True Crime All The Time - Samuel Little Part 2

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

In October 2019, the FBI confirmed that Samuel Little was the most prolific serial killer in US history. He was an extremely brutal man who only cared about his own gratification and gave no thought to the feelings or well-being of those around him. He was in and out of penal institutions of one type or another most of his life but never served very long during any one stretch. It took advancements in DNA many years after the fact to put him away for three murders he committed in California.Join Mike and Gibby for the 2nd and final episode on Samuel Little. In part two on Samuel Little, we’ll discuss his confessions and some of the confirmed and suspected homicides he committed. We will also hear some confession audio from Samuel Little.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 302 of the True Crime All of the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, glad to have you back in the studio. Yeah, glad to be back in the studio. I know it was a rough week for you last week. And man, the amount of people who sent you condolences, good wishes, it was so heartwarming. It's amazing. Yeah.

our fans are amazing. They really are. They really are. You know, but I'm glad you're in studio. It's good for you, right? To get back into that routine, we talked about it on on our weekly Patreon episode. The other thing we talked about on our Patreon episode was the big true crime news, which is the overturning of Adnan's conviction, you know, him being released. Yeah. Huge. Kind of sent shockwaves through the true crime community. Really has. And now we're just kind of waiting to see, you know, would they actually try to go back

after him? My thought is no, but we'll have to kind of wait and see how it plays out. So obviously because of what happened last week, we didn't put out part two of Samuel Little. Right. So that's what we're doing right now. But before we get into it, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Stacey Jack. Hey, Stacy.

Stephanie. They appreciate that, Stephanie. Lisa Fitzsimmons. What's going on, Lisa? Melanie Plotz. Hey, Melanie. Linda Connor. Hey, appreciate that, Linda.

Angel Gonzalez. There's Angel. Elizabeth Stubbs jumped out to our highest level. Wow, thank you, Elizabeth. Susan Davis. Hey, Susan. Carly Saul.

What's up, Carly? Brittany Kim. Hi, Brittany. Melody. Melody. My Fukushima. Oh, Fukushima yourself. There you go.

You're adding like multiple M's into that name. Louise. Richard. Hey, Louise. Amy Otmers. What's going on, Otmers. Josh Dreebs. Hey, Josh. Alicia Ramirez. Hey, Ramirez. Sienna. Oh, there's Sienna. Liz Savaskan or Savaskan. Oh, maybe it's Savaskan. Yeah, I think you can go a couple different ways there. Nicole Littlebrand. Hey, Little Brand. Amelia. Amelia. I appreciate that, Amelia. Sir Round Sound. I kind of like that little mix to there. Sir round sound. Yeah. Yeah. Brent Johnson. Hey, Britt. Preston Meeker. Hey, Preston. And last but not least, Joey. I appreciate that, Joey. And then if we go back into the vault, this week we selected Danielle Winslow. Hey, Daniel. Yeah, a big shout out to the new supporters, the people that continue to support us on Patreon for PayPal. We had a birthday shout out to Lindsay Davis from Darlene. Oh, happy birthday. Robert Snyder gave a fairly large donation. And thanks Robert.

Gregorio Alfonso. Hey, thank you. Alfonzo. And Paul Worley. What's going on, Paul? And we had a lot of donations just in the last week, Gibb. After people heard that your mom passed, a lot of people stepped up, not just with the well wishes and the condolences, but people send a lot of virtual hug donations.

Oh, they're amazing. Yeah, I saw a lot of that. Appreciate it. We'll get to them in a future episode. So we have an episode out. right now on true crime all the time unsolved, where we're talking about the Blue Ridge Savings Murders. And we're headed to South Carolina.

This is essentially a bank robbery where a number of people were found dead inside the bank by the time police got there. Yeah, it's such a good case, though. So make sure you listen to it. Yeah, definitely check it out. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time? I'm ready.

Samuel Little part two should have been episode 301. It's now 302. I think we're going to have to go back a little bit and talk about part one. We discussed his early life. We talked about how his crimes escalated from shoplifting and burglary to armed robbery, assault, rape, and murder. And then, you know, years later, advancements in DNA testing led to three convictions and three life sentences. And three life sentences. for murders in California. But as we talked about in episode one, Samuel Little was suspected of many more murders in multiple states. So in this part two, we'll discuss Samuel Little's confessions. Some of the confirmed and suspected homicides he committed will also hear some

confession audio from Samuel Little. Nice. A little scary, a little creepy. It is. know, to me, it's always a little chilling to hear these monsters in their own words, talk about what they've done. Right. And it always surprises me on how they tell their side of the story. Well, you know, for one thing, it seems to me as though most of the time when we hear from them, it's like they're talking so casually. Yeah. About these horrific crimes. That's probably the most

disturbing part for me, you know, some even act like they're proud of it. And there might be a little of that from Samuel Little. Gary. So after the LAPD got Samuel Little's DNA, they asked the FBI's violent criminal apprehension program, ViCap, to do a full background analysis. We already said, right, in episode one, that he was suspected. It's not like they thought, okay, he committed three murders and that's all he's ever done. He was suspected of a lot more, you know, bad acts and murders and this and that. Vicar linked Samuel Little to many unsolved murders across the country. And one thing that I found interesting in the research is, you know,

it talked about how little denied committing the California murders for many years. And, you know, we touched on a little bit in episode one. Right. It really wasn't until his appeals were kind of rejected. He had exhausted all of his avenues that he made the decision, yeah, I'll start talking. Yeah. His appeal was rejected on January 30th, 2017. He argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove he committed the murders.

He also argued that the court erred by admitting evidence of other crimes to establish his identity as the perpetrator in these murders, and that the court erred by excluding evidence that could have shown that another individual was responsible. All right. Nothing kind of out of the box, right? These are things that we see on appeal very, very often. Oh, yeah, all the time. The California Court of Appeal disagreed.

