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Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586

October 22, 2022 / 47:33

This episode covers the chilling case of Sam Little, the most prolific serial killer in American history, who confessed to 93 murders. The discussion includes details about his modus operandi, the challenges investigators faced in linking him to cold cases, and the eventual breakthrough in his prosecution.

The hosts, Nick and the Captain, share insights into Little's background, including his nomadic lifestyle and the types of victims he targeted—often marginalized women who were unlikely to be missed. They highlight how Little's criminal history spanned decades, with many victims remaining unidentified.

Key discussions focus on the investigative efforts that led to Little's conviction, including the role of DNA evidence and the work of law enforcement across multiple states. The episode also touches on the psychological aspects of Little's confessions and his interactions with law enforcement.

Listeners learn about the importance of survivor testimonies and the challenges faced by detectives in piecing together Little's extensive criminal history. The episode emphasizes the impact of Little's actions on the victims' families and the broader community.

Overall, this episode provides a detailed account of Sam Little's crimes and the efforts to bring him to justice, showcasing the complexities of investigating serial murder cases.

TLDR

Sam Little confessed to 93 murders, revealing chilling details about his victims and the challenges investigators faced in linking him to cold cases.

Episode

47:33
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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] thank you foreign garage wherever you are whatever you're
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doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man with
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a reminder that you don't bring a knife to a chainsaw fight here is the captain I can't afford to cut up people these
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days with gas prices being so high it's good to be seen good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
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friend [Music] today we are slow sipping some Nosferatu by the grape Brewers at Great Lakes
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Brewing Company this is the beer with a bite baby it's an Imperial Red IPA eight
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percent ABV four out of five bottle caps on that garage grade and here's some of
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our friends that helped us out this week first up a cheers to Selena in Stoughton
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Wisconsin big shout out to Mark and Chambersburg Pennsylvania next Captain we have a cheers to Teresa and San
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Antonio Texas and the big we like to jib to Dana in Lafayette Indiana here's another we like your gym to Rachel and
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Marbella Bristol United Kingdom and last but certainly not least we have Molina in Wakefield Massachusetts thank you to
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everybody for helping us out with this week's beer fun for that we got a full garage fridge and we are sending out
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lots of thank yous yeah b w e w r u n beer run if you'd like to support the garage and get something in return go to
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our website truecrime garage.com and click on the store Page and pick you up something snazzy
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and Colonel that is enough of the business thank you snazzy Captain all right everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] Samuel little has confessed to 93
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murders it's disturbing to listen to but investigators want to hear it all and more
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the most prolific serial killer in American history and once she goes back to the car
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little says he has a photographic memory and has drawn sketches of his victims bronze sketches
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Bundy Gacy the Green River Killer all topping the list of some of the most prolific serial killers of all time
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but the number of victims taken by each of these monsters is dwarfed by the evil work of another killer
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a killer who was so stealthy and cunning that often not only did no one know who
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had committed the murder in some cases no one knew that his victims had even been murdered
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this man stayed under the radar for decades killed dozens of victims in multiple
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States over a 35-year period the only reason that we know about most of these murders
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is because he decided to talk [Music] this is true crime garage and this is the story of Sam little the
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killer of women oh foreign Cold Case detectives in La were working on building a case of three homicides
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committed by Sam little and they are starting to connect him to other similar Cold Case homicides in other states
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so now in 2013 after Sam little has continually murdered America's women for roughly four decades Sam little was
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indicted once again and facing trial in California for the 1987 and 1989 murders
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of Carol Guadalupe and Audrey in Mississippi investigators were going back to reopen
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cold cases that fit Sam's Mo and murders that occurred during the time that he lived in Mississippi his first arrest
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there was in 1977. his last was in 1982. these arrests amongst other things teach us and tell us that he was in fact
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in Mississippi for a period of time a Mississippi investigator told the Sun Herald newspaper quote we know he left
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some for dead but they survived they are good Witnesses now they remember everything that happened to them like it
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was yesterday they have always identified Sam little as their attacker Sam little is a monster there's no
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telling how many people he's attacked or killed now that little had finally been
