GALLERY OF HORROR
Serial killer’s victim portraits may hold clues to IDs
Chilling portraits drawn by the man who may be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history is the FBI’s latest gambit to close cold cases.
Samuel Little, 78, has confessed to 90 sex slayings between 1970 and 2005 in a blood-soaked odyssey that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Cleveland, to Los Angeles, Miami and all points in between.
Now, the FBI has released the 16 portraits to try and finally identify Little’s victims.
“We are hoping that someone — family member, former neighbour, friend — might recognize the victim and provide that crucial clue in helping authorities make an identification,”
FBI spokesperson Shayne Buchwald told CNN.
“We want to give these women their names back and their family some longawaited answers. It’s the least we can do.”
During his cross-country reign of terror Little
— a former boxer from
Ohio — targeted marginalized, vulnerable women who were often drug-addicted prostitutes.
The FBI is hopeful that the killer’s artistic renderings will hit pay dirt. Women in two previously released portraits have been identified.
Detectives have said Little has amazing recall of the murders he committed.
Besides drawing what the women looked like, he also remembered what car he was driving, where he killed them and how he did it.
If his renderings are any indication, Little clearly had a type: full, red lips and oval eyes.
Most of the victims were found strangled to death and nude below the waist. Little would often punch the women and then throttled them while masturbating.
After dumping their bodies, he would hit the road again en route to his next killing ground.
His recall of dates has been fuzzier, the FBI said.
Little had been serving three life terms for murder in California when his name appeared on the
FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
So far investigators have linked the career criminal to 34 homicides.