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FBI Releases Serial Killer’s Drawings of Victims

A man who confessed to killing 90 people and is serving a life sentence in Texas drew sketches of 16 his victims, which the FBI published this week in hopes they will lead to tips from the public to connect him to unsolved murders.

(CN) – A man who confessed to killing 90 people and is serving a life sentence in Texas drew sketches of 16 his victims, which the FBI published this week in hopes they will lead to tips from the public to connect him to unsolved murders.

This combination of undated sketches provided by the FBI shows drawings made by admitted serial killer Samuel Little, based on his memories of some of his victims. The bureau updated on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2019, information it had posted in November on its website. The update included the recent drawings made by Little. The FBI says Little, who's 78, is in poor health and is expected to remain in a Texas prison until death. (Courtesy of FBI via AP)

Samuel Little, 78, dropped out of high school and left his Ohio home in the late 1950s and became a nomad, the FBI says.

He often drove from New Jersey to California and back, shoplifting and stealing in towns along the way to get money to pay for his drug and alcohol addictions.

According to investigators, prosecutors charged Little with killing women in Mississippi and Florida in the early 1980s, but he beat the charges. His past caught up to him in Kentucky in 2012, however, when he was arrested at a homeless shelter in Kentucky and extradited to Los Angeles.

“Once Little was in custody, Los Angeles Police Department detectives obtained a DNA match to Little on the victims in three unsolved homicides from 1987 and 1989 and charged him with three counts of murder,” the FBI said in a statement.

The three women had been beaten and strangled and their bodies were dumped in an alley, a dumpster and a garage.

Hoping to connect Little to a case in Odessa, Texas, FBI agents and Texas Ranger James Holland interviewed him in California in spring 2018. Little agreed to let Holland interview him about his crimes in exchange for moving him to a Texas prison.

Little confessed to 90 killings, 34 of which have been confirmed by the FBI. Little said he targeted prostitutes and drug addicts. Due to the women’s lifestyles, their bodies sometimes were not identified and their murders were not investigated, or police did not even suspect they were murdered because of how Little killed them.

“The one-time competitive boxer usually stunned or knocked out his victims with powerful punches and then strangled them. With no stab marks or bullet wounds, many of these deaths were not classified as homicides but attributed to drug overdoses, accidents, or natural causes,” the FBI said.

Little killed many of his victims in the 1970s and 1980s before police collected DNA at crime scenes, so there was no physical evidence to connect him to the murders, according to the FBI.

Investigators say Little, who is in poor health and will die behind bars, remembers minute details about his murders.

“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,” the FBI said.

Little recently drew portraits of 16 of his victims, which the FBI publicized Tuesday. The agency released a corresponding map that shows he killed dozens of the women in the South, two in California and one each in Nevada and Arizona.

“The goal now is to identify his victims and provide closure and justice in unsolved cases,” the FBI said.

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Categories / Criminal

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