They upheld his conviction and sentencing. So I just talked about Vicar linking Samuel Little to more than 30 murders across the country. Huge a number. That's a big number. They reached out to the Texas Rangers on one cold case in May 2018. Texas Ranger James Holland visited Samuel Little, hoping to solve the murder of Denise Christie Brothers in Odessa, Texas that happened in 1994. Denise was reported missing on January 1st, 1994. Her body was found a month later in an empty parking lot.

So we're going to be talking in this episode about a number of murders. Either he confessed to or they believe he, you know, committed. I think they really put a lot of effort into figuring out, okay, where was this guy? Because he did travel, seems like, all over the country. Right. where was he on this date? What can we try to link him to? In addition to him eventually coming out and saying, you know, I committed these murders.

But as we'll see, his memory was a little fuzzy. Yeah. He didn't have a lot of names. He had descriptions. And in some of the audio that we'll play later, he describes some of these women. And man, I'm telling you, it gives me the shivers. Yeah, chills, chills up and down. It does because just the way he describes them for some reason really rubs me the wrong way.

In May 2018, crime analyst Christina Palazzo and Angela Williamson, a Department of Justice senior policy advisor and Vicarp liaison, traveled with Ranger James Holland to California to interview Samuel Little. Holland became a Texas ranger in 2007. He learned that his calling was talking to killers and being able to get information out of them. You know, that's a special type of skill. That's a pretty valuable skill to have. Absolutely.

There are some killers who like to talk, but there are some that don't want to give up their secrets. So if you've got that gift where you can sit down with someone, and disarmed them and kind of pull those secrets out of them and the details. Man, that is extremely valuable. Holland learned about Samuel Little in December 2017 when he was teaching interrogation techniques at a conference in Tampa. A Florida detective approached him and asked for tips on how to interrogate Little. Holland learned that Little had traveled all over the country and killed victim.

in multiple states. So he began looking into Samuel with help from Vicar. They found 12 potential Texas victims, one of which was likely connected to little Denise Brothers, a sex worker murdered in Odessa in 1994. She had been strangled and left partially naked, much like his other victims. And it was determined that Samuel Little was in Odessa around that time. So probably a good match. Yeah. And to me, this would be very fascinating, gratifying type of police detective work. I could see myself really getting into this side of law enforcement where you're trying to track the movements of people over a period of time.

from the past. Right. I would really get into that. Putting those timelines together and then, like you said, tracking them down. Well, you know how much I love research. I also really like solving puzzles. So I kind of feel like this would be almost a form of that. You're trying to find the pieces of the puzzle and make everything fit.

Right. I could really dig that. I think you could. Los Angeles detectives told the team that Samuel Little hated them and he wasn't cooperative at all. So Holland was given permission to attempt to interview him. Holland thought that Little might be ready to talk at this point because, number one, his appeals had run out. And number two, he was dealing with some known health issues.

And that makes a lot of sense to me, right? your appeals are done and over. You're not going to get any other chances. So at a certain point, or at that point, more importantly, are there some killers who think, why not? Let's just get it out there. Right. And then, you know, the other side of that is, okay, if you're dealing with some serious health issues,

you may think, I don't have that long to live anyway. What's the harm? And maybe I want to tell my story. Because I think Gibbs, that's like a scary thought to me, but very true with some serial killers. They yearn to tell somebody about their exploits. Oh, absolutely. People love talking about themselves.

They do. But think of it from a serial killer perspective. Yeah. We already know that a lot of the. these killers keep trophies and then they later use them in ways that we don't like to think about to relive, you know, the act that they committed. Well, in a way, sitting down with somebody and telling them all of the details. And sometimes when you watch these people, they have a smile in their face.

They do because they're recounting that moment. Yeah. And it's bringing them joy. How messed up is that? It is extremely messed up. So the first interview took place on May 17th, 2018. And, you know, from all the research, this interview did not start off well. Samuel didn't want to talk.

And he claimed that he was convicted on lies and fake evidence. So basically what Holland did was he sat. And he listened to Littles' rants against law enforcement, the justice system. he broke the ice by saying that he didn't think Samuel was a rapist. And then instead of kind of diving headfirst into his crimes, he started talking about other subjects. He talked to Samuel about art. He talked to him about boxing.

Because remember in episode one, Samuel, I think had ideations that he could have been this great boxer. He could have been the next Mike Tyson. I mean, Holland's being smart. You know, he's finding common ground with him and talking that, having those conversations and building some level of trust. Because that's key, right? You got to get somebody to trust you to start to feel comfortable with you. If you're going to have any chance of them opening up in telling you kind of the most intimate, nasty, heinous parts of their life. Holland asked Samuel what he preferred to be called, and Little said to call him Sammy.

Sammy. And all of this worked, right? What Holland was doing. Samuel started opening up. He was still hesitant, but he was opening up. He told Holland that if he revealed his crimes, he would get the death penalty. But Holland promised that he would talk to prosecutors. He also said that if Samuel told the full truth.

He would tell the world that he wasn't a rapist and murderer. Holland told the LA Times, has Samuel Little killed people? Yeah, come on. We both know that. The question is, does Samuel Little want to talk about those killings? And does he want to define what really happened? So we just touched on something that I do think is really big for some of these killers in not wanting to open up and fully admit to every.

which is if they don't already have the death penalty, okay, you're not going to admit to murders in states where they do have the death penalty. Right. There's no reason for you to do that. But if these different states and, you know, these different departments are willing to take that off the table. Well, then maybe you got some. Right. And obviously we'll see. That's what's going to happen in this case. Samuel Little suggested a deal. He would talk. if he could move from California to Texas. That's a big move, right? I mean, like you said,

I guess the assumption is that he'll get Texas to take the death penalty off the table. Well, he would have to, right? Right, because if you're talking about the death penalty, the last place you want to move from California to is Texas. Exactly. Because Texas, unlike California, puts people to death. They do.

