Samuel Little: A Quick Look at the Most Prolific Serial Killer in American History

The year 2020 might have been bad overall for most, but we can take some good with all of the bad. One positive development was the death of serial killer Samuel Little. Let me be clear here: I know it's always iffy to be glad when someone dies. Even at its very best, such a thing deserves to be recognized as morbid, to some small degree. Still, Samuel Little claimed to have killed 93 women, with 60 of the murders apparently being officially confirmed. He was not a good guy.

This wasn't just someone who had a few run-ins with the law. He earned the nickname of the “Choke and Stroke Killer” because yes, you guessed it, he would pleasure himself while choking his victims. Initially arrested on a humdrum narcotics charge in 2012, a DNA test finally linked him to murders that occurred in the 1980s and beyond.

Although authorities were quick to give themselves a pat on the back, this is unfortunately not a case where law enforcement agencies were quick to bring someone to justice. Although Little was suspected of some murders before 2012, timelines I've seen suggest he got away with these murders for about 30 years.

Samuel Little and the Matter of Memory

Aside from the murders themselves, one shocking element of the Samuel Little story is his ability to recall his crimes, from his victim's physical appearances to individual characteristics of each crime scene. In addition to probably having a decent memory naturally, he most certainly tried to remember his crimes as vividly as he could.

For example, at one point he mentioned the quirks of rolling a victim down a hill, saying “I heard a secondary road noise and that meant she was still rolling." In reliving these memories, he alternated between a fascinated storyteller and the tone one might have while recounting yesterday's weather.

Fortunately, Little wasn't the only one to remember his victims. As noted by ViCAP supervisory crime analyst Kevin Fitzsimmons: "The biggest lesson in this case is the power of information sharing. These connections [used against Little] all started in our database of violent crime."

Like Ted Bundy, Samuel Little no doubt benefited from killing while traveling, which made him at least somewhat more difficult to track (and, at times he was probably in tough-to-find locations). Certainly, he still had arrests for some crimes, but the fact he kept getting away with murder no doubt emboldened him. As another ViCAP Crime Analyst noted: "For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims."

Nevertheless, it bears repeating that he wasn't caught until the 21st century, suggesting the criminal justice system had to catch up with him.

Another Semi-Honest Killer?

When pondering the crimes of serial killers, endless questions emerge. Aside from the basic question of "Why?", a person might ask a killer if the crimes were really worth it. To the average serial killer, that answer would probably be a "Yes," and that might just be them being honest.

While some murderers (and even some serial killers) might be capable of remorse, others make no attempt to hide their callousness. Samuel Little was one of those, which is definitely disgusting yet, in an odd way, perhaps more respectable than him putting on an act.

There's also no sign that Little played any Bundy-like games regarding his number of victims or details of the crimes. As the Texas Ranger who interviewed Little said: "Nothing he’s ever said has been proven to be wrong or false," at least regarding the murders. To be clear, I am not saying he was a particularly honest guy in his life. He was merely honest about his crimes after it was clear to him that he had no way of proving his innocence.

So, as it stands, Samuel Little is the most prolific known serial killer in the United States. It's been speculated that other US serial killers had more victims than those known. However, in many of those cases, it might have just been to toy with authorities and the public, or maybe just to scare the shit out of people.

Despite being relatively honest about his crimes, let's not pretend this makes Samuel Little particularly honorable. Like so many killers, he avoided targeting “people who would be immediately missed” (to use Little's own words). So, at best, we might say Little was a semi-credible, cunning, cowardly killer, and he wasn't convicted for having a bad memory, that's for sure.

More Details, and How Samuel Little Compares To Other Serial Killers

Little was convicted in October 2018 of killing Denise Christie Brothers in Odessa, Texas in 1994 — a crime for which he received an additional life sentence. Before the Odessa murder, Little had already been convicted in 2014 in Los Angeles of three 1980s murders in Los Angeles, California.

Following his conviction, he acknowledged to Ector County District Attorney Bobby Bland that he had committed murders in 19 states. It's likely that he relented in killing due to his increasing age, as serial killers like himself tend to keep at it until they're (a) caught or (b) simply can't manage to murder anymore. It's also very likely that he desired each homicide to be like his first one, trying to recapture those sick feelings with each new crime.

Plenty of serial killers have made such admissions, which makes their behaviors comparable to drug addiction. For example, Jeffrey Dahmer stated in an Inside Edition interview: "I had these obsessive desires and thoughts wanting to control them [victims], to–I don't know how to put it–possess them permanently."

There were signs that Ted Bundy was addicted to serial killing, and I also recall a quote from Gary Ridgway (the Green River Killer) about wanting to cut down on killing, much as a smoker speaks regarding their particular addiction (I really wish I remember where the quote is from, but it was originally from some news network).

Little seems to be known about what caused Little to kill, other than his own perverted drive. For example, it's not like he was a traumatized Vietnam War veteran inspired by the violence of war to some frenzied behavior, as Arthur Shawcross apparently claimed (with a quote attributed to him where he boasts of "beheading mama-sans and nailing their heads to trees as a warning to the Vietcong"). That being said, Little was a prison inmate, and a thief, which no doubt only fed into his other criminal behavior.

For more on Samuel Little and his crimes, feel free to check out this Youtube video from ABC13 Houston.