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nailed for murders that very strongly resembled Mississippi's 1982 Cold Case murder of 24 year old Melinda lupree
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detectives started trying to put together a case against Sam little tracking down old Witnesses and
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retesting physical evidence in Melinda's case but of course in the interim between the murder in 1982 and 2013
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decades had passed and little had killed many women during that time the failure
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of Florida and Mississippi authorities to nail Sam little in the early 80s would be replicated over and over again
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throughout the United States for decades now we know that they tried to put Sam little on trial
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back in San Diego but that didn't work out so this will be the first real investigation into Sam little and his
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crimes and this starts in 2012 2013. this will be significantly different from any other investigation that took
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place in Sam Little's existence so this is after Little's arrest in 2012 in California and the discovery that
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three unsolved murders could definitively be linked to him by DNA California investigators put together
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the other attacks he had carried out on the two San Diego women back in 1984. remember Tanya and Lori that we talked
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about yesterday as they dug into little they began to realize that this guy whose background in life history was
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very vague and who was nomadic potentially had as many as 40 other murder victims they started reaching out
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across the country to try to get a handle on just how widespread his crimes may be and to see if he could be
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conclusively linked to other murders but of course Captain this is going to be quite the challenge
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so they started off by searching CODIS until the computer started smoking from so much action there were no more cases
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in which Little's DNA could Point them to a murder and his fingerprints turned up in police files time and time again
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but only for lesser crimes Petty crimes like theft in the murder inquiries as the LA Times
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put it modern forensics played no role the inquiries came down to shoe leather police work interrogations and digging
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through Dusty files for Clues like a Western Union MoneyGram from 1982 a witness who spotted a yellow El Dorado a
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prostitute's last meal of carrots that's what a lot of these cases are going to come down to single but very specific
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situations and items Within These individual cases throughout the United States now keep in mind
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we are talking about many murdered victims from an era before taking DNA samples on corpses was standard if
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little left a trail of bodies they were going to have a hard time following it because the victims he was suspected of
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killing often preceded DNA databases if they were identified by name they still were likely to have been killed long
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before DNA analysis so any connection to little would be unknown from a physical
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evidence standpoint and even if the victims did have names you know many of them became Jane does they could still
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have predated DNA testing or be the type of victim that no one bothers to take a DNA sample from
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many of his victims were sex workers and performing a rape kit was deemed useless
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in a lot of these cases that sounds horrific and that's going to be jaw dropping to many people to hear that
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statement but it is in fact true when you have a sex worker you can't just simply say that oh we found semen
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from Sam little on this victim therefore he must have killed her it doesn't work that way because his
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defense could be as simple as this I had consensual sex with that woman I paid her
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and then I left and then later somebody else came along and killed that woman and left no DNA on
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her or no semen on her and it's that simple it's shocking but it's true I think it's hard to investigate somebody
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like sam little because he's a criminal a hundred percent of the time if you take somebody like BTK for example he's
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living part of his life as a normal upstanding citizen he doesn't commit crimes he has this double life as a
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serial killer Sam little is a criminal a hundred percent of the time he's Street
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Smart too and he's going to know how to talk with police he's going to know how to dodge their questions you point out a
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very good interesting fact there Captain this is somebody that has sat across the
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table many times or sat in the back of a cruiser many times and his existence not
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facing murder charges not being suspected of murder this is being picked up for other crimes he's used to talking
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to police now there's been a lot of piling on in Sam Little's case and I get it and I've been I've been part of that
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at times as well where I go oh the atrocities how could law enforcement let this guy kill for
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for decades well it's not just that simple they didn't let him kill some of these cases and I think we need to look
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at this on a case-by-case basis and throw criticism where it's due but I also think that there was a lot of good