California is not putting anyone. one to death. They just have a bunch of people sitting on death row. Right. So once he got his deal, he admitted to three murders in Texas, including the murder in Odessa. Two of the murders were not on their list of potential victims. And Little gave Holland details that proved he was in Odessa, Texas, when Denise Christie brothers went missing.

Samuel said that killing was like doing drugs. and he came to like it. That's very scary. But I don't think Gibbs is all that out of the norm. I don't think so either. We've heard some other serial killers talk that way too. Yeah. I think they do come to really like it.

And then it becomes a kind of a need, a have to, a want to. You want to get that feeling back. You can equate it to doing drugs. Now, on the flip side of that, you have to wonder how many people go down that path and they kill someone because they want to know what it's like. But they don't get the feeling or they get the opposite in that it disgust them or they're revolted. And so they don't go on to become a serial killer. I just wonder how often that happens. Yeah, I think it probably happens frequently.

I think it would be tough to want to pursue something. like that. Yeah, you can't imagine that everybody who kills gets that kind of taste for it, for the lack of a better term. Holland told the LA Times that the interviews were not interrogations. They were more like conversations. And you can definitely hear that. Now, I don't know exactly which conversations if they were the ones with Holland. The clips came from that, that I'm going to play later. But you can tell when you listen to some of these things that it's not like he's being grilled. He's just kind of being pointed in a direction and then being allowed to expand or expound

or whatever the right term is on this person or that person that they have on their list. But we mentioned it, right? He established this bond with little. And he just kept working. working at it, doing whatever he could do to keep this guy talking. He would call him Sammy or brother. He stoked little's ego telling him that, you know, he was powerful. Anything he could do to keep this guy talking.

Sounds like he was really good at it too. Well, I think he knew he was good at it. And that's important to realize when you have special skills. Oh, Gibbs, you know, I love that sound. That's another sound of a sale on Shopify. Don't be a copycat entrepreneur. Unleash your killer business idea to the world with Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business.

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some answers, you know, like what happened? Who did it? Why did they do it? Yeah, it's huge. Right. it has to be huge. I don't know that it's huge, but I'm assuming it has to be huge for these families because for years and years and years, they've wondered, they've grieved, but the, who did it, what happened, those questions probably, you know, crossed their mind all of the time. So during this interview, Samuel spoke about his background and he said that he got his first erection when he was in kindergarten and he saw his teacher touch. her neck. We touched on that in episode one. That came out during this interview. He also said that when he was a little bit older, but still a child, he had a dream about killing a girl who also

touched her neck. This fascination with necks, man. It was extreme. At the age of 15, he penned a picture of a strangulation victim to his wall. He said that he had been married once and had two long-term girlfriends who followed him around. But he never killed anyone he was close to. And he tried his best not to look at their necks. Wow. I can only take from that that if he would look at the necks for too long, he would get the urge to strangle them.

Definitely sounds like a trigger for him. Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, this obsession with women's necks was a detail that came up throughout this entire interview process. Samuel Little was transferred to Texas on September 24th, 2018. Ranger Holland spent the next few months meeting with Little. They had breakfast together. They're really bonding. Oh yeah. They talked about sports, politics, and also Holland interviewed him about his victims. For some reason, Samuel Little was oddly reluctant to confess to the L.A. murders. Seems strange because those were the three that he was actually convicted for.

During the interview, he drew pictures of the victims whose faces he could remember. And some of them were used to solve cold cases. Detectives from Mississippi, South Carolina, Maryland, and other states came to listen to the interviews. They also questioned Samuel about some of their unsolved cases. So when you kind of think about this whole thing, it does have a little bit of a Henry Lee Lucas vibe to it. It really does. Because, okay, Henry starts to open up.

And there's so many people wanting us to do Henry Lee Lucas. We will. I promise you we will. But when he started to open up, man, people came from all over the country. Yeah. To listen to him talk. They wanted him to be responsible for some of their unsolved. cases. Now, we all know that Henry told some big old fibs in order to get some of his strawberry

milkshakes. And I think because of that, some cases were probably counted as solved that shouldn't have been. So how much of that is there with Samuel Little, right? He doesn't know names, but is that out of the ordinary? If you're a serial killer, would you know the name? I don't think you would of all your victims. I don't think that that's too far out of range. I think that he would know all their names. No, I don't think it is either. So he's drawing pictures. He's giving details. Again, we'll hear from him in in a little while. Holland told the LA Times that Samuel Little was a sociopath. The man is an absolute genius and he has a sickness. He doesn't know why and I don't know why. Little wrote a letter to the LA Times saying that he confess for three reasons. One, he knew he wasn't going

to get another trial. Two, he said he wanted to help the victim's families. And three, he wanted to help someone who may have been wrongfully convicted of a murder he committed. I think the main reason he decided to do it was he knew that he couldn't be pushed through another trial. Well, I think that trumps everything. Right. Another trial. the possibility of the death penalty, if that's not off the table, then he's not talking and none of this other stuff even matters.

Exactly. If what he's saying is even true, does he really want to help victims families? Does he want to, does he really want to help some people that were wrongfully convicted? You know, think about it. Police are trying so hard to solve unsolved cases

all around the country. We know that people get wrongful. wrongfully convicted. You got a serial killer who's running around the country. Chances are a number of his murders were pinned on the wrong people. Yeah. There's a very good chance of that. Samuel Little would eventually confess to 93 murders over 650 hours of interviews. That's a long time to talk about you murdering people. That's a lot of conversations. going on there. It is. But you know, you have to have those conversations to eventually dig out that information from him. Yeah. And I'm sure the whole 650 is not murder, murder, murder. Some of that is

Holland bonding and talking about other things trying to soften Little up to get him to open up. I mean, they practically talked every day. Yeah, according to the FBI, the work with Little was designed to create the most accurate accounting possible of his crimes. Ranger Holland was assisted by Christy Palazolo and Angela Williamson from the FBI who worked to match his confessions to cases across the country. And obviously that's paramount. You can have a killer say, I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this. But you got to verify it. Absolutely. You do. And I think that's really where a lot of people kind of dropped the ball when it came to Henry Lee Lucas. Okay, he said he did it.

