CA CA/OH/LA/MS/TX - SAMUEL LITTLE, aka Samuel McDowell, 1970's thru 2012, Serial Killer

[bessie]

Associated Press Timeline

By By TAMI ABDOLLAH, Associated Press – 5 hours ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Authorities have pieced together a 24-page timeline that tracks accused killer Samuel Little's activity across the country since his birth. Little stands charged in the slayings of three Los Angeles women in the 1980s, and investigators in other states are now scouring cold case files and running DNA tests to determine whether Little may be a suspect in other crimes. A timeline of his whereabouts, according to police and public records:

Other links:

http://news.yahoo.com/timeline-whereabouts-suspected-strangler-181338585.html

http://www.mdjonline.com/pages/full...eview+cold+cases+for+connections &id=22183161

 

[bessie]

By Maru I. Opabola
Staff writer
Gainesville.com

Published: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 8:30 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 8:30 p.m.

Officials from at least two states say the Alachua County Sheriff's Office has provided key help to authorities prosecuting a man suspected of killing dozens of women across the United States over the course of decades, including victims in Alachua and Marion counties...

On March 26, law enforcement officials from as far north as the Panhandle and as far south as Orlando gathered at the city of Alachua Police Department to compare notes on unsolved homicides going back decades. The meeting came about because of the case file found by Linda Brown, records bureau chief for the Alachua County Sheriff's Office.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/...-for-helping-crack-nationwide-cold-case&tc=ar

Nice work, Linda Brown!

 

[JudysSisterMaureen]

I spoke with Linda about the case - she is fantastic. He was fond of "Jukes" in the south - dive bars - roadhouses with jukeboxes. How I hope they get names - locations - information on the people he killed. And a real number of homicides.

 

[Backwoods]

I missed the news on this guy when it broke last year -- just read through the thread after stumbling across his name elsewhere and (of course) coming here to see what WS had. Not much on him recently, huh?

I noticed right away that some articles link him (DNA mentioned) with "a murder in Macon, GA", but the victim, Kimberly Kessinger, apparently was from Florida. Her body was found in a cemetery in Georgia, though. Here's a link to a 1982 article with a bit about her:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...BMNaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J1kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6596,655475

The AP Timeline on this suspect bessie linked last year isn't coming up for me at the link given -- anybody have one that works?

 

[bessie]

I missed the news on this guy when it broke last year -- just read through the thread after stumbling across his name elsewhere and (of course) coming here to see what WS had. Not much on him recently, huh?

I noticed right away that some articles link him (DNA mentioned) with "a murder in Macon, GA", but the victim, Kimberly Kessinger, apparently was from Florida. Her body was found in a cemetery in Georgia, though. Here's a link to a 1982 article with a bit about her:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...BMNaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J1kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6596,655475

The AP Timeline on this suspect bessie linked last year isn't coming up for me at the link given -- anybody have one that works?

I've replaced the non-working link with this one.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/0...abouts-career-criminal-alleged-serial-killer/

Snipped from the timeline:

December 1976: Little is convicted of assaulting Pamela Kay Smith in Sunset Hills, Mo., with the intent to ravish-rape and is sentenced to three months in county jail.

1980-1981: During the [Melinda LaPree] investigation two prostitutes come forward and allege Little also assaulted them in Pascagoula in 1980 and 1981. (my edit)

Sept. 12, 1982: The body of Patricia Ann Mount is found in rural Forest Grove, Fla.

October 1982: The skeletal remains of Melinda LaPree are found in a Gautier, Miss., cemetery. She was last seen in Pascagoula a month earlier after getting into a brown wood-paneled station wagon with a man later identified by witnesses as Little.

Jan 1984: Acquitted in the Mount case

Feb. 1, 1987: Little is paroled and moves to Los Angeles

July 13, 1987: Carol Alford is found dead in a South L.A. alley.

Aug. 14, 1989: Audrey Nelson is found dead in a downtown L.A. trash bin.

Sept. 3, 1989: Guadalupe Apodaca is found dead in an abandoned commercial garage in South L.A.

Sept 5, 2012: Final arrest in Louisville, KY

(See the full timeline at the link above.)


Criminal Complaint (Los Angeles County, CA - Jan 4, 2013) charging Little with three counts of murder in the deaths of Alford, Nelson, and Apodaca.

 

[bessie]

Did LA 'serial killer' murder woman [sic] across America? Police across the country scour cold case files for possible links to career criminal, 72

By Daily Mail Reporter
PUBLISHED: 09:34 EST, 12 April 2013 | UPDATED: 10:12 EST, 12 April 2013

Little's more than 100-page rap sheet details crimes in 24 states spread over 56 years – mostly assault, burglary, armed robbery, shoplifting and drug violations. In that time, authorities say incredulously, he served less than ten years in prison.

