1940-2020
Who Was Samuel Little?
Samuel Little was the “most prolific serial killer in U.S. history,” according to the FBI. His life of crime began in the 1950s when he was a teenager living in Ohio. For decades, Little moved across the country and was in and out of jail. Then in 2012, he was arrested on an outstanding drug charge, and a DNA test connected him to three unsolved murders in California that dated back to the late 1980s. He was convicted of those murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2014. Although he maintained his innocence, Little soon confessed to a barrage of additional murders that spanned 19 states between 1970 and 2005, ultimately claiming responsibility for 93 deaths. Little died in custody in 2020 at age 80. As of December 2021, investigators had confirmed Little was responsible for more than 60 murders.
Quick Facts
FULL NAME: Samuel McDowell
BORN: June 7, 1940
DIED: December 30, 2020
BIRTHPLACE: Reynolds, Georgia
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Gemini
Early Life
Samuel Little was born as Samuel McDowell on June 7, 1940. Hailing from Reynolds, Georgia, Little claimed his mother was a teenage prostitute and that she had abandoned him. Authorities believe Little’s mother might have given birth to him while she was in jail. Little was raised by his grandmother in Lorain, Ohio. He had a difficult time in high school and eventually dropped out.
Little began committing crimes in his teen years, starting with theft. He was thrown into juvenile detention, and from then on, his crimes grew worse. Starting in the 1950s, he moved around from state to state and got arrested for fraud, driving under the influence, assault, armed robbery, and rape, among other crimes. By 1975, he had been arrested over 25 times across 11 states. In total, he served 10 years from these various offenses and escaped two murder convictions before his 2014 guilty verdict.
Little claimed he spent his years in prison learning how to box and that he showed promise as a prize-fighting boxer, a career he ended up not pursuing.
Convictions, Confessions, and Victims
In 2012, Little was located at a homeless shelter in Kentucky and transported to Los Angeles for an outstanding drug charge. Once in custody, Little had his DNA tested, which established his connection to three homicides in California between 1987 and 1989. The victims were Carol Ilene Elford, Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, and Audrey Nelson Everett.
In 2014, a jury found him guilty of the murders and sentenced him to life in prison without parole. After Little’s conviction, the FBI listed his information in its Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, which began finding strong links between his movements throughout the decades to a slew of unsolved murders across 19 states.
In August 2019, the imprisoned Little pleaded guilty to killing four women in Ohio, including 32-year-old Anna Stewart in 1981. He received two consecutive terms to life in prison and two consecutive sentences of 15 years to life on top of his prior rulings.
By this point, authorities said they had confirmed at least 60 of the killings Little had admitted to carrying out. During his later years, Little said he hoped his confessions would help exonerate anyone wrongly convicted of his crimes. “I say if I can help get somebody out of jail, you know, then God might smile a little bit more on me,” he told 60 Minutes.
One of the main reasons Little’s murders went undetected for so long was that many of his victims and alleged victims were on the fringes of society—sex workers, unhoused people, and drug addicts, for example—with many being women of color. “I never killed no senators or governors or fancy New York journalists. Nothing like that,” Little told the New York Times. “I stayed in the ghettos.”
To this day, many of the victims remain unidentified, and many of their deaths were attributed to natural causes, drug overdoses, or accidents. Little’s method of killing started out by punching his victims out cold and then strangling them to death. With no bullet or stab wounds, it was difficult to detect foul play. The Los Angeles Police Department gave him the name “The Choke-and-Stroke Killer” since he often masturbated while strangling his victims.
According to New York Magazine, Little believed he was commissioned by God to kill his victims to alleviate their misery. At other times, he felt he was possessed by the devil. Either way, he described murder as a thrill. “It was like drugs,” he told an investigator. “I came to like it.”
In May 2023, authorities identified his earliest known victim: 20-year-old Yvonne Pless. Little murdered her in 1977 in Macon, Georgia. He then killed Fredonia Smith, also in Macon, in 1982.
Victim Drawings
Although Little’s memory of dates and what his victims were wearing at the time of their murders were not entirely accurate, he seemed to have maintained an acute memory regarding other details. “He remembers where he was and what car he was driving. He draws pictures of many of the women he killed,” an FBI statement from 2018 reported.
In 2018, while Little was being held in a California prison, Texas Ranger James Holland visited him in hopes of solving the 1994 murder of a prostitute named Denise Brothers in Odessa, Texas. Little ended up confessing to the murder and many more in exchange to be transferred out of Los Angeles County prison.
Learning that Little had a talent for drawing, Holland provided him with art supplies so he could illustrate his victims. Little produced impressively accurate portraits of his victims, which the FBI attempted to use in order to solve several dozen cold cases.
“I live in my mind now. With my babies [victims]. In my drawings,” he told New York Magazine. “The only things I was ever good at was drawing and fighting.”
Relationships
Little claimed he was married once, though any record of that hasn’t been confirmed, and was involved in two long-term relationships. He didn’t have any children.
His most notable long-term relationship with a woman named Orelia “Jean” Dorsey, whom Little met in prison in 1971. According to Cleveland Magazine, Dorsey warned Little that his then-girlfriend Lucy Madero, intended to testify against him in an upcoming robbery trial. Records show a jury found Little not guilty in 1972. Afterward, Dorsey, who was 27 years older, and Little became inseparable, with Dorsey serving as his surrogate mother and traveling companion. The pair shoplifted thousands of dollars in clothing, cigarettes, and electronics up until Dorsey’s death from a brain hemorrhage in 1988.
Death
Little died in custody at a Los Angeles area hospital on December 30, 2020. The 80-year-old’s cause of death wasn’t publicly revealed, though there were no signs of foul play.
Once an imposing figure at 6-foot-3 and more than 200 pounds, Little had become wheelchair-bound in prison. He suffered from heart problems, diabetes, and other unspecified ailments.
Documentaries
In 2020, the Oxygen network released a documentary about Little called Catching a Serial Killer: Sam Little.
The next year, the docuseries Confronting a Serial Killer debuted on the Starz network. The five-part series highlighted the relationship between Little and journalist and author Jillian Lauren, who interviewed the imprisoned killer for a book about his crimes and victims. Lauren’s Behold the Monster: Confronting America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer released in July 2023.
Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us!
Tyler Piccotti first joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor in February 2023, and before that worked almost eight years as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. He is a graduate of Syracuse University. When he's not writing and researching his next story, you can find him at the nearest amusement park, catching the latest movie, or cheering on his favorite sports teams.
