Samuel Little: America's worst serial killer dies after confessing to 93 murders

Samuel Little, the man authorities say was the most prolific serial killer in American history, has died in California. He was 80.

Samuel Little, who had diabetes, heart problems and other ailments, died at a California hospital today, according to the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He was serving a life sentence for multiple counts of murder.

However, he had confessed to 93 other murders, according to the FBI, which said his admissions were “credible.”

His gruesome trail of murders was disclosed in a report issued in November 2018 by the FBI.

The agency said that his name popped up in their Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, known as ViCAP, in connection with a series of unsolved murders across the country.

One killing in Odessa, Texas, appeared to be particularly relevant, so two FBI crime analysts and James Holland of the Texas Rangers went out to see Little to try to get him to talk.

Little had been a prizefighter in his youth and had also worked as an ambulance attendant.

In FBI videotapes from prison, he often appeared to be smiling as he recounted his crimes.

He never expressed remorse and even taunted the family of one of his victims during a 2014 hearing by raising his fist in a triumphant gesture.

Kill list

“Over the course of that interview in May, he went through city and state and gave Ranger Holland the number of people he killed in each place,” ViCAP crime analyst Christina Palazzolo said in an FBI article.

“Jackson, Mississippi – one; Cincinnati, Ohio – one; Phoenix, Arizona – three; Las Vegas, Nevada – one.”

The murders were carried out over many decades, starting in 1970.

Little targeted marginalised and vulnerable, mostly black, women who were often involved in prostitution or addicted to drugs, the FBI article said.

Palazzolo and Angela Williamson, a ViCAP liaison, said that he remembered great detail from the killings.

After admitting to his crimes, Little was able to draw all the faces of his victims from memory to help in police investigations.