This one's closed. We get it off our books. Yet later on, it turns out that he wasn't even in that state. Right. At the time that, you know, this happened or that happened. So there's got to be that part of it. It's not just good enough for somebody to say, yep, I did that. You got to be able to verify it to some degree.

Yeah. Samuel Little went through different cities. and states that he told Ranger Holland how many people he killed in each city. Palzolo, the FBI crime analyst who worked a case said he went through city and state and he gave Roger Holland the number of people he killed in each place. Jackson, Mississippi won, Cincinnati, Ohio, one, Phoenix, Arizona, three, Las Vegas, Nevada, one. You know, how strange would that be to sit there?

and just hear that coming out of his mouth, you know, just like nonchalant. Like, yeah, there's Cincinnati. That was one there. Yeah. Phoenix. That was one. And here's two. So my thought is strange.

Yes. But any macab way, because let's face it, we're all into true crime, would it also not be fascinating to a degree? Stomach churning, depending on what the details are. But I don't know how. how many people wouldn't want to talk to one of these individuals if they got the chance. I'm sure there are a lot of people that wouldn't. But me personally, if you said, hey, so-and-so wants to talk to you.

They put you on their visitors list. You can go and you can ask them any questions you want. Man, I'm in. I'm all in. And I tell you, for me, it wouldn't be about what exactly, did you do it would be more about you know what were you thinking what was driving you just exactly what you know goes through your head or went through your head when you were either in the act or leading up to it i just would love to know what makes these individuals tick it's something

you and i have always talked about yeah i mean that's the type of database you'd want to have right down the road just to figure out how are these people built So we mentioned to Gibbs. Samuel Little initially claimed he was innocent of the three California murders. But eventually he did confess to these murders, which brought the total from 90 to 93. 93 murders. It's a unbelievable amount. It is.

And the murders ended up spanning 19 states over more than 30 years. 18 victims were killed in Los Angeles alone. But here's where, you know, things get fuzzy, cloudy. You know, like I said, Samuel Little didn't have clear memories of dates. He didn't remember what his victims were wearing. But he could remember in great detail other things, like where he was, the type of car he was driving. He drew portraits of many of the victims.

The FBI wrote on their website, Little remembers his victims. and the killings in great detail. He remembers where he was and what car he was driving. He draws pictures of many of the women he killed. He is less reliable, however, when it comes to remembering dates. I don't make a lot of that because I am the type of person who's not great with dates, but for some reason I can remember strange details about certain events. I'm kind of the same way.

but dates i really struggle with i might be able to tell you like i think it was that summer of 19 whatever but i'm not going to be a pinpoint down any july 17th yeah yeah i wouldn't either i could maybe say you know it was really hot or i remember because my favorite baseball team was you know making a push to the playoffs or whatever yeah something like that if samuel could remember a name or a date, he gave Ranger Holland that information. Now, when he couldn't remember anything, that's when he drew portraits of his victims. Holland provided Little with art supplies so he could continue making portraits. Samuel Little said, I live in my own mind now with my babies.

His victims? Yeah. When he said babies, he was talking about his victims. in my drawings. The only thing I was ever good at was drawing and fighting. And you can see his drawings online. A lot of times, you know, in YouTube channels when they play his interrogation,

um, videos and things like that, they'll put some of the drawings up. You can find them easily easily. Or in, you know, just picture form by searching the web. They're not horrible drawings.

They're a lot better than I could do. Yeah. I can't draw at all. It was said that Little had a pretty strong photographic memory. But with his advanced age, that memory was deteriorating. And that happens to the best of us. Holland told the L.A. Times, Samuel Little has given me a massive gift, a gift to bring closure to victims' families

who have gone years without knowing what really happened to their loved ones. I have a responsibility. it is a big one. I feel it. I have to run with this and take it wherever it goes. Do whatever it takes. And we know time is slipping away. And I think that's directly, you know, related to Samuel Little's age at that point. Sure. He's getting older. How much time does he have left? Samuel Little wrote notes on some of his portraits like Tampa Dope Girl or New Orleans Sarah left in field, 1973, April. Akron left in Woods, 1990. And some of these notes were enough to link the portrait to a victim.

So this is where I think we make a pretty big departure from, you know, talking about Henry Lee Lucas. Yeah, I think in that case, people would come down. Investigators would come down and say, here's what we've got. Right. And he would say, yeah, I did that. Or, you know, maybe they would give him, feed him some details. and he would kind of maybe embellish on him or whatever.

But when you draw a portrait and it does end up looking like the victim and the victim is found, let's say, in a field in April of 1973, that's pretty compelling. Yeah, I think so. I think it's what investigators want and it's leaving little doubt. Is he telling the truth or is this some type of game he's playing? Right. Because that's what they have to figure. out. Samuel Little was booked into Texas prison the week of November 11, 2018, after being indicted

for the 1994 murder of Denise Brothers. He was housed in Wise County so that he could be close to Ranger Holland. We mentioned it, right? These guys were talking almost every day. Holland trying to get as much information about Little's crimes as he could. Yeah. Journalist Gillian Lauren from New York Magazine's The Cut also interviewed Samuel Little. Little told her that on the night of Denise Brothers death, she was on the way to see her pimp. He approached her in his vehicle. He purchased crack in heroin for Denise and her pimp. The pimp left Denise in the car with Little to what he called pay the bill in trade. According to Little, he told Denise he was an artist and that he could draw her picture like Van Gogh. He called her beautiful. He told her that he loved her. Then he pulled

his car into an alley. Denise was going to perform a sexual act, but he grabbed her by the throat and threw her into the backseat. And he masturbated while he strangled her with one hand. And one thing that you know, really kind of came out from some of these talks, obviously he enjoyed strangled. Wrecking women. Of course he had his fascination when next. Yes, we know that he got pleasure from strangling women. And so he'd like to draw it out for as long as he possibly could. And we did touch on this a little bit in episode one. You know, he made many of his victims go unconscious multiple times before he killed them. He did this same exact thing to Denise brothers. She cried. as he strangled her. Samuel Little said that he told Denise, I own you, your mind forever.

