Police still working to confirm confessions by Ga. born serial killer

ATLANTA — Statements by Georgia-born serial killer Samuel Little still have police around the country working to match the murders in his mind to real women, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Since he began confessing to investigators late last year while held in prison, the 79-year-old has been linked to the deaths of more than 60 women dating back to the 1970s. The failed boxer turned drifter, who was born in Middle Georgia’s Taylor County and has already been sentenced to life for three murders in California, says he killed 93 women as he crisscrossed America, including at least seven in Georgia. He began confessing after investigators struck up a rapport with him and started coaxing information.

The revelations are still coming.

In mid-July, police in Arkansas told the Pine Bluff Commercial newspaper they were investigating whether a woman whose 1994 death was initially ruled drug-related was actually caused by Little. Little had spoken of killing a woman in the area and, as he’s done with dozens of the victims, he recently drew police a sketch of the woman. The likeness to Jolanda Jones, 26, was “remarkable,” authorities found.

In Cincinnati, the Enquirer newspaper reported Friday that an investigator is scouring records for one of Little’s victims.

Last month, Little was indicted for murder in the deaths of two women in the Cleveland, Ohio, area.

Samuel Little, who often went by the name Samuel McDowell, leaves the Ector County Courthouse after attending a pre-trial hearing Monday, November 26, 2018 in Odessa, Texas.

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“There are no words to describe the pure evil that exists within Samuel Little,” Michael C. O’Malley, the prosecutor in the Cleveland case, said in a statement published by USA Today. “His heinous disregard for human life is incomprehensible.”

The Cleveland cases were typical of Little’s confessed killings: He said he strangled the women shortly after meeting them and then left their bodies on abandoned properties. Authorities have said Little likely got away with his many killings partly because he killed by strangulation or beating, which leaves less obvious evidence of homicide than shooting or stabbing.

While two-thirds of Little’s confessions have been confirmed, only two of those have been in Georgia, one in Dade County near the Tennessee border and one in the Macon area. That leaves three Atlanta-area cases and two from Savannah unconfirmed. The FBI has released sketches of those five victims to see if they could jog someone’s memory who knew them.

Chatham County District Attorney Meg Heap is hopeful because it appears Little is telling the truth.

“He’s kept their memories alive in his head,” Heap told Savannah TV station WSAV. “He has been able to give facts that nobody else but law enforcement knows.”

This story was written by Joshua Sharpe for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

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