On September 5, 2012, police in Louisville, Kentucky, took a 72-year-old man into custody at a homeless shelter. The paperwork was minor: a 2009 narcotics warrant from Los Angeles. The man was Samuel Little, also known as Samuel McDowell. His police record went back to 1956.

A Drug Warrant and a DNA Match

Little waived extradition and was back in Los Angeles in October 2012. LAPD cold case detectives had already run his DNA through CODIS, the national DNA database. It matched evidence from two unsolved killings from 1989. On November 27, 2012, a third match came back, in a 1987 case. In January 2013, the LAPD announced he had been charged with murder.

That same year, the LAPD alerted the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, known as ViCAP. Analysts there opened a full background check on a man who had left his Ohio home in the late 1950s and drifted across the country ever since. They found a pattern.

Three Women in South Los Angeles

The three women were Carol Alford, 41, found July 13, 1987, in an alley off East 27th Street; Audrey Nelson, 35, found August 14, 1989, behind East Seventh Street; and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, found September 3, 1989, inside a South Los Angeles commercial garage. Prosecutors said all three were struggling with cocaine addiction. Their cases sat unsolved for a quarter of a century, in the same South Los Angeles where our Grim Sleeper story is set.

On September 2, 2014, a jury convicted Little of three counts of first-degree murder. On September 25, he was sentenced, at 74, to three consecutive life terms without parole. Relatives of the women spoke in court. Little interrupted to insist he had not killed anyone. Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman said he was likely responsible for at least 40 killings nationwide.

The Ranger Who Got Him Talking

ViCAP kept finding cases. One came from Odessa, Texas: Denise Christie Brothers, killed in 1994, her body found in a vacant lot about a month after she disappeared. In May 2018, Texas Ranger James Holland interviewed Little in the California prison where he was serving his sentences. According to the FBI, Little wanted to change prisons and hoped to be sent to Texas. He started talking.

He was charged in Odessa that July and held at the Wise County Jail, near Holland. The FBI said Holland interviewed him nearly every day. The AP later put the total at about 700 hours. On December 13, 2018, Little pleaded guilty in Ector County to Brothers’ murder and received another life term. District Attorney Bobby Bland said: “Due to the efforts of law enforcement agencies from around the country, dozens of victims’ families now have answers.”

Ninety-Three Confessions

In the end, Little confessed to 93 killings between 1970 and 2005, in states from California to Florida. He remembered cities, years and the cars he drove. He was vague about names. According to the AP, he placed his first killing in Miami on New Year’s Eve 1970 and his last in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 2005.

Almost all were women, and many were poor, addicted to drugs or working in the sex trade. Police did not count many of them as murder victims at all. In the FBI’s words, “many of these deaths were not classified as homicides but attributed to drug overdoses, accidents, or natural causes.” Some bodies were never found. A ViCAP crime analyst, Christie Palazzolo, said in 2019: “For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims.”

Portraits Drawn From Memory

In custody, Little drew. He gave Holland dozens of drawings and paintings of the women he described. On November 27, 2018, the FBI published a set of them, along with a map and a case list, and asked the public for help. In February 2019, FBI Atlanta released his account of a woman he said he killed in Atlanta in 1983 or 1984: about 28, from Griffin, Georgia, the mother of a son. No missing persons report matched. The FBI asked anyone who recognized her to call ViCAP at 800-634-4097.

On October 6, 2019, the FBI formally confirmed Little as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, with 50 cases matched. That number passed the 49 murders Gary Ridgway was convicted of, a case covered in our story on the Green River Killer. Holland told 60 Minutes that year: “Nothing he’s ever said has been proven to be wrong or false.”

A Death in 2020, and a Count That Kept Moving

Little died on December 30, 2020, in a California hospital. He was 80, and had diabetes and heart trouble. Corrections officials said there was no sign of foul play, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner was to determine the cause.

The verified count grew in public. It was 34 in November 2018 and 50 in October 2019. At his death, the AP reported nearly 60. In 2024, South Carolina Public Radio reported 60. The FBI’s own case page, last updated in March 2024, still says 50, “with many more pending final confirmation.”

Names Returned, 2021 to 2025

Clara Birdlong, born around 1933, disappeared in the 1970s. Hunters found her remains near Escatawpa in December 1977. DNA genealogy gave her name back in 2021. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department said: “Although he is now deceased, Samuel Little is considered a prime suspect in the death of Clara Birdlong.”

