By Serial Killer Magazine
Samuel Little was convicted in 2014 of three murders in Los Angeles. Between 2018 and 2020 he confessed to ninety-three, in a long series of interviews conducted mostly by a Texas Ranger named James Holland. The FBI has called him the most prolific serial killer in American history. He died in prison in December 2020.
Five of those interviews are published by the FBI with full written transcripts. They span twenty-one years and five cities, and what they have in common is the reason the count went unnoticed for so long: he chose women whose deaths would be recorded as overdoses, or as accidents, or not investigated at all.
In one of the five he supplies a name. In the others he gives a build, an age, a street, a car, and what she was wearing.
What this is, and its rights. Five interview excerpts published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its video repository, each with the written transcript printed beneath the video. A work prepared by an employee of the United States Government as part of official duties is not subject to copyright. Public domain, no rights review required. Each excerpt is reproduced exactly as the FBI published it, including its parenthetical stage directions.
What has not been verified. The videos were not watched. The FBI’s published written transcripts were retrieved and read in full, and those documents are what is reproduced.
On the language in the first excerpt. Holland’s question to Little about the Miami victim - "She’s a black male dressed up as a female" - is the interviewer’s framing and is reproduced as published. Marianne was a woman, and this archive describes her as one.
And on what these are worth as evidence. These are a man’s account of his own crimes, given while he was serving life and had nothing further to lose. Some of his confessions have been corroborated and matched to unsolved cases; others have not, and the FBI has said so. The detail in them is not proof.
This is the earliest killing of the five and the only one in which Little supplies a name for the victim.
He describes meeting a young Black transgender woman he calls Marianne at a bar on 17th Avenue in Miami in 1972. She was about 19, from Liberty City, around 5'6" to 5'7" and 130 to 140lb, and she had a boyfriend named Wes. She was wearing a short cream and red miniskirt.
He says he drove her out of Miami on US-27 toward Fort Lauderdale in his stepfather's Pontiac Le Mans, turned off onto a side road into heavy vegetation, and left her face down in marshy ground near running water, a mile or two past the city limits.
Holland's second question - "She's a black male dressed up as a female" - and Little's reply, transcribed as "(nodding)", are reproduced exactly as the FBI published them. The framing is the interviewer's. Marianne was a woman, and this archive describes her as one.
The exchange:
James Holland, Texas Ranger: Tell me about Marianne.
Samuel Little: She was what nowadays you call a transgender.
Holland: She’s a black male dressed up as a female.
Little: (nodding)
Holland: How tall is she?
Little: Marianne was about 5’7”...5’6”. She weighed about 130...5. Maybe 140.
Holland: And how old do you think she was?
Little: About...she was 19.
Holland: Okay. And where was she from?
Little: Miami. Down in Liberty City.
Holland: Okay. And did she...you mentioned before she had a boyfriend or she talked about a boyfriend.
Little: Named Wes.
Holland: Wes?
Little: Yes.
Holland: And tell me about where you met her at.
Little: I seen her down at the bar on 17th Avenue...and she had on a short cream miniskirt. Cream and red.
Little: So then this opportunity popped up...take her to the store. Instead of me bringing her back to the apartment...I went to I-27, see. That’s going down to, uh, Fort Lauderdale. Called the gator...the Alligator Alley. It turns into, it runs into Alligator Alley. But the further out you get, the further you get out of Miami...and you got vegetation in there.
Holland: Now, how far outside of Miami you think you were?
Little: About...you wasn’t too far out of Miami right there. I was in my stepdaddy’s car. Pontiac Le Mans.
Holland: And where’d you take her to?
Little: Continue down 27. Got back on 27.
Holland: Going outside of Miami? Going away from Miami?
Little: Going away from Miami. We got down past the, uh...past the city limits. So I continued on toward Fort Lauderdale. And I seen a road going off the main road back into vegetation on the left side. So, I got her out of the car. Pulled her out and drug her into the growth back there. And pulled her deeper into...there’s a path, a little path that went in somewhere. I don’t know where it led to, but it running deeper into the undergrowth. It’s like Everglades like that, and we ran into some water running. And but before we got to the water, the earth was mushy. I turn her loose and she fell into it face down.
Holland: And how far outside Miami do you think you were?
Little: About a mile. Two miles.
Holland: What year did Marianne occur?
Little: Uh...‘72
Holland: OK. 1972.
The shortest of the five, and the one in which Little volunteers the most unprompted detail about the victim as a person.
He describes meeting a Black woman at a nightclub in New Orleans in 1982, at her youngest sister's birthday party. She was about 30, around 5'8" to 5'9", about 150lb. He quotes her twice: asking him "You want to go riding after this, you know, after this party's over?", and, seeing his Lincoln outside, "Woo, that's a beautiful car, too."
He says he drove east on Highway 10 toward Slidell, took the Little Woods exit, and killed her by a bayou where a dredging machine was working.
This transcript contains the single most significant admission in the five: it is the only killing in his entire account that he says he committed by drowning.
