A convicted murderer, who has already been found guilty of killing three women in California and has also been charged with murdering a woman in Texas, is now claiming to be America's most prolific serial killer — and he is enjoying the attention he is getting for explaining how he committed decades' worth of crimes.
Samuel Little, 78, has reportedly told investigators that he committed nearly 100 murders from 1970 to 2005 in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Illinois, Ohio, California, Indiana, Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, NBC News reports.
If the claim is true, it would make Little "one of, if not the most, prolific serial killers in U.S. history," according to a statement from Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland. As of now, the most prolific serial killer to date is Gary Ridgway, who was convicted of 49 murders.
Little appears to enjoy receiving attention through divulging details of the murders he claimed to have committed, according to a New York Times report. Investigators also say he is enjoying being in a different jail in Texas, which is quieter than the noisy Los Angeles County prison, while communicating with police.
Investigators appear to believe he is telling the truth as he goes into agonizing detail about the dozens of murders he has claimed to have committed.
"He has confessed to over 90 murders in this country and over 30 of those have been confirmed so far," Bland said in an interview with NBC News earlier this month. Now, he is continuing to go into details about his crimes.
One such crime is the 1996 murder of Melissa Thomas, 24, who was found dead in a cemetery in Texas. Little allegedly confessed to this murder last month.
Sgt. Crystal LeBlanc told the New York Times that during that confession, Little said he met Thomas on a street and they went to the cemetery to do drugs in his car.
"He said that she said, 'Why do you keep touching my neck? Are you a serial killer?'" Sergeant LeBlanc recalled. That statement led Little to strangle her to death, according to LeBlanc.
"He said God made him this way, so why should he ask for forgiveness?" she said. "He said God knew everything he did."
Sgt. Michael Mongeluzzo, a detective in Marion County, Florida, who interviewed Little last month, said he is surprised by Little's talent of remembering specific details from decades past. He also said that he thinks that Little got away with as many alleged killings as he has over the years because he targeted people shunned or ignored by society.
"I can go into my world and do what I want to do," Little said, according to Mongeluzzo, referencing neighborhoods rattled by poverty and drug addiction. "I won't go into your world."
Another investigator is calling the killer "evil."
"Believe it or not, you only see evil a few times in your career," Tim Marcia, a cold case detective with the Los Angeles Police Department told the New York Times. "Looking into his eyes, I would say that was pure evil."
Little, also known as Samuel McDowell, was convicted in 2014 of strangling three women in California from 1987 to 1989, according to a 2014 report by NBC Los Angeles. He dumped their bodies in alleyways around the Los Angeles areas.
He is serving three life sentences for those crimes.
Earlier this year, he was charged with the 1994 murder of Denise Christie Brothers in Texas, a murder he allegedly admitted to, according to CBS7 in Midland, Texas.