Yvonne Pless, about 20 when she died in 1977, had been known as the “Macon Jane Doe.” Forensic genetic genealogy identified her in 2022, and in May 2023 Georgia officials announced she was confirmed as one of Little’s victims.

Leola Etta Bryant, 51, was last seen in March 1974 at the Midway Bar in North Charleston, South Carolina. She was reported missing to North Charleston police. Her remains were found in Goose Creek in October 1977, and sat unidentified for 47 years. An FBI genetic genealogy team found a possible relative, and on October 2, 2024, Berkeley County detectives announced her name. Little had described meeting a woman at a North Charleston nightclub.

In August 2025, Cleveland 19 reported that the FBI was using genealogy to identify a woman found in the woods off I-271 in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, in March 1983, a death Little confessed to. Journalist Lee Hawkins told the station that FBI testing linked him to her as a second cousin. Her name has not been made public.

Why This Case Still Matters

Little killed across 35 years and crossed police paths many times. The FBI notes that North Little Rock police arrested him for shoplifting on April 20, 1994; he says he was out in about three hours. He was finally caught by a drug warrant and a database, not a murder investigation. ViCAP’s supervisory crime analyst, Kevin Fitzsimmons, put the lesson in one line: “The biggest lesson in this case is the power of information sharing.”

The women he targeted had families. Some reported them missing. Many of their deaths were logged as overdoses, accidents or unknowns, and some of their names were lost for decades. Dozens of his confessions remain unmatched, including a young transgender woman in Miami he remembered as Marianne or Mary Ann, and a woman near Little Rock he thought was named Ruth.

The FBI still keeps his drawings online. Somewhere, someone may still recognize a face sketched from memory by the man who killed her. Will anyone still be looking when they do?

Related Cases

• The Green River Killer — Gary Ridgway, convicted of 49 murders, and the women of the Pacific Northwest he targeted.
• The Grim Sleeper — a South Los Angeles serial killer finally caught through DNA.
• Israel Keyes — another killer who talked to the FBI, and left investigators with victims they could not name.

Sources

• FBI — Samuel Little: Confessions of a Killer
• FBI — FBI Confirms Samuel Little is Most Prolific Serial Killer in U.S. History
• FBI — ViCAP Links Murders to Prolific Serial Killer
• FBI Atlanta — FBI’s ViCAP Seeks Information About Possible Georgia Victim of Serial Killer
• LAPD — Man Linked to Three Cold Case Murders NR13009cj
• CBS Los Angeles — Serial Killer, 74, Sentenced To 3 Life Terms Without Possibility Of Parole
• ABC7 Los Angeles — Serial killer gets life in prison for 3 South LA killings in 1980s
• NBC News — Report on the prison transfer request that led to Samuel Little’s confessions
• NBC News — Serial killer Samuel Little pleads guilty in Texas woman’s 1994 death
• Associated Press via NewsChannel 9 — Serial killer pleads guilty in Texas woman’s 1994 death
• CBS News — “60 Minutes” reports on Samuel Little, serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people
• The Boston Globe (AP) — Samuel Little, most prolific serial killer in US history, dies at 80
• ABC News — Samuel Little, deemed the nation’s ‘most prolific serial killer’ by the FBI, has died
• Fox 11 (AP) — Most prolific serial killer in US history dies in California
• NPR — A Woman’s Remains From 1977 Are Identified, And Authorities Blame Samuel Little
• CNN — Authorities identify woman believed to be victim of Samuel Little, America’s most prolific serial killer
• Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council — Macon Jane Doe Identified and Confirmed as a Victim of Serial Killer Samuel Little (Joint Release)
• CBS News — Remains of Georgia woman identified, confirmed as 1977 victim of serial killer linked to 93 murders
• South Carolina Public Radio — Missing for nearly 50 years, Lowcountry woman identified as victim of prolific serial killer
• Live 5 News — Berkeley Co. detectives identify woman whose skeletal remains were found in 1977
• Cleveland 19 — Genetic genealogy brings new clues in case of Samuel Little Jane Doe victim from Willoughby Hills

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Header photo: Downtown street in Louisville, Kentucky (taken between 1980 and 2006) by Carol M. Highsmith, no known restrictions on publication (Carol M. Highsmith Archive), via Library of Congress.