But in a terrifying number of cases, an unsolved murder occurred at a time and place where Little lived and Los Angeles detectives allege he traveled the country preying on prostitutes, drug addicts and troubled women. They assert Little often delivered a knockout punch to women and then proceeded to strangle them while masturbating, dumping the bodies and soon after leaving town.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...iller-murder-woman-America.html#ixzz2xGK31D6N

April 08, 2013 at 8:00 PM, updated April 09, 2013 at 11:25 AM
John Caniglia, The Plain Dealer

Little was born in Reynolds, Ga., and grew up in Lorain [Ohio] with a grandmother and attended Hawthorne Junior High School, according to interviews and court records in Lorain and Cuyahoga counties.

Police said his rap sheet goes back to 1957, when he was charged with breaking and entering. The Elyria Chronicle-Telegram has reported that Little was sent to prison four years later, at the age of 21, after he was convicted of a 1961 burglary for a break-in at a Lorain furniture store. He was sentenced to three years in prison. He left prison and returned to crime.

"His whole thing was shoplifting," said Versiga, the Mississippi detective. "He would work at shoplifting in a city for three or four days and then move on. He would take the items to drug areas and then sell them. Once he was done, he would go out in the early morning hours and look for women."

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/04/suspect_who_grew_up_in_lorain.html

January 7, 2013
"We believe he is good for many more crimes -- including murders -- throughout the United States," Roberts said. "If any law enforcement agencies have similar killings that occurred between 1960 and the present, they should contact LAPD Cold Case Detectives."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/01/suspect-1980s-slayings-arrested.html

By TAMI ABDOLLAH 04/07/13 04:32 PM ET EDT
Huffington Post

"We see a pattern, and the pattern matches what he's got away with in the past," said LAPD Detective Mitzi Roberts.

Little has pleaded not guilty in the three LA slayings, and in interviews with detectives after his September arrest he described his police record as "dismissed, not guilty, dismissed."

"I just be in the wrong place at the wrong time with people," he said, according to an interview transcript reviewed by The Associated Press

The department [FDLE] published an intelligence bulletin alerting authorities in Florida, Alabama and Georgia about Little's case, noting he lived in the area on and off in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

"We strongly encouraged them to look at any unresolved homicides that they had during those time frames and then consider him as a potential suspect," said Jeff Fortier, a special agent supervisor at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

[snipped]
"We are in the infancy stages of what we expect will be a protracted investigation," he said.

In Mississippi, Pascagoula cold case Detective Darren Versiga is re-investigating the killing of Melinda LaPree, a 22-year-old prostitute found strangled in 1982. Little had been arrested in that crime but never indicted, Versiga said. The detective has tracked down old witnesses and is working to reconstruct the case file because much of it was washed away during Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/07/samuel-little-trial-states-cold-case_n_3033665.html

 

[Roselvr]

They could have had him in 1976 but let him get away. I wonder if he was ever in NJ.

Cold case files probed after alleged strangler's arrest April 8, 2013

Cold case files probed after alleged strangler's arrest Then came the 911 call of Sept. 11, 1976, in Sunset Hills, Mo.

Pamela Kay Smith was banging on the back door of a home, crying for help, naked below the waist with her hands bound behind her back with electrical cord and cloth. Smith, who was a drug addict, told officers that she was picked up by Little in St. Louis. She said he choked her from behind with electrical cord, forced her into his car, beat her unconscious, then drove to Sunset Hills and raped her.

Officers found Little, then 36, still seated in his car near the home where Smith sought refuge, with her jewelry and clothing inside. Little denied raping Smith, telling officers: "I only beat her." The case summary was recalled in court papers filed by prosecutors in Los Angeles.

Little was found guilty of assault with the intent to ravish-rape and was sentenced to three months in county jail. Pascagoula Detective Versiga, who reviewed the Smith case, believes Little may have pleaded to a lesser charge and received a shorter sentence because of the victim's lifestyle. The case file refers to Smith as a heroin addict who often failed to appear in court.

After that, the charges against Little grew more serious.

In Pascagoula, LaPree went missing in September 1982 after getting into a wood-paneled station wagon with a man witnesses later identified as Little. A month later her remains were found, and Little was arrested in her killing and the assault of two other prostitutes. Versiga believes grand jurors failed to indict in part because of the difficulty in determining a precise time of death but also because of credibility problems due to the victim and witnesses working as prostitutes.

Little, nevertheless, remained in custody and was extradited to Florida to be tried in the case of another slain woman.