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detective and police work that was done in many of these cases I think in San Diego we talked about the 1984 cases the
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attempted murder cases there was a lot of good police work on that case they had the right guy in court they just
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couldn't get a guilty verdict from the jury let's talk about some things that we're working in Sam Little's favor and
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working very much against the investigators and the detectives looking into these homicides let's start with LA
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because La is very intriguing here in the Sam little case in the late 80s when Sam little killed three victims that we
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know of in Los Angeles there were several serial killers all at work at the same time
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so think about that you have these stranger on Stranger murders which are incredibly difficult to investigate to
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start with we have victims living a high risk lifestyle I'm not victim blaming it's
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just the truth people that makes it difficult to investigate their homicides and then you have several other active
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unknown serial killers working all in the same area and all with similar victimology to
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their crimes ones that I can think of for instance you have Lonnie David Franklin Jr better known as the Grim
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sleeper killed 10 plus in Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007. you want to not sleep tonight look up a picture of that
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guy Michael Hughes is another he was convicted of killing seven females in California mainly in Culver City during
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the late 80s and early 90s but three of his victims were killed in Los Angeles Chester Turner was convicted of 11
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murders in Los Angeles over the course of about 11 years in the 80s and 90s so that's three and I guarantee you there
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were more so the investigators had to start from scratch pulling all unsolved cases from
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around the country in which the modus operandi fit Littles to see if they could link any to him to do this they
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had to have a very thorough understanding of his Mo so they could use his methods to identify his victims
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so what law enforcement is going to have to do is look at Sam Little's known crimes or the ones that they believe
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he's responsible and use that as their template yeah this will become their template for looking for similar victims
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who were killed in a similar manner maybe left or dumped in a similar way with reviewing these they start to get a
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clear picture of this guy's Mo and his victimology what the LA prosecutor called Little's blueprint and this is
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what they came up with here's a quick list here Captain he cleverly and deliberately selected marginalized
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female victims who would not be missed or were unlikely to have families with resources to find them
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he chose women addicted to drugs and or alcohol and then used those things to lure them
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he preferred sex workers because they were an easy target and they would get into his car without a second thought
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he opted for the physically vulnerable often attacking skinny weak small ill or high or inebriated women
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who could not defend themselves could not fight him off he used his hands as his weapon of
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choice this is practically untraceable when you compare it to things like knives and
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guns and he often left the victim's cause of death unknown sometimes they were finding these
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victims decomposed later and because they were strangled it was difficult for them to tell that they were even a
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homicide victim that's part of the reason why some of these cases were not even really investigated you have a drug
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addict that you find dead on the streets who's been dead for two weeks or stuffed
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in an abandoned house somewhere and been there for months you don't find any bullets in your
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victim or murder weapon nearby or a skull crushed or stab marks on any of the bones and
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you go well the the the hypothesis here the Assumption here would be that this person died of a drug
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overdose in this abandoned building and we're just now finding her unfortunately but then if the victim
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lives it becomes he said she said and little even though he doesn't have much of a stand-up character
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he thinks he can at least win the argument well she was a drug user she attacked me or she was a sex worker and
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she was trying to steal my money yeah as some of these survivors were not reporting some of the
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crimes and then you have some survivors reporting them keep in mind this dude it
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was not uncommon for him only to be in a city for three to ten days he didn't have a residence
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if he attacks somebody and they survive or he sees a notice of there's some sexual predator on the loose and it oh
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it looks like me or they got a match of my vehicle he just skips town and goes on to the
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next city this is from the FBI a direct quote from one of their reports and this goes back
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to the difficulties even categorizing some of his victims as homicides when they are initially found and it says