Little told Jillian Lauren that he felt like he needed to own women because according to him, I wanted their helplessness. All I ever wanted was for them to cry in my arms. When Lauren confronted him about this and asked why he couldn't just let women go, if all he wanted was control, he said, well, you got me there. Maybe it wasn't all I wanted. And this is kind of a fascinating back and forth, right? Sure. Sure is. You have a journalist who's really kind of calling him on this. And he's saying, oh, yeah, you got me. Maybe I was wrong all along. Yeah. I thought I wanted this, but obviously I wanted more. He told Gillian a now infamous quote. And we mentioned it, in episode one. It was, I never killed no senators or governors or fancy New York journalists,

nothing like that. If I killed you, you know, talking to Gillian, it'd be all over the news the next day. I stayed in the gettos. So he was kind of boasting that he was smart in his methods of selecting victims. I think he was. I think he was smart enough to know that if he chose a, certain type of victim. It was more likely to end up in the press than other types of victims. It's sad. And you have, you and I have talked about how sad it is, but it's so true. It plays itself out time and time again. Some people get news coverage and some people do not. Right. And a lot of it has to do with race, status. I mean, you could tick off all kinds of different things. Right. It's not right. It's not fair, but it's proven itself out.

Yeah. And so I do think he was saying, I was smart enough to do this, but not this. Right. So these interviews with Ranger Holland and Jillian Lorne showed really just how little regard, little had for these women's lives. You might get a sense of it when we play some clips coming up. The following information comes from Samuel Little's confessions. These are just a few of the many unsolved cases.

Bicap still hasn't connected all of his confessions to a murder. But if you have any information, that is useful to the investigation. You can call 1-800 call FBI or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.com. So in 1971 or 72, and this is all according to Little, he met what he called a pretty black transgender woman at a bar in Miami. Her name was either Marianne spelled M-A-R-I-A-N-N-E or Marian, M-A-R-Y-S-A-Y, space, A-N-N-N. A few days later, they met at a bar, and Samuel offered Marianna ride. She lived with roommates between Brownsville and Liberty City. When they got to her place,

her roommates asked them to buy shaving cream. Okay? I guess they were out of shaving cream. So they got back in Little's car. Little drove on Highway 27 and he killed Marianne on a driveway, potentially one near a sugar cane field. He continued driving down Highway 27 to the Everglades, turned down a dirt road and dragged her body 200 yards into the water.

He didn't think that her body had ever been found. Between 1992 and 1994, Little met another woman in Little Rock, Arkansas. He said it was cold when they met. The woman appeared to be in her early 20s. He stayed with her for a three-day period. They shoplifted and then they sold the items that they stole. He was arrested for shoplifting at a Croker in North Little Rock. records prove that he was arrested by the North Little Rock PD for shoplifting from a Kroger on April 20th, 1994.

But he was released about three hours later so that he can move his car off Kroger's property. When he came back to his car, a woman was sleeping inside. He drove this woman to meet her ex-boyfriend, a man he called Bear, then drove her back to her home. He picked her up the next day. and they drove to Benton or Bentonville. Outside Little Rock, Samuel drove down the dirt road and strangled her. He put her body on a pile of branches near a cornfield. He thought her name might have been Ruth.

Maybe. All right. So we have our first clip. Let's hear Samuel Little talk a little bit about Ruth. Oh, man, I love to. I forget her name. Oh, wait, I think it was Ruth. She was a heavyset, big old yellow gal.

And had buck teeth. He had a gap to me and teeth, that way well. And she, she was like honey-colored skin. And she had, like, her hair was not really long. It was a birded by six other girls was sitting on the porch. There was something to do something crack in there. I stopped to go there. I seen a girl, that's why I stopped.

We stayed together two days. or more. I think it was about three days. We was going to shoplifting. We went to Sears. We went to Crogers, and that's where I got busted.

They took me to jail, and she went and stayed in the car. In the manager of Croas, I guess he got tired of her on his property in that car. He called and pulled the station

where I was at in North Vermont. throw himself, they drop the child. So he can come to and get this girl and car out of him. They come and lose.

I don't know. He seems to be having a very good time. Sounds like it to me. You know, he's laughing. He's joking. But you hear him in the beginning, you know, describe this woman

and especially her skin. Obviously, we can't play all of, you know, his interrogation. But every time he's asked to describe somebody, he's very particular with the skin tone. It's always honey colored. He's got a lot of descriptive words for people's skin and hair. Very vivid with that information. And he goes on and on about some of these women talking about, you know, just how pretty they were.

And he talks about their figures. And it's, it's creepy, dude. It's just absolutely. creepy. Now in 1984, Samuel Little hit our neck of the woods. He was driving from Lorraine, Ohio to Cincinnati. He met a 25-year-old white woman outside a strip club. I believe it was in Columbus. She asked for a ride to Miami, where her mother lived. Okay, that's a long ride. It is a long ride. From Columbus to Miami, Florida. They started to drive down Interstate 75. When they got to Cincinnati, they spent time on Vine Street, which is smack dab downtown Cincinnati. Then they continued driving into northern Kentucky. Little drove up a small dirt road to a hill. He strangled this woman in his car and left her body on the hill.

We got to Coventon and then we continued through Coventon. And there was a park that they were having a festival there. And she heard the music and she'd off the band and by her being a hippie type. And she, oh, you want to get to that. But the police came over and peaked in a car.

He really wanted me to move out of it. So we, instead of going in there, I took her the other way. Right. Right. Right. Winding around. They got hills out in Kentucky. And the road winds around the hills. I seen a little short road going up the hill.

