Samuel Little was not a name that made headlines during the prime of his killing spree. For decades, he was a shadow moving through the backroads of America, invisible to the public eye, yet leaving behind a trail of death that would one day be recognized as the largest in U.S. history.

In the beginning, Little’s life looked unremarkable — born in 1940 in Georgia, raised by his grandmother in Ohio. But behind his quiet exterior was a festering darkness. He drifted from city to city, never settling down, picking up odd jobs that kept him under the radar. His crimes, however, would define him forever.

What made Samuel Little so dangerous was his victim selection. He targeted women on the fringes of society — sex workers, drug users, those living in poverty. They were individuals the system too often ignored, making it easier for Little to strike without drawing attention.

He was a skilled manipulator. Witnesses later described how he used charm to disarm his victims, luring them into his car or offering help before turning on them. Once in his control, Little’s method was chilling — strangulation. No gunshots, no stabbing, nothing that would leave obvious forensic clues.

For years, his murders went unsolved. Police departments across states investigated these deaths separately, never realizing they were dealing with a single predator. The transient lifestyle of both Little and his victims kept the dots from connecting.

The breakthrough didn’t come until 2012, when Little was arrested in Kentucky on a drug charge and extradited to California for an unrelated case. There, investigators decided to run his DNA through the national database. The results were shocking — his DNA matched evidence from three unsolved murders in Los Angeles during the late 1980s.

Detectives realized they might be dealing with more than just three murders. They began questioning Little, but at first, he denied everything. Then, as weeks passed, something shifted. In 2018, facing life in prison and perhaps eager for attention, Samuel Little began to talk.

What he revealed stunned even veteran investigators. Little confessed to killing not three, not ten, but over 90 women between 1970 and 2005. Many of these cases had long been closed or left cold, their files gathering dust in forgotten police archives.

What made Little’s confessions credible was the detail he remembered. He could recall the shape of a victim’s face, the color of her dress, the exact location where he left her body. He even drew portraits of dozens of women he claimed to have killed — images hauntingly precise, painted from memory decades after the murders.

For law enforcement, these drawings became vital tools. They released them to the public, hoping someone might recognize the women. In many cases, family members came forward, giving closure to mysteries they had lived with for years.

But closure was bittersweet. The sheer scale of Little’s crimes revealed systemic failures. Why had it taken so long to catch him? Why were the deaths of these women not investigated with the same urgency as others? Critics pointed to the way society undervalues the lives of marginalized people — a bias Little exploited to deadly effect.

In court, Samuel Little sat calmly, almost smug, as survivors and relatives of his victims testified. He showed no visible remorse, no recognition of the destruction he had caused. Even as he recounted his killings in interviews, there was a disturbing pride in his voice, as if he saw himself as a master of his craft.

Journalists and psychologists have since debated what drove him. Was it power? Control? A deep-seated hatred of women? Little himself offered no clear answers, often drifting into tangents or talking about his boxing days, his travels, his artwork. The truth may be that there was no logic to his killings — just an endless hunger.

By the time of his death in December 2020, Samuel Little had been officially linked to 60 murders, with many more strongly suspected. The FBI has called him the most prolific serial killer in American history.

Tim Investigates spoke to retired detectives who worked the Little case. They described the chilling feeling of hearing him talk so casually about murder, the way he would close his eyes and smile when recalling certain killings, as though savoring a private memory.

They also spoke about the frustration of knowing that so many of his victims will never be identified. For some families, the truth died with him, leaving only unanswered questions.

In the years since, the case of Samuel Little has become a stark reminder of the importance of linking investigations across jurisdictions and not dismissing the deaths of vulnerable individuals. Technology like DNA databases and improved inter-agency communication might prevent another predator from slipping through the cracks for so long.

Yet, there’s an unsettling thought — if Little could kill for decades without being caught, could there be others out there now, living quiet lives, their true nature hidden?

In the end, Samuel Little’s story is one of horror, but also of hard lessons learned. It is a testament to the resilience of investigators who refused to let the cold cases stay cold, and to the families who never stopped searching for the truth.

As the lights dim in the interview room, and the tape recorder clicks off for the last time, the question lingers: how many more names could have been added to his list if fate — and forensic science — had not finally caught up to him?

Tim Investigates leaves you with this — in the shadows of every city, there are stories untold, crimes unpunished, and predators waiting. Samuel Little may be gone, but the world that allowed him to exist is still very much alive.