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quote with no stab marks or bullet wounds many of these deaths were not classified as homicides but attributed
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to drug overdoses accidents or natural causes end quote the other thing too and look
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I'm glad to be here in the garage with my my buddy the captain when I'm in the garage like to have a cold beer if I
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were home right now I'd be eating some Honey Nut Cheerios and I only say that to tell everybody if you are if you are
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eating something put this down step aside either hit pause or stop eating because we're gonna have to get into
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some gross stuff with with Sam little he's a as you already know he's a Despicable disgusting human being I
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don't even know if you can call him a human being but one of his Mo's that they put in his template his blueprint
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if you will was that he would often masturbate while strangling his victims and then dump their bodies and in fact
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he told investigators that he could not rape would not rape the women because he
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struggled with erectile dysfunction old Soft Cell so his victims often times are
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not even appearing or or would appear to be like a rape victim raped and then murdered and keep in mind we touched on
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some of his disgusting habits the other day and really how much of a monster this guy
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was it's not uncommon for a murderer even if it's a one-time murder for a male to
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kill a woman to cover up a rape right leave no witness but what we have with Sam little is
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completely different he's he's sexually assaulting because of the killing where the the killing is the prime
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motive for his excitement right not raping and then murdering to cover up the rape this is a whole different kind
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of monster here but he's getting off on the fact that they can't breathe exactly
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it's also worth noting here that Sam little was six foot two inches tall and was well over 200 pounds he was
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trained as a boxer so these women didn't stand a chance against him once he got the victims into
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his vehicle he would stun or knock them out with a Punch To The Head and then have his way with them and strangle or
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suffocate them there's not a lot of pictures of Sam little online but we'll post some of those to our Instagram and
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Twitter Facebook all those you can find us at True Crime garage.com but we'll we'll
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post some of his older mug shots and you can see he's he's a lot different of the
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version of the crippled old man that you see later on and and the the same little
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that we've all come to know this crippled old man yeah by the time we see him on TV and we are able to hear of his
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horrible crimes that he committed he's in a wheelchair and he looks like an old a sick old man by this point and
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you're gonna go Nick you're lying there's no way he was six two over 200 pounds but trust me he was listen to
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this okay investigators say we know he punched one victim with such force that when he struck this victim in the
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abdomen he broke her spine this is from the autopsy report of Audrey Nelson one of Little's 1989 LA victims quote
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injuries throughout her body revealed pre-death blunt force trauma consistent with having been punched repeatedly in
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the head Nelson suffered severe bruising underneath her skin this bruising extended into her chest muscles stomach
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and abdomen in addition the hard bone of her spine was crushed during a blow to the upper
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Central abdomen with deep bruising to the stomach itself it was a sign of considerable Force like
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many of Little's victims Audrey's body displayed drag marks very early in Little's serial killer career he stopped
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bothering to bury or even hide his kill just discarding the corpses on roadsides
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in alleys ditches parking lots Ravines what have you wherever he happened to find himself think about this though too
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his early victims and we see this a lot of times with serial killers where they will go to Great Lengths they will put a
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a great deal of effort into concealing their crimes early on and then after a while they start to get confident they
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start to believe you know what I can get away with this I'm smarter than the police so I think we have a little bit
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of that going on in Sam Little's case we also have the situation of he's often high or drunk or both when he's
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committing these horrible acts so he might not be in such a great physical state to be able to conceal the bodies
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and then factor in the location of the murders a lot of these victims were in LA or were in bigger cities where you
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know what driving around with the victim in your car is a risk in itself his Mo which worked time and time again often
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was get rid of the body as quick as possible and get at a Dodge get as far away from the body as I can I'm so tired
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of these serial killers getting like really really cool names Like Son of Sam or BTK Sam little should go buy soft
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serve because he couldn't make it hard right well they did they had a here's another disgusting uh part of the case