The exchange:
Samuel Little: She was pretty. Light skinned, brown, honey-colored skin. And she was about 5…she was tall…she was tall for a woman. About 5’8,” 5’9.” And beautiful shape. And uh, friendly.
James Holland, Texas Ranger: And how much do you think she weighed?
Little: Uh, she had a beautiful body on her, a beautiful 150. Well put together.
Holland: And, uh, how old do you think she was?
Little: She was about 30.
Holland: OK, and she’s a black female?
Little: Yeah
Holland: And tell me where you met her.
Little: I met her in a nightclub in New Orleans. Her and her sister, two, she had two sisters. Her youngest sister was having a birthday party. Her sister was dancing with this guy on the floor. And when I come in, the girl that I was with offered to dance with me. And while were dancing, she says, “You want to go riding after this, you know, after this party’s over?” We walked outside and she looked and seen my car, that Lincoln. She said, “Woo, that’s a beautiful car, too.” So she had me arm in arm, walking to the car. We got in. We stopped at a gas station. We was on Highway 10, and uh, going toward Slidell. I seen the sign that said Little Woods. So I cut off. I took off the exit. And we went and that, sure enough, was a road leading me into the woods. And we went in and park. So we finally got to where we were going, and it was by a bayou, a river, a little water thing. The big, they had a machine out there in that little river.
Holland: Dredging?
Little: Dredging. I grabbed her by the legs and pulled her to the water. That’s the only one that I ever killed by drowning.
Holland: Describe the location where she’s left
Little: OK. I left her with her head still there in the water. Half her body under water, and the thighs and legs on the bank.
Little describes picking up a white woman outside a strip bar in downtown Columbus, Ohio, driving her through Cincinnati and over the river into Covington, Kentucky, and killing her on a dirt track on a wooded hill above the town.
He gives her age as about 25, her height as 5'7", her weight as about 130, her hair as "dishwater blonde" cut in a bob, and says she had "a hippie feeling" about her. She had asked him for a ride to Miami.
He does not give her name. He is not asked for it.
The detail that dates and places the killing most usefully is the festival: he says there was a park in Covington with a festival and a band playing, that she wanted to go in, and that a police officer looked into the car and moved them on. That is a checkable event.
The exchange:
James Holland, Texas Ranger: Hey, so tell me about, um, Northern Kentucky. The girl that you met in Columbus. So you meet this girl, I guess you’re at a strip bar downtown Columbus.
Samuel Little: I want on out the car. And this white girl come out behind the building. You know, I mean, my trunk open. She walked over to me say, “Come on, y’all. Can you take me to Miami?”
Holland: Describe this girl to me. Is she white? Black? What’d she look like?
Little: She’s white. Blonde hair. Dishwater, Dishwater blonde they call it. And short.
Holland: Short like shoulder length or...?
Little: No, no, ear...it was a little over ear length.
Holland: Like a bob?
Little: Yeah, like a bob.
Holland: How tall do you think she was?
Little: She was about 5’7”.
Holland: And how much do you think she weighed?
Little: She weighed about 130.
Holland: How old do you think she was?
Little: She was about 25.
Holland: You mentioned before that, that uh, you said she kind of had like this hippie aura to her?
Little: Yeah, she did give you a hippie feeling. I think she was some kind of hippie, yeah.
Holland: So, you go to Cincinnati. You mess around on Vine Street. And then eventually you guys both get in your car and you cross over the bridge into Kentucky. Tell me about going into Kentucky.
Little: We got to Covington and then we continued through Covington. And there was a park that they were having a festival in. And she heard the music and sh off the band in there. And by her being a hippie type she “whoa”…she want to get to that. But the police came over and peeked in the car. He really wanted me to move out of there. So we...instead of going in there, I took her the other way. Winding around...they got hills out in Kentucky. And the road winds around the hills. I seen a little short road going up the hill. And up top, there was, uh, vegetation. There wasn’t no houses or nothing. So I pulled up in there and concealed the car in that little vegetation up there on top of the hill.
Holland: So tell me about this, this road that goes up the hill. What kind of road is it?
Little: It was...it was like a dirt road. It was like dirt. The grass was growing in the middle between two tracks. When I left her up in there, in that little road up there, on the side of the road, she was like partially concealed by the vegetation. I left her there.
Little describes a woman he says he spent two or three days with in North Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1992 or 1993, and then killed and left on a pile of corn stalks in a field about ten miles outside the city.
He opens with the only expression of affection in any of the five transcripts - "Oh, man, I loved her" - and then, in the same breath, cannot reliably recall her name, offering "I think it was Ruth."
He describes her as heavy set, close to 200lb or perhaps 170-180, about 5'7", light or honey-coloured skin, with buck teeth and a gap between them. He says he met her at a crack house where she was sitting on a porch with about six other women.
THIS TRANSCRIPT CONTAINS A DOCUMENTARY TRAIL THAT SHOULD BE FOLLOWABLE. Little says that while the two of them were shoplifting at a Kroger store he was arrested and taken to jail; that she stayed in his car on the store's property; and that the store manager, tired of the car sitting there, telephoned the police station and asked them to drop the charges so that Little would come and remove her and the vehicle. Little says: "They cut me loose!"
