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On December 31, 1970, Samuel Little, the most prolific serial killer in US history, committed the first of 93 murders.
Expanded for 2026.
How America’s deadliest serial killer went undetected for more than 40 years
By Wesley Lowery, Hannah Knowles, and Mark Berman
Nov. 30, 2020
Samuel Little guided his car to a stop in a secluded area off Route 27 near Miami and cut the engine. Before long, Mary Brosley had straddled his lap. He started playing with her necklace. ... He’d met her at a nearby bar, drinking away the final hours of 1970. She was a frail, vulnerable woman, about 5-foot-4 and anorexic, barely 80 pounds. The tip of her left pinkie finger was missing, sliced off in a kitchen accident, and she walked with a limp from hip surgery.
Brosley said she had left a series of lovers and two children in Massachusetts after endless confrontations about her drinking. Estranged from her family, struggling to survive, she was the kind of woman who might disappear from the face of the Earth without attracting much notice. ... Little admired the way the moonlight illuminated her pale throat. ... “I had desires. Strong desires to … choke her,” he would later tell police. “I just went out of control, I guess.”
Authorities believe that Mary Brosley, a mother of two from Massachusetts, was Samuel Little’s first murder victim. (Obtained by The Washington Post)
By New Year’s Day 1971, Mary Brosley, 33, had become the first known victim of a man since recognized as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Over more than 700 hours of videotaped interviews with police that began in May 2018, Little, now 80, has confessed to killing 93 people, virtually all of them women, in a murderous rampage that spanned 19 states and more than 30 years. ... A gifted artist with an unnervingly accurate memory, Little has produced lifelike drawings of dozens of his victims. And, with the fervor of an old man recalling the exploits of his youth, he has provided police with precise details about their murders, invariably effected by strangulation.
Across the nation, police have spent more than two years using that information to reopen cold-case investigations and attempt to bring closure to families who have waited decades to learn what happened to the mother who vanished, the sister whose suspicious death was never explained. ... “If Little hadn’t confessed … then none of this would have been solved,” said Angela Williamson, a Justice Department official who worked on the case. Federal investigators believe his confessions are “100 percent credible,” she said.
{snip}
Julie Tate contributed to this report.
To contact the authors with information about Samuel Little, send us an email at indifferentjustice@washpost.com.
Wesley Lowery
Wesley Lowery was a national correspondent covering law enforcement, justice and their intersection with politics and policy for The Washington Post. He previously covered Congress and national politics. In 2015, he was a lead reporter on the "Fatal Force" project awarded the Pulitzer Prize and George Polk award. He left The Post in February 2020.
Hannah Knowles
Hannah Knowles is a reporter on the General Assignment team. Before joining The Washington Post in June 2019 as an intern, she worked at CBS News, the Sacramento Bee and her hometown paper, the Mercury News.
Mark Berman
Mark Berman is a national reporter for The Washington Post who covers law enforcement and criminal justice issues. He has been with The Post since 2007.
By Wesley Lowery, Hannah Knowles, and Mark Berman
Nov. 30, 2020
Samuel Little guided his car to a stop in a secluded area off Route 27 near Miami and cut the engine. Before long, Mary Brosley had straddled his lap. He started playing with her necklace. ... He’d met her at a nearby bar, drinking away the final hours of 1970. She was a frail, vulnerable woman, about 5-foot-4 and anorexic, barely 80 pounds. The tip of her left pinkie finger was missing, sliced off in a kitchen accident, and she walked with a limp from hip surgery.
Brosley said she had left a series of lovers and two children in Massachusetts after endless confrontations about her drinking. Estranged from her family, struggling to survive, she was the kind of woman who might disappear from the face of the Earth without attracting much notice. ... Little admired the way the moonlight illuminated her pale throat. ... “I had desires. Strong desires to … choke her,” he would later tell police. “I just went out of control, I guess.”