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they actually called him the choking stroke killer yeah you know sometimes these guys get weird monikers and
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nicknames and and sometimes it comes from the media sometimes it comes from the general public or law enforcement I
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don't really know where this one came from I'm guessing it's law enforcement because this is something that likely
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the media and the general public would not know from from reading the newspaper but
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basically what we just went through here Captain is his blueprint what they're calling the Sam little blueprint and
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they're using Little's Mo and victimology the LA authorities are to desperately try to figure out what else little had
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done no matter what state it took place in but again because they couldn't match
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anything else up on CODIS with his DNA they're kind of blindly searching in the dark for more victims so basically they
00:24:00
had to notify every law enforcement agency around the entire country go ahead and Google that number to see how
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many law enforcement agencies there there are in this country and say hey do you have any violent unsolved murders
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of women probably sex workers drug addicts or homeless with strangulation is the cause of death between the years
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of let's say 1960 and 2012. I mean can you imagine trying to put together this list this is an enormous task it would
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be easier to figure out a way to get him to talk but of course we know that when he's
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first arrested he refused to cooperate he did not even cop out to the three women
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with whom his DNA had been found when he did talk to detectives about his history
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of arrests he said they were for shoplifting and Petty thefts no mention of nearly 100 dead women he would
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eventually be linked to well and they poked and prodded him but they couldn't get him aroused after he was charged
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with those three counts of murder for the 87 and 89 homicides in La in April of 2013
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La homicide detectives called in the big guns they get the FBI involved and they
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bring in analyst Christie Palazzolo from the FBI's VI cap they wanted help compiling cases that could be attributed
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to Sam little they wanted the FBI to do some digging into his background to try to reconstruct his life
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which could lead to more victims so they could have kind of a road map of his life of where he was at what times vicap
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maintains a database of known crimes and categorizes MOS and other characteristics like
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manner of death and victimology that can help locate similar crimes and thus link
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perpetrators they knew Little's Mo so Palazzolo started digging in June of 2013 she issued a VI cap
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alert asking detectives Across the Nation to check their files for Unsolved strangulation murders of vulnerable
00:26:13
women soon her timeline of Little's life became 150 pages she started cross-referencing events and
00:26:23
locations in Little's life that overlapped with crimes in the vi cap database and now years later the FBI is
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still digging [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you all right we are back cheers mates
00:27:13
cheers we got Colonel computer and uh Sam soft serve little cheers to the people in the back those
00:27:21
are the ones that count the most this is going to take us to the 2014 trial the murder trial for the three murders that
00:27:29
he committed in Los Angeles now prosecutors arm themselves with information about possible other crimes
00:27:35
in other jurisdictions lining up witnesses to testify against Sam little such as the survivors of his attacks in
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Mississippi and San Diego these women testified that they remembered him they remembered his large hands and how he
00:27:51
beat and choked them investigators in California were able to link Sam Little's to crimes in 24 States but in a
00:28:01
56-year life of crime he had served only about 10 years in prison he was suspected of multiple murders but never
00:28:09
convicted of a murder well good news captain that all will end in 2014. well I don't want to sound like a
00:28:18
pessimist and I guess it's better to be caught late than never yes and this is one of those situations where it's
00:28:26
going to be some kind of answer for the families and we're talking about a lot of families in this case so there is
00:28:35
some good that comes out of it you feel like you lost right I know that investigators and prosecutors feel like
00:28:42
they lost all around in the Sam little case but there is some good you are bringing some closure giving some
00:28:49
answers to these many families that were just left guessing for many years remember some of these victims were Jane
00:28:57
does for a long period of time or still are Jane does so it only took the jury two hours to convict Sam little of the
00:29:05
murders of Guadalupe Carol and Audrey he was sentenced to three life terms in prison without the possibility of parole
00:29:12
as his sentence was pronounced he shouted out loud in the court that he was innocent even though they had his
00:29:19
DNA and all three of these cases well he's an idiot so yes yes he is now let's bring in a very important
00:29:29
character a very important person in this story it's Texas Ranger Jimmy Holland this is an experienced investigator with
00:29:38
training in psychopathy who specialized in interrogation techniques this did not mean that he was the guy
00:29:45
that would come into an interrogation room and physically abuse the person that he was questioning or take out his
00:29:52
service revolver and put it to the back of the the individual's head or the suspect's head yeah they're taking his
00:29:58
pencil and shove it in and the dude's dick hole or even dropping massive folders of daunting looking files on the
00:30:05
desk and glaring at the suspect instead he had a whole different method which I think proves to be much better