Patricia Ann Mount, 26 and mentally disabled, was found dead in the fall of 1982 in rural Forest Grove, Fla., near Gainesville. Eyewitnesses described last seeing her leaving a beer tavern with a man identified as Little in a wood-paneled station wagon.

According to The Gainesville Sun's coverage of the trial, a fiber analyst testified that hairs found on Mount's clothes "had the same characteristics as head hairs taken from" Little. But when cross-examined the analyst said "it was also possible for hairs to be transferred if two people bumped together."

A jury acquitted Little in January 1984.

Exclusive: LAPD arrests serial killer suspect from 1980s January 7, 2013

Little, also known as Samuel McDowell," committed crimes in 24 states but served relatively little time in state prison or county jail, the detectives said. In the early 1980s, Little was accused of a two murders and two attempted murders in the Gainsesville, Fla., and Pascagoula, Miss., areas.

Little, at the time identified in press accounts as Samuel McDowell, was acquitted by a Florida jury in the strangulation murder of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount, whose body was discovered Sept. 12, 1982.

He was never brought to trial in the three Mississippi cases, which include the strangulation death of Melinda LaPree, 24, on Sept., 14 1982. That case has been reopened by the Pascagoula Police Department in light of new evidence, authorities said.

Little served limited prison time relative to his crimes and kept a step ahead of authorities by constantly moving among states. According to LAPD detectives, he had an arrest record in nearly every region of the continental U.S. except the north central states.

Samuel Little: 3 Cold Case Murder Charges For Suspect Who Could Be Serial Killer -- LAPD By Dennis Romero Mon, Jan 7, 2013

The Times says Little is being investigated as a possible serial murder suspect: He has been arrested for murders in Florida and Mississippi but had yet to be successfully prosecuted.

He lived in Los Angeles and San Diego in the 1980s, the Times says.

Samuel Little, Alleged L.A. Serial Killer, Possibly Linked to Florida Cold Cases May 2 2013

Little grew up in the Rust Belt backwater of Lorain, Ohio. He first hit the court system with a burglary charge at 16. The criminal record that follows is nearly 100 pages long and includes armed robbery, rape, solicitation, theft, DUI, shoplifting, fraud, and aggravated assault on a police office. This tenure came to a halt last fall, when LAPD detectives matched Little's DNA to two women murdered in 1989. They tracked Little down to a homeless shelter in Kentucky and made an arrest. A third victim was later added.

"There are a lot of unresolved homicides from that time period. That was a period when DNA was not a tool that was readily available to law enforcement," Fortier tells New Times. "Most agencies retain their evidence because they're unsolved. We are just encouraging them to go back to their evidence and take a look at it to see if there was any possibility of semen or saliva or any bodily fluids that might be on the evidence."

 

[Roselvr]

Suspected serial killer has local connections March 14, 2013

Many of Little’s crimes were relatively minor — theft, DUI and drug possession arrests in locations such as Ohio, Louisiana, Alabama, Oregon, Texas, Georgia and Arizona, to name a few

But there are more serious charges in Little’s criminal history that indicate a propensity for violence and sex crimes.

For instance, Little was convicted of assault with intent to rob in Baltimore in 1967 and sentenced to prison.

He was charged and convicted of soliciting the services of a prostitute in Bakersfield, Calif., in 1973 and received probation. That same year he was convicted of assaulting a police officer in Trenton, N.J.

He also has faced assault, kidnapping, attempted murder and other serious charges over the years. He was convicted of attacks on women in San Diego in the 1980s and sentenced to two years in prison.

But as in Gainesville, Little hasn’t always been convicted of the crimes of which he’s been accused.

Cuyahoga County court records indicate that Little was charged with armed robbery in 1971 under the McDowell name, but a jury acquitted him of the charge in 1972.

Also in 1971, Little was charged with aggravated assault and sodomy in Cuyahoga County, but those charges were dropped in 1977, according to court records.

Roberts said that part of the difficulty in catching up with Little after he first was identified last year as a suspect in the 1980s Los Angeles killings was his tendency to get arrested for minor crimes and be released from custody. He then disappeared.

.

This is the best map I could get

 

[carbuff]

Those pins look like they're mostly following major highways.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81119134/

On Monday, 2 1/2 decades after the bodies were found, a prosecutor told jurors the women were all victims of Samuel Little, now a silver-haired 74-year-old who sat silently in a wheelchair as his murder trial began in a downtown L.A. courtroom.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman described Little as a ruthless sexual deviant who preyed on vulnerable women down on their luck. She said he had also carried out similar attacks in Mississippi and San Diego before committing the Los Angeles slayings, often targeting women who were working as prostitutes or had drug habits.

