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+--- Thread: Man called most prolific serial killer in US history dies (/thread-9586.html)
Man called most prolific serial killer in US history dies - C C - Dec 31, 2020
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/prolific-serial-killer-us-history-dies-california-74980378
EXCERPTS: The man authorities say was the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, with nearly 60 confirmed victims, died Wednesday in California. He was 80.
[...] During approximately 700 hours of interviews ... Samuel Little provided details of scores of slayings only the killer would know. A skilled artist, he even provided ... dozens of paintings and drawings of his victims, sometimes scribbling their names when he could remember them, as well as details such as the year and location of the murder and where he’d dumped the body.
By the time of his death, Samuel Little had confessed to killing 93 people between 1970 and 2005. Most of the slayings took place in Florida and Southern California. Authorities, who continue to investigate his claims, said they have confirmed nearly 60 killings and have no reason to doubt the others.
"Nothing he’s ever said has been proven to be wrong or false,” Holland told the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” in 2019. The numbers dwarf those of Green River killer Gary Ridgeway (49), John Gacy (33) and Ted Bundy (36).
Almost all of Little’s victims were women, many of them prostitutes, drug addicts or poor people living on the edges of society. They were individuals, he said he believed, who would leave few people behind to look for them and not much evidence for police to follow. [...] Once a strong, strapping boxer who used his powerful hands to strangle his victims, he was now using a wheelchair to get around.
[...Described as...] both a genius and a sociopath ... A transient who traveled the country ... Little said he started killing in Miami on New Year’s Eve 1970. “It was like drugs ... I came to like it.”
His last killing was in 2005, he said, in Tupelo, Mississippi. He also killed people in Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, Kentucky, Nevada, Arkansas and other states. Kentucky authorities finally caught up with him in 2012 after he was arrested on drug charges and his DNA linked him to three California killings.
When he began recounting the other slayings, authorities were astounded at how much he remembered. His paintings, they said, indicated he had a photographic memory... (MORE - details)
RE: Man called most prolific serial killer in US history dies - Zinjanthropos - Dec 31, 2020
Good riddance. More than likely struck a deal with DA, confessions & bodies in exchange for life sentence. Don’t know if victim families felt any better after that. As long as it isn’t our relative then I think execution would have been ok for most of us. Piece of human waste didn’t deserve to live to 80. Was he ever a suspect before DNA evidence became admissible? Sometimes you hear these guys were interviewed but released for lack of evidence.
RE: Man called most prolific serial killer in US history dies - C C - Dec 31, 2020
(Dec 31, 2020 05:53 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: [...] Was he ever a suspect before DNA evidence became admissible? Sometimes you hear these guys were interviewed but released for lack of evidence.
There were a few associated murders but he always eluded indictment or got acquitted due to unreliable witnesses or an outstanding warrant was ignored because it was non-extraditable. Amazing a guy could be arrested for such a wide variety of countless crimes over the decades (many or most violent) and not get slotted heavily on the national radar for homicide probability.
RE: Man called most prolific serial killer in US history dies - Zinjanthropos - Dec 31, 2020
Figured that. Biggest problem was police jurisdictions not sharing information. We had that here until Niagara schoolgirl murders in ‘93. I think all police share info now but there may be a few pockets of non compliance. Stand to be corrected.