00:30:14
instead he calmly appealed to the ego and used the carrot approach bribing his suspects with little concessions that
00:30:24
would incentivize them to cooperate now let's think about Sam little he's locked
00:30:29
up for Life he's an old man three life terms in prison without the possibility of parole you are going to die in prison
00:30:37
sir now can you help us out at all do you want to sit in your cell all day long or
00:30:43
do you want to sit in this room and talk to me well in December of 2017 Jimmy Holland was teaching an
00:30:51
interrogation class pertaining to questioning of psychopaths and sociopaths at a police conference in
00:30:58
Florida he started chatting with a crime analyst this was Angela Williamson a 41 year old
00:31:04
Australian with a doctorate in molecular biology and expertise in forensics she was employed by vicap and a justice
00:31:15
department initiative to train and fund local police and sexual assault investigations during Holland and
00:31:22
Williamson's conversation two detectives from Florida came up and asked them if they knew anything about a
00:31:29
California serial killer who was refusing to talk these detectives suspected Sam little in
00:31:37
an unsolved Florida case may be more than one Holland was intrigued well yeah you'd be
00:31:43
intrigued because a killer like this and a nomad really his victim list could be a significant number yes exactly you
00:31:55
hit the nail on the head my friend and this is a situation though Holland wants to get involved but he cannot without a
00:32:02
Texas case so he started thinking about this Sam little guy and the fact that he wouldn't
00:32:08
talk and several jurisdictions seem to suspect him in many murders so then he called Williamson in March of 2018 and
00:32:17
asked if they could do something about this guy Williamson put Holland on hold and asked another cubicle occupant this
00:32:25
is our friend Paula Zolo who we've already introduced if she had heard of Sam little and of course boom she sure
00:32:33
had Paula zolos said tell him about the Odessa case Odessa Texas case this was a case that she was sure would
00:32:43
be attributed to Sam little and in fact 12 of the potential victims in the vi Camp analyst had put on her list of
00:32:51
potential Sam little murders were murders that took place in the great state of Texas so Holland was definitely
00:32:58
intrigued by the Odessa case this was 38 year old Denise Christie brothers who was found dead in 1994. now per the LA
00:33:09
Times quote like Little's LA victims she had been strangled and left partially clothed in a vacant lot police records
00:33:17
showed little had interaction with local police around the time of the killing end quote Holland believed that he could
00:33:24
get Sam little talk but we we have to remind The Listener that Sam little was in prison at this point for already four
00:33:34
years and he was over 80 years old so Holland headed to California to assist in these investigations to see if he
00:33:43
could get Sam little to talk when he gets there the LA detectives and form Holland of what he was up against and
00:33:50
they tell him that Sam little despised law enforcement and that he was free to use that to his
00:33:56
Advantage if he could the detectives also said that Sam little hated being called a rapist though his semen was
00:34:03
found on the clothing of two of his victims and prosecutors labeled him a sexual predator perhaps Holland thought
00:34:11
Sam little saw a distinction between rape and becoming aroused during a strangulation that was something that he
00:34:19
thought he might be able to work with when interrogating Sam little now it's worth pointing out that one of the
00:34:25
detectives little despised was Mitzi Roberts who we've already talked about of the LAPD who had noted the pattern in
00:34:33
the 87 and 89 bodies found and made the CODIS connection to Sam little she and Beth Silverman
00:34:41
the LA County Deputy district attorney were the women who finally put Sam little away
00:34:49
so their theory was that Sam little hated women of course but also hated being bested by two women and would be
00:34:56
much more inclined to talk to a man potentially about his crimes definitely it seems like Sam Lowe has some kind of
00:35:04
intimacy issues with females and so if he's going to open up and make himself vulnerable he's probably not going to do
00:35:10
that with a female well and obviously to kill this many women you have to hate women and that's what I think is part of
00:35:18
his Mo here that he hates women in general it will be May of 2018 when Holland sits down with Sam little of
00:35:27
course we have the FBI listening in the Next Room now the formerly big man sam little was now in a wheelchair and he's
00:35:36
still sharp though at this time and was interested in the Texas Rangers motives for the visit
00:35:44
Holland gave little some peanut M M's and tried to you know butter him up but little told Holland that he had no
00:35:53
interest in helping law enforcement close any cold cases because he had been convicted on fake evidence and lies
00:36:00
and so he pushed back quite a bit but we have Holland who is smart and patient and then he through conversation and
00:36:09
through this visit and other visits started to earn the trust of Sam little soon
00:36:16
they would be calling each other Sammy and Jimmy almost like they're buddies this is comedy duo Holland nudged Sam
00:36:24
little to take control of his story he pointed out that no one knew his name but he could change that this is from
00:36:31
the LA times has Sam little killed people yeah come on we both know that Holland said the question is does Sam
00:36:39
little want to talk about those killings and does he want to Define what really happened
00:36:45
Sam little studied the Ranger quote hookers is all you're going to find Sam said
00:36:53
Holland could tell the killer was testing him Holland Shrugged do you see me tearing up
00:36:59
see he's almost putting himself out there like yeah I identify with you I agree with you that
00:37:05
yeah you only killed people that of of a lesser value of what's that's what Sam little saying
00:37:12
right and the detective here the Texas Ranger excuse me is smart enough to play along he's playing to his ego he knows
00:37:19
that if he can play to his ego Sam will likely open up and a whole new can of worms is going to
00:37:26
come out of every conversation that they have this is when Holland takes the chance to
00:37:31
mention that Odessa case from Texas and it seemed to motivate Sam little to start talking well don't you think a lot
00:37:39
of these guys want the truth to be out there or their truth to be out there well and he also has no more appeals at
00:37:47
this time too so it's really like he's got nothing to lose from spilling the beans
00:37:55
he might feel like he has something to gain and of course in any jailhouse niche
00:38:02
situation here he's telling on himself but of course you as a detective you know going into that that they are only
00:38:10
doing this for some benefit to them can I figure out what the benefit is that he
00:38:15
