Posted on January 5, 2021

Samuel Little, Most Prolific Serial Killer in U.S. History, Dies

Phil Helsel, NBC News, December 30, 2020

Samuel Little, a serial killer who confessed to more than 90 murders across the country and who was serving multiple life sentences in prison, died Wednesday at a hospital in California, officials said.

Little, 80, was pronounced dead at 4:53 a.m., the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.

An official cause of death was not released and will be determined by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office, the corrections department said.

Foul play is not suspected in Little’s death, said Dana Simas, spokesperson for the department. Corrections officials said he had been ill for some time.

Little was serving three life sentences without possibility of parole for killing three women in Los Angeles County in the 1980s.

But he confessed to many more killings that occurred all over the country, and the FBI named him the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.

Little eventually confessed to strangling 93 women across the country between 1970 and 2005.

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{snip} He was a former boxer who punched and strangled most of his victims, whose deaths were often ruled as overdoses or other causes, according to the FBI.

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In October 2019, FBI officials said they believed his confessions in all 93 killings were credible and that they had verified 50 of them.

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