Authorities believe that Mary Brosley, a mother of two from Massachusetts, was Samuel Little’s first murder victim. (Obtained by The Washington Post)
By New Year’s Day 1971, Mary Brosley, 33, had become the first known victim of a man since recognized as the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. Over more than 700 hours of videotaped interviews with police that began in May 2018, Little, now 80, has confessed to killing 93 people, virtually all of them women, in a murderous rampage that spanned 19 states and more than 30 years. ... A gifted artist with an unnervingly accurate memory, Little has produced lifelike drawings of dozens of his victims. And, with the fervor of an old man recalling the exploits of his youth, he has provided police with precise details about their murders, invariably effected by strangulation.
Across the nation, police have spent more than two years using that information to reopen cold-case investigations and attempt to bring closure to families who have waited decades to learn what happened to the mother who vanished, the sister whose suspicious death was never explained. ... “If Little hadn’t confessed … then none of this would have been solved,” said Angela Williamson, a Justice Department official who worked on the case. Federal investigators believe his confessions are “100 percent credible,” she said.
{snip}
Julie Tate contributed to this report.
To contact the authors with information about Samuel Little, send us an email at indifferentjustice@washpost.com.
About this story
Story editing by Lori Montgomery. Copy editing by Mike Cirelli. Design and development by Lucio Villa. Photo editing by Nick Kirkpatrick. Project management by Julie Vitkovskaya.
Wesley Lowery
Wesley Lowery was a national correspondent covering law enforcement, justice and their intersection with politics and policy for The Washington Post. He previously covered Congress and national politics. In 2015, he was a lead reporter on the "Fatal Force" project awarded the Pulitzer Prize and George Polk award. He left The Post in February 2020.
Hannah Knowles
Hannah Knowles is a reporter on the General Assignment team. Before joining The Washington Post in June 2019 as an intern, she worked at CBS News, the Sacramento Bee and her hometown paper, the Mercury News.
Mark Berman
Mark Berman is a national reporter for The Washington Post who covers law enforcement and criminal justice issues. He has been with The Post since 2007.
Samuel Little
Little in 2012
Born: Samuel McDowell; June 7, 1940; Reynolds, Georgia, U.S.
Died: December 30, 2020 (aged 80); Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Other names: Samuel McDowell, The Choke-and-Stroke Killer, Mr. Sam
Known for: Being the most prolific serial killer in United States history by number of confirmed victims
Conviction: Murder (×8)
Criminal penalty: Four life sentences without the possibility of parole
Details
Victims: 60–93+
Span of crimes: 1970 – 2005 (confirmed); 1960–2012 (possible)
States: California, Texas, and Ohio (convicted); Sixteen others (accused)
Date apprehended: September 5, 2012
Samuel Little (né McDowell; June 7, 1940 – December 30, 2020) was an American serial killer who was convicted of 8 murders and confessed to committing 93 murders between 1970 and 2005. The FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in American history. Little provided sketches for twenty-six of his victims, although not all have been linked to known murders. His crime spree stretched across the country from Miami to Los Angeles.
{snip}
Crimes
Timeline of Little's mugshots, 1966–1995
In 1961, Little was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain; he was released in 1964. By 1975, he had been arrested 26 times in eleven states for crimes including theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials.
In 1982, Little was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and he faced charges for the murder of 22-year-old Melinda Rose LaPree, who had gone missing in September of that year. A grand jury declined to indict him for her murder. However, while under investigation, Little was extradited to Florida and tried for the murder of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount, whose body had been found in September 1982. Prosecution witnesses identified Little in court as a person who had spent time with Mount on the night before her disappearance. Due to mistrust of witness testimonies, Little was acquitted in January 1984.
Little moved to California, where he stayed in the vicinity of San Diego. In October 1984, he was arrested for kidnapping, beating, and strangling 22-year-old Laurie Barros, who survived. One month later, he was found by police in the back seat of his car with an unconscious woman, also beaten and strangled, in the same location as the attempted murder of Barros. Little served two and a half years in prison for both crimes. Upon his release in February 1987, he immediately moved to Los Angeles and committed at least 10 additional murders.
