The most prolific serial killer in U.S. history died Wednesday in a California prison, where he had been serving three consecutive life-without-parole sentences. Samuel Little was 80.
Little, a Middle Georgia native, had confessed to killing more than 90 women, including several in Georgia. Most recently, Little was linked in October to a North Georgia cold case dating back to 1981, according to the GBI.
According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Little died early Wednesday at a hospital. An official cause of death will be determined by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office. Little had diabetes, heart trouble and other ailments, according to The Associated Press.
While already serving time for killing three women in California, Little began confessing to the deaths of dozens of other women. In October 2019, the FBI labeled Little the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. He has confessed to 93 murders, including several in Georgia, and has provided drawings of many of his victims.
Investigators have been able to verify at least 50 of Little’s confessions, according to the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
“For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims,” Christie Palazzolo, an FBI crime analyst, said last year. “Even though he is already in prison, the FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim — to close every case possible.”
Little has claimed he strangled all of his victims between 1970 and 2005. Included among his confessed killings are seven women from Georgia: three in Atlanta, two from Savannah, one each in Bibb and Dade counties. The death of an 18-year-old from Macon has been linked to Little, the FBI said.
He claims he killed the three women in Atlanta between 1981 and 1984, according to the FBI. Though Little couldn’t provide names, he said he killed a woman between the ages of 35 and 40 in 1981, a 26-year-old in 1983 or 1984, and then a woman who may have been a college student in 1984. She was between the ages of 23 and 25.
Despite the claims, Atlanta police have said investigators have not connected any cold cases to Little.
In 1981, a woman disappeared from a Chattanooga, Tennessee, nightclub, according to police. A woman’s body was later found in Dade County in northwest Georgia, but her remains could not be identified.
In 2018, Little told investigators he had killed a woman in Chattanooga decades earlier, the GBI said in October. Texas Rangers then contacted the district attorney’s office in Chattanooga, but cold case investigators knew of no cases fitting the details provided by Little.
The DA’s office cold case unit supervisor then contacted the GBI office in northwest Georgia. There was an unsolved case in Dade County, and investigators went to Texas to interview Little in December 2018.
Three months later, the GBI released an artist’s reconstruction of the woman’s face and asked for the public’s help in identifying her.
“As a direct result of that press conference, a family came forward stating they believed the woman was their family member,” the GBI said. “DNA was obtained from family members and samples were sent to the GBI Crime Lab for comparison leading to the positive ID.”
In October, the woman was identified as 30-year-old Patricia Parker, the GBI said.
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