DADE COUNTY, Ga. — Police are searching for the identity of a woman killed by a serial killer in the early 1980s. The woman’s body was found in northwest Georgia.
Samuel Little, the infamous serial killer who confessed to 90 murders across the country, told investigators that this woman was one of his victims. He said he met her in a nightclub on 9th Street in Chattanooga in the early '80s. He described the victim as a light-skinned black woman with a big build who was in her early to mid-20s, according to our ABC affiliate WTVC.
Little said he and the woman left the club together and went to a secluded road where he strangled her. Little said he then rolled her body off an embankment. In Little’s words, the body kept rolling, implying he was on a steep ridge.
Investigators believe the victim was from the Chattanooga area, northwest Georgia or northeast Alabama.
The woman’s body was found in Dade County in September 1981.
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Little, 78, is considered one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history if his confessions are true. He confessed to murdering women from California to Florida between 1970 and 2005.
"Little chose to kill marginalized and vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs. Their bodies sometimes went unidentified and their deaths uninvestigated," according to the report.
Right now, Little is in prison in Texas. He has already been connected to two cold cases in Georgia, and now investigators are trying to match his other five confessions.
Earlier this year, two Bibb County investigators traveled to Decatur, Texas, to question Little.
The Bibb County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that one victim was killed in 1977 and another in 1982. In the 1982 case, a woman's body was found in the backyard of a Macon home. She had been strangled.
Police identified her as Fredonia Smith. The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office says Little gave it specific details and information” linking him to both slayings, and Smith’s family was notified about the new developments.
Investigators were also able to link Little to the death of this Jane Doe in Dade County and are now working to identify her.
Little also confessed to three other murders in Atlanta and two in Savannah, but investigators have not been able to confirm the details.
In Atlanta, Little told investigators he killed a black woman between 35 and 40 years old in 1981. Years later, in 1983 or 1984, Little says he killed a 26-year-old white woman possibly from Griffith, Georgia. In 1984, he says he killed a black woman age 23-25, who was possibly a college student.
In Savannah, Little told investigators he killed a black woman who was 22-23 years old in 1974 and a black woman, age 23, in 1984.
Little was already serving a life sentence in California when he was interviewed by a Texas investigator that resulted in the confessions.
Little was convicted of three California murders but is now in custody in Texas where authorities are questioning him about murders there.
If the number of killings Little claims to have committed proves true, it would make him one of the most prolific killers in U.S. history. Ted Bundy confessed to 30 homicides from about 1974 to 1978. John Wayne Gacy killed at least 33 boys and young men in the 1970s.
Los Angeles cold-case detectives at the time suspected Little was a serial killer, a transient and former boxer who traveled the country preying on drug addicts, troubled women and others. His criminal history includes offenses committed in 24 states spread over 56 years — mostly assault, burglary, armed robbery, shoplifting and drug violations.
Those detectives determined that Little often delivered a knockout punch to women and then proceeded to strangle them while masturbating, dumping the bodies and soon after leaving town.
Little is currently serving three consecutive life sentences with no possibility of parole linked to the three California murders.
"Little is in poor health and will likely stay in prison in Texas until his death. The goal now is to identify his victims and provide closure and justice in unsolved cases," the report says.