Little was arrested on September 5, 2012, at Wayside Christian homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, and extradited to California to face a narcotics charge, after which authorities used DNA testing to establish that he was involved in the murders of Linda Alford, killed on July 13, 1987, Audrey Nelson Everett, killed on August 14, 1989, and Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, killed on September 3, 1989. All three women were killed and later found on the streets of Los Angeles. He was extradited to Los Angeles, where he was charged on January 7, 2013. A few months later, the police said that Little was being investigated for involvement in three dozen murders committed in the 1980s, which until then had been undisclosed. In connection with the new circumstances, in Mississippi, the LáPree murder case was reopened. In total, Little was tested for involvement in 93 murders of women in many states.
{snip}
Little in 2012
Born: Samuel McDowell; June 7, 1940; Reynolds, Georgia, U.S.
Died: December 30, 2020 (aged 80); Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Other names: Samuel McDowell, The Choke-and-Stroke Killer, Mr. Sam
Known for: Being the most prolific serial killer in United States history by number of confirmed victims
Conviction: Murder (×8)
Criminal penalty: Four life sentences without the possibility of parole
Details
Victims: 60–93+
Span of crimes: 1970 – 2005 (confirmed); 1960–2012 (possible)
States: California, Texas, and Ohio (convicted); Sixteen others (accused)
Date apprehended: September 5, 2012
Samuel Little (né McDowell; June 7, 1940 – December 30, 2020) was an American serial killer who was convicted of 8 murders and confessed to committing 93 murders between 1970 and 2005. The FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in American history. Little provided sketches for twenty-six of his victims, although not all have been linked to known murders. His crime spree stretched across the country from Miami to Los Angeles.
{snip}
Crimes
Timeline of Little's mugshots, 1966–1995
In 1961, Little was sentenced to three years in prison for breaking into a furniture store in Lorain; he was released in 1964. By 1975, he had been arrested 26 times in eleven states for crimes including theft, assault, attempted rape, fraud, and attacks on government officials.
In 1982, Little was arrested in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and he faced charges for the murder of 22-year-old Melinda Rose LaPree, who had gone missing in September of that year. A grand jury declined to indict him for her murder. However, while under investigation, Little was extradited to Florida and tried for the murder of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount, whose body had been found in September 1982. Prosecution witnesses identified Little in court as a person who had spent time with Mount on the night before her disappearance. Due to mistrust of witness testimonies, Little was acquitted in January 1984.
Little moved to California, where he stayed in the vicinity of San Diego. In October 1984, he was arrested for kidnapping, beating, and strangling 22-year-old Laurie Barros, who survived. One month later, he was found by police in the back seat of his car with an unconscious woman, also beaten and strangled, in the same location as the attempted murder of Barros. Little served two and a half years in prison for both crimes. Upon his release in February 1987, he immediately moved to Los Angeles and committed at least 10 additional murders.
Little was arrested on September 5, 2012, at Wayside Christian homeless shelter in Louisville, Kentucky, and extradited to California to face a narcotics charge, after which authorities used DNA testing to establish that he was involved in the murders of Linda Alford, killed on July 13, 1987, Audrey Nelson Everett, killed on August 14, 1989, and Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, killed on September 3, 1989. All three women were killed and later found on the streets of Los Angeles. He was extradited to Los Angeles, where he was charged on January 7, 2013. A few months later, the police said that Little was being investigated for involvement in three dozen murders committed in the 1980s, which until then had been undisclosed. In connection with the new circumstances, in Mississippi, the LáPree murder case was reopened. In total, Little was tested for involvement in 93 murders of women in many states.
{snip}
Fri Jan 3, 2025: How America's deadliest serial killer went undetected for more than 40 years - Washington Post
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