And up top, that was vegetation. Wasn't no hours of nothing. And so I pulled up in the and concealed by the car in that little vegetation up there on top of the hill. It was like dirt.

The grass was growing in the middle between two tracks. When I left her up in that little road up there, on the side of the road, she was like partially concealed by the vegetation. left for there. I don't know.

I get this strange feeling. It's almost as if he's talking about some great thing that he did that he ultimately ended up winning an award for. Yeah. He seems almost gleeful. Yeah, sounds like he's really enjoying recounting the memory. I think he is. I truly think he is. In 1993, Samuel Little was driving to L.A.

He met a woman in Las Vegas. The woman pointed out her son to him, a young black man, somewhere between 19 and 23 years old. He took the woman to a motel room and strangled her. He put her body in his trunk and then drove outside the city. He rolled her body down a steep slope and threw her clothes away further down the road. Again, this was another one of his victims whom he believed had never been found. He just assumed, I think, that a lot of these women that he killed had never been discovered. But a lot of them had.

They were just unsolved. Police had never been able to figure out who murdered these women. In 1982, he met a woman at a club in New Orleans. He's all over the place, man. He's like a traveler. This woman was at a birthday party with her friends and her sister. He left the club with the woman in his vehicle. this woman told him that she lived with her mother and at some point she gave him the keys to her house

Samuel drove to the little woods exit and turned down a dirt road along a canal. They got out of the car and he killed the woman and left her body in the canal. He drove back to a motel in Pascagoula, Mississippi. For some reason, we have been talking about Pascagoula in a lot of recent episodes. Yeah, we have. Or maybe just the same. Samuel Little episodes, I don't know. Yeah, I just remember saying Pasca Gula quite a bit. And while we were dancing, she says, you want to go riding after this, you know, that was the party's over.

We walked outside and she looked at the same my car. At a lady, she said, ooh, you know, that's a beautiful car too. So she had an arm in arm and arm walking to the car. We got in, stopped at a gas station. We were on the highway 10. And going toward Slide L, I seen the sign, see little woods. So I cut off, I took off the exit, went, and that showed up. It was the road leading into the woods.

And we went in and parked. So we finally got to where we were going. And the bay river, a little water thing, and grab me by the legs and pull to the, to the, Water. It's the only one that I ever killed by drowning. He's actually laughing in that one. Yeah.

Laughing, giggling. Well, I think the one thing you'd have to say is there's no remorse, right? From Samuel Little in recounting what he did to some of these women. And we mentioned 650 hours. Right. So we could play tons of audio,

but it would take up a lot of the. episode. I just really wanted people to get a sense of, you know, him talking, how cavalier it is or it sounds that really it doesn't sound much different than, you know, when you come over on the nights where we record in the studio, we're sitting eating dinner before we record. We do. And you're telling me about your day at work. Yeah, that casual. That's about what I'm getting from him. And, And actually, you wouldn't even be laughing, probably. If you were telling me what happened at work, I can picture the glint in his eye. Yeah.

As he's, you know, telling these stories. Samuel's last known, at least according to his statements, victim, was a woman named Nancy from Tupelo, Mississippi. Investigators believe this woman was Nancy Carroll Stevens, who was found on the side of the road in August 2005. And I mentioned it, right? Over 30 years. You know, we were talking early 80s. Now we're 2005. Nancy was originally from Alabama. Samuel Little found her outside of Walmart. On August 8th, 2005, the Lee County Sheriff's Department responded to a report of a dead body on the side of the road. Nancy was identified by her fingerprints.

Her autopsy found that she died from strangulation. Detectives followed up on potential leads, but her case went cold until Samuel Little confessed to her murder. Samuel confessed that he was riding in an RV with Nancy until he strangled her in a Walmart parking lot and dumped her body on the side of the road. He claimed that they had a two-week relationship. before he killed her. Two weeks.

But then what? Did he get too close to her and said, hey, I can't have this? She touched her neck. He stared too long at her neck. Most likely. I don't know. On November 27, 2018,

the FBI officially announced that Samuel Little had confessed to 90 murders in exchange for being moved from California to Texas. The FBI was able to confirm 34 of those murders, and they released some of his portraits when they made this announcement. Samuel Little confessed to five murders in Mississippi. On November 29, 2018, he was charged with the murders of Alice Taylor and Tracy Johnson.

They were two friends who were found strangled in 1992. Alice Taylor was found in Gulfport and Tracy Johnson was found in Sauccier, which I believe is how you pronounce that. I think you're correct. He murdered Julia Critchfield in 1978 in Sosier. Julia was found strangled in a dirt pit. He finally confessed to the murder of Melinda LaPree in Pascagoula, who was found dead in a cemetery ditch back in 1982. And then he confessed to murdering a 16-year-old boy in Jackson, Mississippi in 1984. But police couldn't identify the victim. That same day, the Omaha police looked into Samuel's connection with the murder of Agatha White Buffalo, who was found strangled and placed upside down in a 55-gallon drum at the Sturgis

Hyde Company in Omaha in November 1973. I mean, just take a minute and see how far we're going back. Oh, yeah. That was the year I was born. Yeah. 173. Samuel was very busy throughout his, I'd say it, career. I don't know what other word you would use.

He operated successfully for a very, very long time and got away with it. On December 13th, 2018, Samuel Little pleaded guilty to the murder of the niece brothers and was sentenced to life in prison. And why not? You're going to go to trial? you're going to fight it for what reason not going to benefit you no no and you know maybe that was part of the agreement as well okay you're going to confess you're going to plead guilty you're going to get a bunch of life sentences that really in the grand scheme of things are not going to amount to much

but what do they mean to the family to be able to conclusively say yes we've identified your loved one's killer. On May 1st, 2019, Samuel Little confessed to the murders of Mary Joe Peyton in 1984, Rose Evans in 1991, and a Jane Doe from either 1977 or 1978 in Cleveland, Ohio. He also confessed to killing a woman in Cincinnati in 1974 and dumping her body near Columbus. He was indicted for the murders of Mary Joe Peyton and Rose Evans that same day. Investigators, at least to my knowledge, have not been able to identify that third victim. On July 3rd, 1984, the body of Mary Joe Peyton was found in a stairwell of a factory in Cleveland. She wasn't identified until 1992 after her thumbprint was submitted to the FBI.

on August 24th, 1991, Rose Evans was found in an empty lot in Cleveland. So you think about all of these unsolved homicides that went unsolved in some cases for 10, 20, 30 plus years. Yeah. And would have continued to go unsolved? Sure. If he didn't come forward.

