G
rowingupin Ohio
Samuel Little wa
mostly
raised by
his grandmother.
According to
him, his mother was
a ‘lady of the night,’
and was constantly in
and out of jail.
Investigators believe
he may have even started
his life in jail – with his
mother giving birth to him
during one of her stints locked up.
His childhood was troubled,
and he struggled with discipline
and didn’t do well in high school.
He had a problem with
authority figures, and at the age of
16, he had his first run in with the
law – the beginning of a very long
criminal career.
After being convicted of
breaking and entering, Little was
sentenced to spend time in a unit
for juvenile offenders.
Upon his release, he moved to
Florida with his mother and
found work as a cemetery
worker, labourer and, according
to him, an ambulance attendant.
But he didn’t stay put or out of
trouble, for long.
As he got older, he travelled all
over the United States and had
more run-ins with the law.
He was arrested across eight
different states for crimes
including fraud, armed robbery
and even rape.
Police were always after him.
Just like his mother, Little was
constantly in and out of prison.
He would use his time locked
up to work on his
boxing and would
later refer to himself
as a former
prize-fighter.
In the time he
spent out of prison,
Little made no
attempt to live a life
free of crime, and
would associate
with pimps and prostitutes.
But it wasn’t until 1982, after
years of breaking the law, that
Samuel was arrested for murder
in Mississippi.
Melinda LaPree was a 22-year-kidnapping,beatingandstrangling
22-year-old Laurie Barros.
She managed to escape and
survive the incident, but just a
month later, police found Little in
the backseat of his car with another
unconscious woman, who had also
been beaten and strangled.
He was sentenced to two and a
half years for both crimes but was
soon back out on the streets of Los
Angeles, committing more murders.
But somehow, Little managed to
evade police, not leaving enough
clues behind to link him to the scene
of the crime.
And It wasn’t until September
2012, that he was finally arrested.
Investigators had been working
on three unsolved murder cases
from the eighties, and he was themesuspect.
hey tracked him
wn, and
ntually found
living in a
eless shelter
in Kentucky.
hey used DNA
nvict him of all
in September
, ntenced to life in
prison,withoutparole.
Finally, Little was unable to hurt
anyone else.
Little insisted upon his
innocence, but after two years in
prison, he admitted to
what investigators knew
all along.
After authorities
agreed to move him
from his noisy cell in
Los Angeles, to a quieter
prison in Texas, Little
promised to reveal all.
He started to confess
to the horrific murders,
one by one.
But his confessions
didn’t stop with the three
murders he’d been
sentenced for. Nobodyold prostitut
who had gon
September th
Her bodyw
naked and du pedin a ditchat a
local cemetery and Little was the
prime suspect.
But a grand jury didn’t indict him.
While investigations
carried on, he was
transferred to Florida,
where he was charged
with the murder of
26-year-old prostitute,
Patricia Mount, but
again, he was acquitted.
Little managed to
walk away scot-free,
due to a mistrust of
witness testimonies.
After his trial, he moved to San
Diego, but again, he couldn’t stay
out of trouble for long.
In October 1984, he was once
again arrested. This time for
WORDS BY ROSIE CRASS IMAGES: GETTY, ALAMY, FBI
He was
the prime
suspect but
he walked
away
Samuel Little
could be the
most prolific
killer in U.S.
history...
L R
MONSTE
Making
of a
Samuel
Little’s
crimes
went
back decades,
but he
remembered
every single
horrific detail