sister would go on to describe that she would take rides with anyone who would offer her alcohol.

Mary crossed paths with Samuel Little at a bar in Miami on December 31, 1970. Her body was found three weeks later, but not identified until 2017.

Melinda LaPree's body was discovered in a cemetery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. She was last seen with Little. When the police investigated, two other prostitutes told them that Little had attacked them. He was arrested for the murder in 1982, however a grand jury failed to indict him on the charges and he was set free. He would go on to confess to the murders once he was behind bars.

Rosie Hill

Police would go on to tie him to the 1982 murder of Rosie Hill. Her strangled body was found in the woods near a hog pen in Ocala.

An investigator from Marion County Sheriff’s Office interviewed Little about Rosie Hill's murder many years later. He confessed only after an agreement not to be prosecuted for it. Little was asked as to why he killed the woman, he “advised that God put him on this earth to do what he was doing.”

Once free he headed to the other side of the country, and in October 1984 he was charged with attacking a San Diego woman. He ended up pleading guilty to assault and false imprisonment after the jury deadlocked on the charge of attempted murder. A scant two and half years later he was once again free to kill more women.

The bodies piled up quickly. Carol Alford was found in a Los Angeles alley in 1987, Audrey Nelson was found in a trash can in 1989. The same year Guadalupe Apodaca's remains turned up in an abandoned building. It wasn't until April 2012 that DNA linked Little to all three murders.

Investigators cautioned, that this killer's newfound openness should not be read as remorse.

Little said about his victims, "They was broke and homeless and they walked right into my spider web. I didn’t pick on motherf***ers that would be missed … There weren’t no women nurses and teachers. That’s the reason I didn’t get busted a long time ago."

In 2014 he went to trial and was convicted. He was sentenced to three life terms, insuring he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

Two unsolved murders in Macon, Georgia were attributed to him. A Jane Doe found in 1977, and the strangling murder of Fredonia Smith in 1982.

Authorities in Russell, Alabama closed a cold case for the 1979 murder of Brenda Alexander, age 23. Investigators told police that Little described that he picked her up at a local disco, and "he wrung his hands together, smiled and said, 'I knew she was mine.'"

Little confessed to 3 murders in Louisiana. Dorothy Richard, 55, in 1982, Melissa Thomas, 29 and Daisy McGuire, 40, both in 1996. The officials of the jurisdictions could now close these cold cases, but faced the quandary of whether they should prosecute a 79-year-old who was in poor health and set to spend the rest of his life in prison. Perhaps knowing the identity of their killer was the only solace their family would receive.

Locations in Florida where Little killed a victim

After 2018, Little provided more than 700 hours of recorded interviews with police.

So far his total stands at 93 murders, most of them from strangulation. He produced clumsy drawings from his memory to aid police, however many of them are unknown because he never knew their names to begin with. Different police officials who interviewed him found he was 100 percent credible. More than 50 victims were identified. Others victims claimed by Little remain unfound.

Despite his confessions and his credibility in total he was only charged and convicted for eight murders.

Orelia "Jean" Dorsey (now deceased) was Little's long time girlfriend who shoplifted to financially support both of them. They were together until she died in 1988 from a brain hemorrhage. She was 27 years older than him.

Little died December 30, 2020 from complications of diabetes and heart problems.

What begs to be asked is how the legal system failed all these victims, who set Samuel Little free time after time?