"They were women who had lost their way," Silverman said. "Easy targets for a calculated killer who was looking to prey on women."

 

[bessie]

Expert: DNA evidence links suspect to killing
By LINDA DEUTSCH, AP Special Correspondent
Updated 8:13 pm, Tuesday, August 19, 2014

LOS ANGELES (AP) — DNA evidence taken from the clothing and body of Carol Alford a quarter-century after her death linked her slaying to a serial killing suspect with such certainty that no other person on Earth could have deposited the cells, an expert testified Tuesday.

Forensic DNA analyst Amanda Mendoza was asked during the trial if she had made a positive match of the DNA to defendant Samuel Little.

"That's correct," she said after tossing out extravagant statistics.

[...]

The trial is the first involving murder charges against Little, but Silverman said outside court he is likely responsible for at least 40 killings nationwide dating back to 1980.

---

 

[OkieGranny]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/los-angeles-jury-convicts-man-serial-murders-25221171

A man who authorities believe strangled dozens of women as he moved from place to place around the country was convicted Tuesday of three 1980s murders in Los Angeles.

Samuel Little, 74, appeared almost cheerful as he was found guilty of crimes that will send him to prison for life without chance of parole...

Jurors deliberated just two hours before convicting him of three counts of first-degree murder.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_26454770/man-convicted-three-murders

The victims were 41-year-old Carol Alford, whose body was found on July 13, 1987; 35-year-old Audrey Nelson, found on Aug. 14, 1989; and 46-year-old Guadalupe Apodaca, found on Sept. 3, 1989.

Sentencing is set for September 25.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2014/09/former_pascagoula_prostitutes.html

A year after another Pascagoula prostitute narrowly escaped a violent strangling, Lelia Johnson scratched, clawed, and ran topless into heavy shipyard traffic to get away from Samuel Little, her would-be murderer.

Johnson, now 55 and living in Moss Point, was in her early 20s when she fought off Little's brutal attack inside a car in November 1981. "He got his big hands around my neck, but I'm a fighter and I was scratching him in the eyeballs, kicking and fighting, fighting, fighting," she said. "He was evil. You could tell he hated women and he liked having control."

Johnson was just one of Little's many victims, but she was one of very few survivors.

 

[OkieGranny]

http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/career-criminal-gets-life-for-3-1980s-la-killings

A 74-year-old man has been sentenced to three consecutive terms of life in prison without chance of parole in the murders of three Los Angeles women.

Samuel Little was convicted earlier this month of the killings, which occurred in the late 1980s.

Little shouted out in court during sentencing Thursday that he didn't commit the killings and said he hoped for a new trial. His lawyer has filed an appeal.

 

[Backwoods]

Article from back during his trial, but I believe it is one that did not get linked (pardon if it did and I just missed it):

Women's testimony called 'blueprint' to serial killer suspect's behavior

...On top of the forensic evidence, the prosecutor offered up testimony from women who she said were the ones that had gotten away, ones who had also been attacked by Little years ago but escaped with their lives. The women flew in from around the country to tell stories they long believed no one would care to hear, and each picked out the aging man without hesitation as her assailant.

They testified that they remembered his large hands, the blows he dealt with them and the feeling of them closing around their necks....

"It tells you exactly what happened in this case.... It's a blueprint," Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman said in closing arguments...

...All of the women — dead and alive — had one thing in common, Silverman told jurors. "They were women who law enforcement at the time were unlikely to take seriously," she said....

more at: http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-serial-killer-women-20140901-story.html

 

[folieadeuxnola]

:bump:

 

[wheelgirl82]

Do we know any info about this case?

 

[DexterG]

Wise County inmate suspected in more than 90 murders

DECATUR, Texas - A suspected serial killer who was housed in the Wise County jail may be linked to more than 90 murders across the country.

The Wise County Sheriff’s Department said 78-year-old Samuel Little was in the county’s jail facility for 50 days while investigators interviewed him about a cold case from the 1980s.

Little was convicted in 2014 for the murdering three women in Los Angeles in the 1980s.
-
Over the summer, he was indicted for murdering a woman in Odessa in 1994. He was extradited from California and brought to Ector County in Texas.
-
Little has cooperated and provided details for more than 90 murders going back to the 1970s, Wise County officials said.

He’s suspected of killing women in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio, California, Indiana, Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina. The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have also interviewed him.

 

[Lmustang89]

I saw this too on my facebook feed - wow

 

[musicaljoke]

Hopefully, having a national DNA database will prevent this unreined carnage to happen in the future. It's absolutely horrible that he continued to murder until over 90 women lost their lives.