US serial killer confesses to 90 homicides in 35 years

Washington: A 78-year-old convict, Samuel Little sentenced to life behind the bars for killing three women in the US, recently confessed to 90 homicides between 1970 and 2005, the FBI said.

If it is true, this number of murders would make him one of the most prolific serial killers in US history.

In September 2012 he was arrested at a homeless shelter in Kentucky and was extradited to California, where he was wanted for his involvement in drug crimes.

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In Los Angeles, authorities matched his DNA to that found in the murders of three women between 1987 and 1989.

In all three cases, the victims were beaten, strangled and then their bodies were dumped in an alley, a dumpster and a garage.

Samuel was sentenced to three terms of life imprisonment for those three crimes, but police wanted to share his DNA and details of his modus operandi with the FBI so that a deeper investigation could be undertaken.

What the FBI found was an "alarming pattern and compelling links to many more murders," mostly "marginalized and vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs."

"Their bodies sometimes went unidentified and their deaths uninvestigated," the FBI statement read.

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A lead on a case then took the FBI to Texas where they found a case where they suspected his involvement: "We found a case out of Odessa, Texas, that sounded very much like him, and we could place him passing through the area around the same time," said a Crime Analyst in a statement.

Accompanied by the Texas Rangers, the FBI decided to question Little last spring in a California prison, where he agreed to cooperate in exchange for a prison transfer.

"He went through city and state and gave Ranger Holland the number of people he killed in each place. Jackson, Mississippi - one; Cincinnati, Ohio - one; Phoenix, Arizona - three; Las Vegas, Nevada - one," Palazzolo explained.

Little remembered his victims and the murders with great detail and he was even able to draw the faces of some of his victims.

Little has confessed to 90 murders over a 35-year period in which 34 have already been confirmed.

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