is seeking and kind of play to that in fact he opens up so much about this Odessa
00:38:22
case he bluntly tells them exactly what took place how he picked up this Denise Brothers what kind of car he was driving
00:38:31
what he used he used crack and black tar heroin for Denise to get him get her to join him he then
00:38:40
pulls into an alley and grabbed her by the throat and tossed her over the back seat of his vehicle like a doll
00:38:47
where he strangled her with one hand while masturbating with the other she fought back this is where one of his
00:38:56
um statements comes from that is more well known today in some of his confessions
00:39:02
but he said that he would make these encounters as long and slow as possible because the
00:39:12
Act of Killing was synonymous with sex for Sam little so he's often letting his victims
00:39:18
repeatedly regain consciousness he said that the last time that Denise came to her head was in his lap Sam
00:39:26
little said her eyes big as marbles Sam says I told her I own you you're mine forever she cried
00:39:35
and I kissed her I kissed her tears from her face and then squeeze the life from her
00:39:42
little knew exactly what vacant lot he had dumped Denise in and they're able to take the details
00:39:50
that he States during this interrogation during this basically what's a conversation at this point
00:39:57
and match these details up to the known information they have in the case well Sam little is going to tell law
00:40:03
enforcement that he stopped counting his killings at 84 victims I mean that's a very large number of victims and then
00:40:14
very oddly Captain he goes into detail about his first murder and his last murder and his first murder was a woman
00:40:23
that he met in a bar in Miami on New Year's Eve 1970. this was a victim that we spoke about yesterday Mary brosly in
00:40:31
our trailer for this week's episodes remember she remained a Jane Doe until she was finally identified after a
00:40:38
Florida detective had entered her information into namus and got a match to a Massachusetts woman missing part of
00:40:46
her pinky with a surgically repaired hip and dyed blonde hair so even though they
00:40:53
identified her this good detective did good work with the name as program to identify her through dental records they
00:41:02
still had no idea who had killed her but they knew it was a homicide because she
00:41:06
was one of his victims that were buried and that it was in this interview that they learned that brosly was killed by
00:41:15
Sam little well we've seen a lot of serial killers that don't want to talk at all or the information that they give
00:41:22
to law enforcement is so misleading but everything that Sam is saying this is would give you hope I think as law
00:41:30
enforcement that you're going to uncover more answers for more victims and that's
00:41:37
going to lead to closing some of these cases yes and he says that his last murder victim was in 2005 this would be
00:41:44
seven years before he was identified by that CODIS hit and this was a murder from Tupelo Mississippi
00:41:53
now this is all interesting because he gives detailed accounts of the first and last
00:41:59
murders but we know that there's going to unfortunately be a whole lot of Carnage between those two bookended
00:42:07
murders now after getting him to talk of course law enforcement's confident at this point that Sam little is willing to
00:42:14
talk about his other crimes his other murders so what they end up doing here Captain
00:42:19
is they get a letter from a Texas prosecutor pledging not to pursue the death penalty for Sam little for any of
00:42:29
the Texas murders that he confesses to and little agreed to start talking about more murders but again remember he wants
00:42:39
something in trade he wants to transfer to a Texas prison facility that same day
00:42:45
after these negotiations he confesses to 17 more murders all female victims he starts off with really an
00:42:55
emotionalist tally provided by Sam little he simply says Jackson Mississippi one
00:43:02
victim Cincinnati Ohio one victim Phoenix Arizona three Las Vegas won and so on and so on
00:43:10
most of these victims weren't on the FBI's list Palazzolo resorted to Google searches as they tried to keep up with
00:43:19
all of these Grim confessions coming from their prisoner well like I said law enforcement has to be optimistic because
00:43:25
they're making some Headway with this serial killer and as of mid November 2018 law enforcement has been told by Sam
00:43:36
little that he he's responsible for over 90 some homicides yeah that this was an
00:43:44
announcement actually to the general public where law enforcement is saying that Sam little has confessed to
00:43:49
murdering dozens of women and he might be linked to as many as 90 homicides this will be because they're probably
00:43:55
going to need the Public's help at some point now two weeks later the FBI announced that the vi cap team have
00:44:03
confirmed 34 of his murder confessions saying that Sam little wasn't making any of this stuff up little claimed to have
00:44:13
killed 93 women between 1970 and 2005. an 18 or 19 States ranging from all the way to Florida
00:44:22
and to California more than 30 of his confessions remained unmatched they have yet to be linked to any known victims
00:44:32
this as of late last year the FBI webpage has a list of these and the details and drawings which we will get
00:44:42
to in a minute furnished by Sam little some of the confessions were no surprise whatsoever
00:44:48
he confessed to the murder of Melinda lepre who we already talked about who was murdered and he had not been
00:44:55
indicted for after a grand jury vote he also confessed to that old Gainesville case that he had eluded conviction on
00:45:04
Patricia Mount was her name eventually Sam little admitted to killing Carol Guadalupe and Audrey in LA in 87 and 89
00:45:13
which of course we already knew based off of DNA and other circumstances that he did kill those women and then of
00:45:21
course he confessed to 88 more little said to the LA Times that he confessed in the end because he knew his time was
00:45:29
running out and he wanted to help the families get closure and perhaps exonerate someone wrongfully accused
00:45:36
others said that little clearly wanted credit for what he had done the New York Times said quote investigators who have
00:45:44
spoken to him say he also appears to enjoy the attention he is receiving as he recites details only a killer would
00:45:53
know after Decades of discussing them with no one whatever his motives Beth Silverman the LA prosecutor who
00:46:01
locked little up for good in 2014 said that his confessions were hardly a victory for law enforcement rather she
00:46:08
said it's simply a tally of the Carnage he caused oh so much more to get to if you need more
00:46:27
True Crime Garage in your ear balls check out our bonus show called off the record you can do so by going to True
00:46:34
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00:46:40
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00:46:48
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00:46:54
be good be kind and don't worry [Music]

