Serial Killer Sam Little: Part 2

Even though Little was in prison for life, Christie Palazzolo among others felt that it was important to use him to close cold cases and get closure for the families.  Palazzolo was convinced that Little was responsible for Denise Brothers’ murder.  Then, Dr. Angela Williamson got a call from Texas Ranger James “Jim” Holland asking about Samuel Little.  Holland was looking at him for cases (without knowing that he’d been arrested and convicted) and Williamson leaned over like, “Christie, is that guy you’re looking at Samuel Little?”

The three of them became the A Team and decided they needed to talk to Little in person.  Holland was an expert in interviewing Samuel Little’s brand of psycho (even though no one is Samuel Little’s brand really).  The problem was that Little wasn’t talking to anyone and he was denying his guilt hard.  However, 4 years after his conviction, Little had run out of appeals so now he didn’t have anything to lose.  Maybe he’d talk now?

The trio of investigators studied case files and got themselves SUPER prepared for talking to Little.  They headed to California in May of 2018 to interview Little, but they wanted to make sure to surprise him.  They only told the prison that they were coming, and Palazzolo said that they had been keeping him away from the TV and internet for the past 3 years.  They said that he hadn’t had any visitors in years so just simply having a visitor was a surprise.  Their main goal in this interview was to get a confession about Denise Brothers (they had no forensic evidence so without a confession they had nothing) and to do that they knew they were going to have to learn about Samuel Little the person and get on his good side.

They found out that he likes peanut M&Ms, so they brought a big ass bag and they knew that he liked to draw and paint, which seems like it wouldn’t be important, but it becomes important.  They also found out that Sam Little doesn’t like the LAPD and is pissed at them.  The LAPD told Holland to use that to his advantage.

They arrive at the prison on May 17th, 2018 and Samuel Little is wheeled into the room.  Palazzolo and Williamson are in the next room watching and listening to the interview so that IF Sam Little starts talking, they can try and match details to cases they suspected he was responsible for.  They also weren’t sure how Little would react to women so they felt it best to stay out.

Jim Holland was respectful of Little and basically just let Little talk.  He treated him like a buddy and even pretended to talk to him in Little’s style.  When Little would use disgusting language and terrible stories, Holland would mirror him.  At first LIttle thought Holland was with the LAPD, so for the first half hour, Little talks about how the LAPD gave him a “raw deal.”  However, once Holland lets Little know that he’s actually a Texas Ranger and they need his help Little’s demeanor changes somewhat.

At first, Little was hesitant because he felt that the Texas Rangers were going to be just like the LAPD in his eyes and get him with a bunch of “fake evidence.”  But Jim Holland has interviewed people like this before and knew how to talk to Little.  He piles flattery on Samuel Little.  Tells him “there’s no one like you” and makes sure that Little knows that he knows Little isn’t a rapist.  Holland plays along – You’ve never been convicted of rape, you’re not a rapist.  He even tells Little and he knows Little isn’t a murderer – he’s a killer, but not a murderer and there’s a difference.  He lets Little think he understands and respects him saying – he knows Little has been on the streets for 50 some years, and he’s sure that he’s had to handle business before.

Holland had primed Little and Little was willing to talk to him, so he just casually started talking to the Ranger about the cases.  However, Little is still trying to work the best deal for himself.  Little tells Holland, “If I told my story…They would put me up under the gas chamber.”  Little doesn’t want the death penalty so Jim Holland promises Little that he will work on getting the death penalty waved if he confesses to everything, but he’s going to need something to take to the DA in order to get that deal in the works.  Little confesses that there wouldn’t be many murders in Texas and then starts to talk about Odessa, Texas and a white girl who was about 35-40 years old.  Little describes her as blonde, skinny, and tall.  When Holland asks where Little put the girl, Little tells him by a fence.   The FBI ladies in the next room know Little is talking about Denise Brothers.

Little is basically describing the scene, body, murder – everything… perfectly.  He tells Holland that she’s the only one he killed in Odessa. “I ain’t did nothing else in Odessa.”  Christie Palazzolo believes that Denise Brothers “broke” Samuel Little’s cases.  While the Ranger is talking to Little, guards are sweeping Little’s cell.  They find pictures he’s drawn – portraits – mostly of celebrities (Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton…) so they are like, “Do you think you could draw your victims?”

Little says he could – from memory.

He gives them the name of a city and the number of women he killed in each one and he starts listing…

• 5 in Gulfport
• 3 in Jackson
• Memphis
• Chattanooga
• Knoxville
• Bowling Green
• Columbus
• Akron
• Cleveland
• St. Louis
• Omaha
• Phoenix
• Las Vegas

On and on until he’s totalled over 90 women.  Starting back in Miami on New Years 1970 and going all the way to 2005 when he killed his final victim, Nancy Carol Stevens in Tupelo, Mississippi.  It’s truly unbelievable and in the words of almost everyone, “unprecedented.”

Little agrees that if Holland can get him out of California and into Texas, he’ll tell them everything.  By this time Little is 78-years-old and in very poor health.  If they don’t get this information from him now, it’s going to be gone forever.  So that night they get to work on getting documentation from the DA that they won’t seek the death penalty.  Holland has to bring in the letter to Little to prove that he’s not messing with him.

