CLEVELAND (AP) — A man who has confessed to killing more than 90 women across the U.S. was indicted Friday in Cleveland for the strangulation deaths of two women decades ago.
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley said 78-year-old Samuel Little has confessed to killing 21-year-old Mary Jo Peyton in 1984 and 32-year-old Rose Evans in 1991 in Cleveland. He has been charged with four counts of aggravated murder and six counts of kidnapping.
"There are no words to describe the pure evil that exists within Samuel Little," O'Malley said in a statement. "His heinous disregard for human life is incomprehensible."
Little is possibly the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history, surpassing the likes of John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and Green River's Gary Ridgway. Little was convicted in California of three slayings in 2013 and pleaded to another killing last year in Texas, where he's currently incarcerated.
Alleged serial killer who confessed to 90 murders may have Knoxville links
If you remember the name Samuel Little, it's because he claims to have killed 90 women in a swath across the nation – including three in Tennessee.
The FBI says 78-year-old Samuel Little has confessed to 90 murders across the country. That includes three in Tennessee in Memphis, Chattanooga and Knoxville.
This past February, the FBI released 16 new portraits, hand-drawn by Little himself, of women he says he killed. The images are hauntingly artistic.
The drawings of Samuel Little
While some of the women seen in the images can be tied to some of his confessions, they can't all be positively confirmed or identified.
The FBI says Little claimed he had victims in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis.
The Knoxville victim is listed as a 25-year-old African American woman who was killed in 1975.
SERIAL KILLER CONFESSION: Killer claims to have 3 victims in Tennessee
Little was arrested at a homeless shelter in Kentucky in 2012 and extradited to California, where authorities said he was wanted on a narcotics charged.
Once they had him in custody, detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department were able to use a DNA match to tie Little to three victims from unsolved homicides from 1987 and 1989 -- allowing them to charge him with three counts of murder.
Little was convicted and sentenced in 2014 to three consecutive life terms with no possibility of parole.
