FORT MYERS, Fla. – The man who has confessed to more than 90 murders is now considered by the FBI to be the “most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.”
In a news release Sunday, the FBI confirmed that Samuel Little, 79, has confessed to 93 murders. The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program confirmed that Little has been matched to 50 cases, with 43 confessions pending confirmation. The FBI has asked for the public’s assistance in verifying the remaining cases.
Investigators also provided new information and details about five cases in Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, Nevada and Louisiana.
A drawing made by the convicted killer and distributed by the FBI purports to show the woman he said he killed in 1984 in the Fort Myers area.
One of the 43 unconfirmed cases is linked to information Fort Myers police said they received in 2018 from Texas Ranger James Holland.
Holland told Fort Myers investigators that Little had confessed to the 1984 killing in Fort Myers. In December 2018, Fort Myers Police Department homicide Detectives Mali Langton and Dan Losapio, along with Assistant State Attorney Sara Miller, traveled to Decatur, Texas, and interviewed Little at the Wise County Sheriff’s Department.
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Fort Myers police said Monday that detectives are aware that the Fort Myers victim’s death may have been ruled an overdose, an accident, undetermined causes, may never have been discovered or may not have occurred in 1984.
Little spent time in Fort Myers and Collier County in the ’70s through the ’90s and was arrested in Collier County twice in 1993.
In August 2019, Holland met Langton during a homicide conference in Texas and advised her that Little had recently provided him with two drawings of the Fort Myers victim.
In a confession to investigators, Little said that, in approximately 1984, he killed a 5-foot 6-inch female with brown skin, who weighed approximately 130 to 140 pounds, in Fort Myers. Little stated he and “Jean” (now identified as Orelia Jean Dorsey – deceased) used to sell clothes to the woman’s family. Little stated he drove the woman to an island with a wooded tract of land, near some railroad tracks.
Little stated he strangled her and left her in the island in short grass. Little stated the area was in the county just outside of the city limits.
Another of Little’s unverified confessions is a killing he said took place in Covington, Kentucky, in 1984. He told officials he left a woman’s body on a “little round hill” after strangling her in the backseat of his car.
They’d met at a strip club, he told officials, and she’d asked him for a ride to Miami to see her mother.
Authorities say Little’s murders of women across the U.S. happened between 1970 and 2005 in 16 states.
In 2012, Little was arrested at a homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, and extradited to California on a narcotics charge. The Los Angeles Police Department obtained DNA that connected Little to three unsolved homicides that occurred in 1987 and 1989. In 2013, the LAPD notified Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or ViCAP, which initiated a full background investigation and found an alarming pattern that linked Little to many more murders.
Little was charged with three counts of murder and convicted and sentenced in 2014 to three consecutive life terms without parole.
A release from the FBI Sunday said that in May 2018 the agency, along with the Texas Rangers, obtained detailed information on additional murders across the country that Little voluntarily provided.
The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program has an ongoing investigation with the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Texas Rangers, and dozens of state and local law enforcement agencies searching for cases that match Little’s confessions.
If you have any information linked to Little’s confessions, you should contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov. Additional case details were available at fbi.gov/SamuelLittle.
*see full story by USA Today