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Episode Highlights

  • The Killer of Women
    Samuel Little confessed to 93 murders, making him the most prolific serial killer in American history.
    “The only reason that we know about most of these murders is because he decided to talk.”
    @ 04m 08s
    October 22, 2022
  • Cold Case Investigations
    Detectives in LA connect Sam Little to multiple cold case homicides, reopening investigations from decades past.
    “We know he left some for dead but they survived.”
    @ 05m 28s
    October 22, 2022
  • The Sam Little Blueprint
    Investigators develop a profile of Little's modus operandi, targeting marginalized women.
    “He cleverly and deliberately selected marginalized female victims who would not be missed.”
    @ 14m 32s
    October 22, 2022
  • Investigative Breakthrough
    FBI analyst Christie Palazzolo worked to connect Sam Little to unsolved murders across the nation.
    “Her timeline of Little's life became 150 pages long.”
    @ 26m 17s
    October 22, 2022
  • The 2014 Trial
    Sam Little was convicted of three murders in Los Angeles, receiving three life terms.
    “The jury took only two hours to convict Sam Little.”
    @ 29m 02s
    October 22, 2022
  • Sam Little's Confessions
    Sam Little confessed to over 90 murders, detailing his first and last victims.
    “He claimed to have killed 93 women between 1970 and 2005.”
    @ 44m 13s
    October 22, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • He stayed under the radar for decades.
    Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586
  • He was a monster.
    Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586
  • He often masturbated while strangling his victims.
    Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586
  • It's better to be caught late than never.
    Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586
  • I told her I own you, you're mine forever.
    Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586
  • It's simply a tally of the carnage he caused.
    Samuel Little - Killer on the Road /// Part 2 /// 586

Key Moments

  • Beer Review01:06
  • Decades of Murder03:35
  • Cold Case Connections04:29
  • Victimology Analysis14:29
  • Disturbing Details18:13
  • Desperate Search23:43
  • Closure for Families28:42
  • Chilling Confession39:30

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown