Samuel Little, who overtook even lethal predators like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy to become the most prolific serial killer in US history, but has not been detected for decades, died in a Los Angeles hospital on Wednesday, they said California prison officials. He was 80 years old.
No cause of death was determined for Mr. Little, who was serving a life sentence in a Los Angeles County state prison since 2014 for the murders of three women in South Los Angeles during the 1980s.
There was no sign of a crime in connection with Little’s death, Vicky Waters, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in an email late on Wednesday. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Little had diabetes, heart problems and other unspecified illnesses.
Mr. Little confessed to having committed 93 murders between 1970 and 2005, at least 50 of which were verified by police, the FBI said. He had been convicted of at least eight murders, some of which were resolved through DNA analysis.
Many of Little’s victims were marginalized, young black women who were estranged from their families and struggling with poverty and addiction. In many cases, their deaths did not attract the same level of attention or outrage as other deaths.
Only in recent years has Little confessed to the deaths in a prison cell in California, his third pass through a state prison. He said he strangled his victims, many whose deaths were originally considered to be overdoses or attributed to accidental or undetermined causes, the FBI said. The recount of his crimes came after a Texas Ranger in search of information approached Mr. Little.
Last year, the FBI formally declared Mr. Little the most prolific serial killer in the history of the United States and sought public help to link him to dozens of murders he confessed.
The FBI posted a series of creepy confessional videos featuring Mr. Little on its website, along with sketches of his victims. The agency said at the time that it believed that all of its confessions were reliable.
“For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accountable to his victims,” said Christie Palazzolo, a criminal analyst with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Seizure Program at the time. “Even if he is already in prison, the FBI believes it is important to seek justice for each victim – to close all possible cases.”
In one of the videos, Mr. Little was visibly excited as he discussed the murders. Asked by a detective about a woman he said he killed in North Little Rock, Arkansas in 1994, Mr. Little replied, “Oh, man, I loved her. I forgot her name. Oh yeah. I think it was Ruth. “
Before Little’s death, prosecutors were evaluating whether to formally accuse him of the many murders in at least 14 states that he had described to authorities.
The number of murders Mr. Little confessed has substantially exceeded that of known serial killers.
Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River killer, was convicted of 49 murders in Washington State during the 1980s and 1990s, the highest number of murder convictions for an American serial killer.
Mr. Bundy was linked to the murder of up to 36 women before he was executed in 1989.
Mr. Gacy, convicted of the sex-related murders of 33 boys and girls, was sentenced to death by lethal injection in 1994.