'America's worst serial killer' could have body count more than double Ted Bundy
'America's worst serial killer' who killed an estimated 93 women could have a body count more than double Ted Bundy.
Samuel Little has been dubbed the US' most prolific killer after horrifying the nation for three decades between 1970 and 2005.
By comparison, Bundy confessed to killing over 30 people - although some experts put his body count at over 100.
One author, Jillian Lauren, sat down with Little for hundreds of hours where he revealed exactly what he looked for in victims.
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While Little claims to have been responsible for the heinous murders of 93 women - police have only been able to confirm 63.
Lauren's book, Behold the Monster: Confronting America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, saw the killer open up about his crimes. Little eventually passed away on 20 December 2020 at the age of 80.
"I believe that he was ready to confess. He was at the end of his life," she told A&E True Crime.
"He didn’t want to slide into the darkness, unknown for what he considered his greatest accomplishment, which was the number of murders he committed."
Little would search for victims alongside highways and byways, once saying: "They was broke and homeless and they walked right into my spider web.
"I didn’t pick on motherf***ers that would be missed…. there weren’t no women nurses and teachers."
He claimed: "That’s the reason I didn’t get busted a long time ago."
Little was able to get away with such crimes due to the demographic of his victims with Lauren stating: "Law officials in Mississippi in the ’80s didn’t believe it was possible to commit a crime against a black prostitute.
"In a tradition of many serial killers before him… he chose to dispose of victims society already thought were trash.
"A judge in Missouri thought three months was an appropriate sentence [for Little] for rape and assault."
The killer even drew portraits of some of his victims and boasted how he made their deaths as 'long and slow as possible'.
"I live in my mind now," Little told Lauren. "With my babies. In my drawings."
He murdered all across America including in Florida, Maryland, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, California, Arizona and Nevada.
Lauren added that the serial killer was never truly remorseful for his actions or sorry for his victims.
"In his statements at several of his trials, he said, 'I’m very sorry to the family, to the victim'. He wasn’t sorry," she said.
"He was sorry that, in his words, 'God made me how I was. I didn’t wanna be made like this.. but God gave me this twisted idea of sex and death. I feel sorry for myself.'
"That was Sam’s perspective on remorse."
Christie Palazzolo, a crime analyst with the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, said: "For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims.
"The FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim — to close every case possible."
Topics: Crime, US News, True crime
Rhiannon Ingle