Samuel Little, known as the most prolific serial killer in American history, died inside a California prison last night. He was 80 years old. No official cause of death has been released yet.
In 2014, Little was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three Los Angeles women killed between 1987 and 1989. In 2018, he was convicted of the murder of a Texas woman killed in 1994. Little had previously been a suspect in multiple murders going back to 1982.
Little spent his entire adult life in and out of jails and prisons. In 1984 he was arrested in California for kidnapping and brutally beating a woman. When police apprehended him a month later, they found another kidnapped woman, who had been strangled unconscious, inside his car. Yet Little only served two and a half years in a California prison for these brutal attempted murders.
In November of 2018, Little began cooperating with authorities. He provided information linking himself to dozens of murders in exchange for preferential treatment in the California prison system. He claimed to have killed a total of 93 women. The murders span thirty-five years and fourteen states.
By the end of 2018, the FBI made a statement saying they could confirm that he was involved in at least 27 murders based on the information he provided. In 2019, he was charged and convicted of four murders in Ohio that took place between 1981 and 1991. He is a suspect in about sixty murders in total. He targetted prostitutes and drug addicts, many of whom were homeless. All of his victims were women. The majority were black women, however, white and Latina women were also murdered.
