Samuel Little's Portraits of Two Unidentified Tri-State Women: WCPO 9 Cincinnati Report, April 2019

Name: Samuel Little's Portraits of Two Unidentified Tri-State Women: WCPO 9 Cincinnati Report, April 2019
Uploaded: 2019-04-03T00:00:00Z
Duration: 2 min 8 s
Description: A WCPO 9 Cincinnati news report from April 2019 on two FBI-released portraits Samuel Little drew of women he said he killed: one in Cincinnati, one he said he left in northern Kentucky. Little is not heard.

A WCPO 9 Cincinnati news report from April 2019 on two FBI-released portraits Samuel Little drew of women he said he killed: one in Cincinnati, one he said he left in northern Kentucky. Little is not heard.

Subject: Samuel Little
Recorded: about April 2, 2019
Runtime: 2:08

Content warning: Concerns claimed murders of women; the reporter relays Little's claim that he had sex with one woman before strangling her. No other graphic detail.

The Report

This is a 2-minute-8-second news report by WCPO 9 in Cincinnati, posted on the station's own channel on April 3, 2019. After an anchor introduction, a WCPO reporter describes two portraits Samuel Little drew of women he said he killed, which the FBI had published with his other drawings: a woman he said he killed in Cincinnati, and a woman he said he met in Columbus and left in northern Kentucky. The reporter signs off outside Cincinnati Police District 1 headquarters. Little is not heard, and no police or FBI official appears on camera; the reporter relays what Cincinnati police told him by phone.

Historical Context

Samuel Little was convicted in Los Angeles in 2014 of three murders committed in the 1980s. In 2018 he began confessing to dozens more killings across the country, and he eventually confessed to 93 murders committed between 1970 and 2005. From February 2019 the FBI released portraits he drew of women he described, asking the public to help identify them.

Circumstances

According to the report, Little said he killed a woman in Cincinnati in either 1974 or 1984, and Cincinnati police said no unsolved murder matched his account. He described her as 5 foot 9 or 5 foot 10 and slender, and said he left her body under a billboard or expressway sign. The report says police were searching coroner reports and crimes elsewhere in Hamilton County. Of the second woman, Little said he left her body in northern Kentucky, possibly Covington; the FBI said the two had met in Columbus in 1984.

What the Report Covers

The reporter describes the FBI web page of 26 sketches, says investigators called Little possibly "the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history," and relays the FBI's caution that some of the killings may have been recorded as drug overdoses, accidents or natural causes. The report closes with the FBI's figure at that time of 34 confirmed killings out of 90 confessed, and its hope that the drawings would "spark someone's memory."

What Makes the Recording Significant

The report documents the Cincinnati victim while she was still unmatched to any case. On August 23, 2019, Little pleaded guilty in Hamilton County to two Cincinnati murders: Anna Stewart, killed in 1981, and an unidentified woman, reported to be the woman in this sketch. The northern Kentucky woman is the victim Little describes in an FBI confession clip released in October 2019; she has not been identified.

Archival Importance

A short local report from the first months of the FBI's portrait appeal, made in the Tri-State area that two of Little's claims concerned. It contains no interviews; its value lies in fixing the state of the two cases in April 2019 and in linking the FBI clip and the Cincinnati plea hearing.

Important Caveats

Little does not speak in this video. The killings described are Little's claims as relayed by the reporter; at the time of the report neither had been matched to a known case. The figures (26 sketches, 34 confirmed, 90 confessed) are April 2019 reporting; Little later confessed to 93 murders and the FBI's count of verified cases rose. The reporter is named on screen as Josh Bazan. The anchor's name ("Lisa Smith") is as heard; WCPO's staff page lists a journalist of that name at the station, but no name strap was seen for her. The YouTube title's "women killed in Tri-State decades ago" presents Little's claims as fact. The identification of the Cincinnati sketch with the Jane Doe of the August 2019 plea rests on local reporting from June 2019 (WKRC), not on this video.

Anchor: Welcome to 9 On Your Side at 7. I'm Lisa Smith. Two murders that might have happened more than 30 years ago are now the focus of police across the Tri-State. A prominent serial killer says he killed two women in the Cincinnati area. The FBI recently released sketches of victims he's been drawing in prison. 9 On Your Side's Josh Bazan shows us why they think it could help.

Josh Bazan: Cincinnati police are trying to figure out who this woman was. Little says he murdered her in either 1974 or 1984. Problem is, Cincinnati police say there are no unsolved murders that match up. Sketches of 26 women filled this page of the FBI website, all of them the apparent victims of Samuel Little, who investigators say may be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. These faces, each telling a story; police across the country are now trying to figure out what that story is.

Josh Bazan: I spoke to Cincinnati police by phone [unclear: "mission" / "issues"; possibly "this afternoon"], trying to get some more details about the cases. The department told me Little has provided intimate details about these killings. He describes this woman he killed in Cincinnati as 5 foot 9 or 5 foot 10 and slender. Little tells investigators he had sex with this woman before strangling her and leaving her body underneath a billboard or expressway sign. With no open cases matching these details, Cincinnati police are combing through coroner reports and crimes in other parts of Hamilton County to find possible connections. The FBI says some of these killings could have been misidentified as deaths by drug overdoses, accidents or natural causes.

Josh Bazan: Little says he killed this woman and dumped her body somewhere in Northern Kentucky, possibly Covington. The FBI says the two met in Columbus in 1984. The FBI says it has already confirmed 34 of those 90 murders that Little has confessed to. It hopes by putting out drawings like these, it might spark someone's memory to help police figure out what happened all those years ago. Reporting outside District 1 headquarters for Cincinnati Police, Josh Bazan, 9 On Your Side. [Clip ends at 02:08.] ---