If he didn't come forward. Now, this guy is a monster. There's no two ways around that. do you at least give him the slightest bit of credit for admitting to all of these murders if in fact he committed all the ones he admitted to don't you almost have to think you do you don't want to you don't want to and it doesn't make him really a better human being but is he giving something to the families of some of these victims i think ultimately he is and i think it's helping law enforcement too, you know, to get these terrible crimes off their books.

Well, if it's one less cold case that a cold case investigator has to touch on a regular basis, doesn't that mean then that those resources can be reallocated to other cases? Absolutely. It's kind of a ripple effect. I mean, there's a lot of ramifications to what he chose to do, both really, really bad, in committing the murders and then a little bit of good, I think, in choosing to, you know, tell the authorities what he did. Now, was it also self-serving? And I would say, yeah, the answer's yes. Oh, of course. He wanted to be moved to Texas. Yes. And so he said, you know what? You give me this

deal and I'll do it and they did. Yeah. If he was in Texas already, would he have let all this out of the bag? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't want anybody to, to, to, For a split second, think that I'm praising this guy or I'm saying he did anything out of the goodness of his heart. I know he didn't. But did something or some things that were good come out of what he did? Sure. I think you'd have to at least give him that part for sure. On June 7th, 2019, Samuel Little was charged with strangling two women in Cincinnati, 33 year old Anna Stewart, found in Grove City in 1981 and a Jane Doe whose body was never found. Samuel Little murdered Anna Stewart on October 11th, 1981 and dumped her body in a wooded area

behind an apartment complex. She was found on October 12. So, you know, he operated in Ohio up and down the 75, 71 corridors. Right. Pretty close to where we live. But what I found interesting was that he picked one woman up in Columbus and then went to Cincinnati. Then he would pick a woman up in Cincinnati and ultimately dump her body in Grove City, which is just outside of Columbus. Yeah.

Took him for a little joy ride, I guess. What he? Well, but was it calculating? Remember, Holland said this guy was very, very smart. was it calculated in that let me put some distance between where I'm picking these women up and where I'm ultimately killing them and dumping their bodies. Well, I think it was. You know, I mean, obviously they went unsolved for such a long period of time because of how he

operated. Yeah, I think in at least some small part, that had to have had something to do with it. In 1984, it's thought that Samuel Little murdered a woman near Columbus and dumped her body in Northern Kentucky. And this would be the second because we've already talked about one. He said he strangled this woman who has never been identified and dumped her body under a billboard. His description was that the woman was thin and black.

She was wearing a wig and glasses. But he said she could have. have been anywhere from 15 to 50 years old and died somewhere between 1980 and 1999. Okay, both of those ranges are very, very wide. Exactly. Do you not remember what year it was exactly? Okay, I understand that. Are you telling me that you're not sure if someone was 15 or 50?

But you remember the wig and glasses? Yeah, very strange, right? Samuel Little also confessed to murdering one person in Akron, Ohio in 1991. On August 23rd, 2019, Samuel Little was sentenced to 15 years to life for the murders of Anna Stewart and the 1984 Jane Doe murder to run consecutively with his California sentences. So he's getting sentenced, but again, you know, it's just a bunch of extra life sentences. I don't want to say it means nothing because that's not true. To the families, I'm sure it means a lot. It does.

On October 6th, 2019, the FBI came out and confirmed that at that time, 79 year old Samuel Little was the most prolific killer in U.S. history. So by that point, he had confessed to 93 murders. VyCAP was able to confirm 50. Wow. So I, you know, I do think the thing about Samuel Little is that unlike other serial killers who boasted and said, you know, I, I've done this, this, this, this and this. The fact is they've been able to confirm a large number of his victims. And I think you'd have to say at the very least, it lends some credibility to, to what this guy has said. Now, is the true number 93? I don't know. Is it somewhere between 50 and 93? probably. Yeah, absolutely. Unless he's forgotten about a bunch. It could be higher. And in that case, it could be over 100. In his later years, Samuel Little suffered from numerous health issues, including heart problems and diabetes. At a certain point, he had to use a wheelchair to get around. At 4.53 a.m. on December 30th, 2020, 80-year-old Samuel Little died in a hospital in Los Angeles.

California Department of Corrections declined to announce his cause of death, which I thought was strange. It is strange. Why hold that back? Yeah. As of November 2021, investigators have confirmed the identities of 62 victims. The Texas Rangers and FBI released an updated Bolton detailing his confessions about the murders that are still unsolved. Again, we want to say it again. If you have any information that is used to, useful to the investigation, you can call 1-800 call FBI or submit a tip online. It tips.fbi.gov. So there are still 31 victims who have not been identified, who are at least believed to be victims of Samuel Little.

The problem is he's gone. He can no longer provide any information. Investigators are relying on his recorded confessions, local police and detectives and tips from the public. But I think it's pretty safe to say as we wrap up this episode. Samuel Little was the most prolific serial killer in the history of the United States. Yeah. The FBI believes it. So there's some validity to it. Absolutely there is. He primarily targeted black women and sex workers. And he said it on multiple occasions. This was on purpose. He targeted women who he thought were in vulnerable populations.

He raped his victims and he prolonged their suffering before they died. And he did it all for, you know, this sense of control. Yeah. This sense of ownership. He used that word. I own you now. It's a big thing for him. He is definitely a prime example of a sociopathic serial killer.