The exchange:
James Holland, Texas Ranger: North Little Rock. Tell me what that girl looked like?
Samuel Little: Oh, man, I loved her. I forget her name…oh wait, I think it was Ruth. She was a heavy set, big old yellow gal. And had buck teeth. Had a gap between her teeth. That’s what it was. And she, she was light...honey-colored skin. And she had...like her hair was not really long it was...
Holland: How tall do you think she was?
Little: She was about 5’7”.
Holland: How much do you think she weighed?
Little: She weighed about close to 200, about 170, 180.
Holland: Pretty big girl.
Little: Yeah.
Holland: Now, where did you meet her at?
Little: OK. Down in the crack house. Her and about six other girls were sitting on a porch...doing some crack in there. I stopped to go in there...I seen a girl, that’s why I stopped. We stayed together two days or more. I think it was about three days. We was going shoplifting. We went to Sears. We went to, uh....Kroger’s. And that’s where I got busted. They took me to jail, and she went and stayed in the car. And the manager of Kroger’s...got…I guess he got tired of her laying around on his property in that car. He called the station where I was at in North…North Arkansas...to drop the charges so he come down and get this gal and car out of here. They cut me loose! So we...was headed toward...what’s that place where Walmart’s, uh, original store? Benton(ville). I whipped off the road and backed into that little woods. It was a corn field back there. I pulled through it. And on the other side was a corn field with a trash pile. Well, I parked the car face it out where I could see anybody coming in. So, I pulled her out of the car. She’s too big for me to carry, carry her. So I just pulled her out of the car, laid her on that trash...that was left there.
Holland: So is it like a corn stalk pile or was it?
Little: Yeah, a bunch of corn stalks.
Holland: What could you see from there?
Little: Uh, I could see the highway. And, uh, in the woods is that way. But it’s right outside of Little Rock. Uh, I was about 10 miles from there.
Holland: From North Little Rock, you take 10 miles?
Little: Yeah, it’s about 10 miles.
Little describes killing a Black woman he met on Owens Avenue in Las Vegas in 1993, and leaving her body on a slope beside a road running out of the city toward Searchlight.
He gives her age as about 40, height 5'3" to 5'5", weight 110 to 120, thin and dark-skinned, and says he believed she was using drugs. He was driving a yellow 1978 Cadillac El Dorado.
The detail that stands out, and that he volunteers, is that he met her son. The young man - Black, about 19 or 20 - came over while they were talking, shook Little's hand and said hello.
He does not give her name, or her son's.
The exchange:
James Holland, Texas Ranger: Las Vegas, describe the Las Vegas victim.
Samuel Little: That was in ’93.
Holland: OK
Little: I bought, eh, El Dorado.
Holland: What color El Dorado?
Little: It was a yellow.
Holland: OK. Yellow Cadillac El Dorado?
Little: Yup
Holland: Alright. What year?
Little: ’78
Holland: OK, well tell me about this girl. What did she look like?
Little: She was kinda thin, dark-skinned. About 40 years old. She’s out there hustling. I think she was a drug addict because she wouldn’t been out there.
Holland: How tall was she?
Little: She was about 5’5,” 5’3.”
Holland: And how much do you think she weighed?
Little: She weighed about 110, 120.
Holland: OK. What about her did you know?
Little: The boy came, that was her son, and she called him over there. And he came over and, “Hey, how you doing?” Shook my hand and everything.
Holland: Now, how old was he?
Little: He was about 20…or about 19, 20.
Holland: OK, black male or?
Little: Black male.
Holland: And where were you at when you met her?
Little: It was on Owens Avenue.
Holland: OK
Little: That’s down in the black section. Owens and Jackson.
Holland: Where do you eventually take her body to?
Little: I was headed toward California. So as I drove out of Las Vegas…I seen a motel and a road leading up to the motel. And a lot of bushes and brushes beside the road, before you got to that motel. That’s where I dropped her. Pulled her body out, and rolled it down there. And I heard a secondary road noise that meant she was still rolling.
Holland: So, you basically roll her into a pretty big ditch that’s got a bunch of…
Little: Well, it wasn’t a ditch. It was a slope.
Holland: OK.
Little: That didn’t look like a slope ‘cause of the vegetation had growed up out of the slope, and it looked like, even though, you would think that the road would just be flat, but actually the road was going down the slope way. And that’s why she rolled.
Holland: So this is a slope right off a road?
Little: Yeah
Holland: And tell me about how far do you think you were outside of Las Vegas?
Little: The road I was on was going toward Searchlight. So whatever the name of that road is, that’s the road I was on.
Holland: How far outside of Las Vegas do you think you were? Were you in Las Vegas?
Little: I was still in Las Vegas, yeah.
Holland: OK
Little: But I was on the very outskirts, the very outskirts. There was a couple of motels I remember, the gas station there. It was scattered dot, dot, dot, dot. Because it was getting thin, population, as you go further out.
Little died at a California hospital on December 30, 2020, aged eighty. The FBI has confirmed around fifty of the ninety-three confessions and continues to seek identifications for the rest. Many of the women he described have never been named.