He showed no remorse for his crimes, his victims, and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the way that killing women made him feel. And I think that feeling is best summed up by the word power. He enjoyed the power. You know, he really enjoyed taunting and playing with his victims when he strangled him. He would put his hands on their neck, start the process, and then back off. And then do it again.

and when he felt like it was time, that's when he finally took their lives. So he enjoyed the power of deciding when his victims would die. Or if they would die. Or if, yeah. Because we did talk about someone who he let go and, you know, kind of debated. Is that a sense of power? And I would say it is. Yeah.

You're making the decision. You have all the power in that scenario. So we talked about Jillian Lauren quite a bit. she went to go interview Samuel Little. She set to release a book called Behold the Monster. I think it's going to come out like April of next year. This could be a really good book. Yeah.

You know, detailing her interviews with Samuel Little and the confessions that he told to her specifically and maybe shared some stuff with her that he didn't share with others. the book is also set to provide more information about the victims and their families. So, you know, for anyone interested, I know it's a ways away, but that could be a very interesting read because she's going to have some, maybe some inside knowledge. When how can she not? She spent quite a bit of time with him. Right. You know, firsthand. Yeah, I don't know, Gibbs. POS. What else can you say? Monster. I think we've said it all. Yeah.

I think a monster fits it really well. He was a monster. But that's it for our episode on Samuel Little or part two, final part on Samuel Little. One question I have is, is he the most prolific serial killer in the history of the U.S.? Because here's my thought. I imagine that there are people who throughout the years have killed a large number of people, maybe even larger than Samuel Little, but nobody. knows about it because they changed things up.

Police couldn't connect the victims. They did it back during a time before, you know, computer databases and everything that kind of links us today. I don't know. Maybe it's just me, but I always kind of think there's, there's always some things out there that we don't know that are even more shocking than what we do know. Maybe we can say he's the most known. Well, no, the statement's not incorrect.

He is the most prolific. Yeah. You can't say someone's more prolific if you don't know about it. Exactly. I guess I asked the question incorrectly. I should have just stuck with, I have a feeling there's probably somebody out there that if we knew all of the murders they committed, they would actually be more prolific.

And I would have to agree with that. Than Samuel Little. Absolutely agree with that statement. We got some voicemails. You want to check those out? No, let's hear it. Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name is Stacy.

I started listening to you guys during the pandemic. I'm a nurse, but I'm lucky enough to work from home. I have the biggest crush on Gibby, probably because his mom is from Boston, as he said in an earlier, early episode. So am I. Fun fact, I grew up in Chelsea, and that is where the Boston Strangler is. is from and my parents lived two streets over from him. Another fun fact is my dad owned a painting company in Chelsea and had to take the Boston Strangler's brother to court because he did a job and didn't pay my dad and my dad won. But I just want to say I've been dying to call

and leave a message. I get so nervous. But I love you guys and you guys have gotten me through so much through the pandemic and all that good stuff. But I just want to say, I love you. And Gibby, your girlfriend's very lucky. Thanks. Have a great day. From Boston. So Givby's over here. He's blushing. His face is all red. It cracks me up. Boston night. Boston. How you like them apples? Yeah. No, that's funny. Good story, though. I like it. That is a good story. You and I have not covered the Boston Strangler. Morph and I did recently on. on criminology. Yeah.

It's a very interesting case. We should do it soon. Yeah. There's a lot we should do soon. Yeah. But there's just, you know, one episode a week. What can we do? What can we do?

Yeah. We try to mix it up. That's exactly right. Hey, Mike and Gibby. My name is Shane. And I've listened to your podcast. When I found it, I started from the, I went back and listened to everything all the way. I don't like unsolved.

So I didn't have to listen to that. But I listened to all your salt cases. absolutely love it. Love it. Love it. But one thing I wanted to say what I appreciate about you guys more than another true crime podcast, I have a lot of others that I like, to be honest. But your research is so extremely well done, and the background is so well done on your characters. And here's another thing I really appreciate is you don't get into political crap and put a political spin on it one way or the other. You stay neutral.

And that is so refreshing, man. So, yep, keep up the good work. hope you guys have a great day. It's one thing that we said, I think, from the very beginning. Yeah. We don't talk politics. You know, we love our friends, our T-Cat friends and family. We do. You know, the quickest way to alienate some percentage of them is to talk politics. Yeah. I don't care what you talk about. X percent is going to be happy with what you're saying. Right. And X percent is not going to be happy. So, you know, we stick to true crime. That's our length. Exactly. Leave all that of stuff outside the studio. Right. If we were political analysts, we'd be on CNN or CBS or whatever.

Yeah. We don't do that. I do analyze stuff. You get analyzed. Oh, well, that's at the doctor. Yeah, that's a different thing. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Susan from Illinois. I call you guys quite a bit because it's honestly weird how you guys feel like friends, like long distance buddies. But anyway, I wanted to express my sincere condolence. to Gibby for his mother's loss. I know he lost his father recently, too, and that just has to be awful.

So it kind of makes you feel like a little kid again when it happens, and I'm very sorry to hear that. So please let him know there's a whole bunch of people that are thinking of him and stay safe and keep your own time taken. Yeah, very nice. And like I told you earlier, Gibbs, hundreds. Yeah. Voice, emails, emails, maybe even hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.

I chose to play one on both TCAT and TCAT Unsolved. I just picked one, but I could have picked from 100. Yeah, definitely appreciate it. Yeah, I know you do. And the support just, uh, it blew me away and I know it blew you away as well. It really did.

We had one thing in the mailbag, Brittany Cornett sent in a true crime book about the wild man of Winoch. Really? I'm sure I'm not saying that correctly. But, uh, it's a very thick book. book. Oh. So it's going to take you, well, it'll take me a while to read, but I know you, you took one of those speed reading classes, and that's how you graduated college at the age of nine.

I'll have it done during my next lunch break. You probably have it done while I, I taped this next podcast. That's probably true. All right, buddy, that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike, and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.