The next day, they were back with Little and trying to get information that only the killer would know about Denise’s murder.  Holland has him talking about the case and Little is able to describe the scene where Denise’s body was found with precision down to a specific pipe that was there.  Only the people that were there from the police and the killer would have known about that pipe because that wasn’t in the original crime scene photos.  After he mentioned it, the authorities went digging through the evidence on Denise Brothers trying to find this pipe.  They found an undeveloped roll of film.  They developed it and there was the pipe.

Over the next 2 days involved Little confessing to over 20 murders in crazy detail.  Palazzolo said they went about trying to extradite him and get more information on cases he described, but they weren’t releasing his name.  Instead they would call locations Little mentioned and tell the agency they had someone confessing to murder in the area, here are the details he gave, do you have a case that matches that?  Another issue with matching his confessions to victims is that some of the victims weren’t listed as homicides, but as drug overdoses and accidents.

However, Palazzolo also said that Little was fuzzy on times (he was off by a decade in the case of Denise) and had no idea where specific jurisdictions started and stopped so they had to call agencies in multiple locations surrounding the area (Palazzolo said they contacted 3-5 agencies per case) and give them a time span of like 20 years to check.  Little often remembers the years by the car he was driving because he loved cars. (He’ll be like, “I was driving a ‘78 Pinto then.”)

Little remembered newspaper headlines about his victims which helped in some cases or very specific details in other cases that narrowed them down quickly.  (The headline “Lost Soul” was written for one of his victims and the team looked up that article.)  Psychologists said that Little felt these women were “expendable” and that he wanted to be as close as possible to the victims during the killing.  They said that he wanted to see them choke and his thumbs digging into their throats.  They said that he enjoyed the strangling, but not necessarily the murder.

Little tells Holland that he was really young when he realized he was sexually attracted to women’s necks (5-years-old).  He told Holland that he was around 7 or 8 when he knew he wanted to kill, and then when he was around 15 he was into the true crime magazines that were out and there was a picture of a woman named Gloria Ferry.  The story was that the “wrassler” (wrestler – Little calls him a “wrassler”) Louie Statler kidnapped Gloria and took her to Cleveland where he choked her to death.  Little said she had a beautiful neck.  This turned him on and became his “inspiration.”

These magazines also showed him how to get away with murder.

When he was 30ish, he realized he wanted more that just choking women during sex.  Little told Holland that at this point “…I asked the good Lord, I said, ‘Why me?’”  Little confessed to Rosie Hill in Ocala, Florida in 1982.  He said that she was the one where he got closest to getting caught.  He had already choked her to death in his car when the police pulled up behind his car.  He hopped out adjusting his pants and the officer thought they were just having sex.  The officer SAW HER BODY, but didn’t check on her.  The cop just told Little that they had to leave and moved on!

He confesses to killing a “mentally wrong” blonde-haired, blue-eyed Norwegian woman in a sundress and even remembered what she had eaten that night on their “date.” (Confirmed by the stomach contents upon autopsy.)  During his confessions, Little is able to talk about these murders in a bananas amount of detail and relive the murder.  In fact, Little has been reliving each and every murder every day since he committed them.  The 93 Victims documentary said that he was able to “take himself back” while retelling the events.

On September 24th, 2018, Samuel Little was extradited temporarily to Texas to answer to the charges for Denise Brothers.  He is taken straight to the courthouse  for a quick hearing where he pleaded guilty.  Denise’s son didn’t attend.  He said that he didn’t need to see Little and doesn’t hold anger toward him.  Then he was taken to Decatur, TX in order to be near Holland and Little was living his best life (unfortunately).  He was eating good food and had access to an art studio.

The art studio served the purpose of Little being able to create the portraits of his victims to help with identifying them.  His portraits were accurate enough that whenever a family member saw the portrait they were able to confirm the identity.  Holland, Palazzolo, and Williamson started scheduling multiple interviews from many agencies to come in and talk to Little about their suspected cases.   

Holland would prep each agency like, don’t accuse him of anything he hasn’t admitted to, don’t interrupt him (if you interrupt him it “jars” him – he’s in a weird zone talking about the cases), just give him a location and listen.  And don’t accuse him of rape.  The visitors were given these directions in order to keep Little in a good mood.  If one of the officers pissed him off he’d shut down and that could be the end.

Little had made the condition that he wouldn’t talk to anyone who’s DA wouldn’t promise that they wouldn’t seek death.  So, Holland suggested that in order to speed things along and make things go smoother, they should bring documentation and show that to Little immediately.

In October of 2018, Dr. Angela Williamson sent an email to Assistant Prosecutor Rick Bell in Ohio who had unsolved cases possibly able to be closed with confessions from Little.  Little had confessed to 3 specific cases that Bell might be interested in.  July 3, 1984 remains found at the bottom of a stairwell were identified as Mary Jo Peyton.  Little confessed that he met Mary Jo in a bar and was able to get her to come with him in exchange for alcohol.

Another case was in 1991 when Rose Evans was found not long after her body was left by Little.  Little remembered leaving her in a field and covering her with tires.  Rose was originally from New York and had come to Cleveland to work.  She’d gotten hooked on cocaine and would do whatever she had to to get it.  Her sister, Pat is 5 years older than Rose and remembers her as someone who loved to make people laugh.  She remembers the day the police knocked in 1991 to tell them they’d found Rose’s body.

Also in Cleveland, Little confessed to a murder sometime between 1977-1979 of a 20-year-old black woman.  He said that he disposed of her by a highway between Cleveland and Akron.  Little doesn’t think her body was ever found because of how remote the location was.  He said he basically rolled her down an embankment off the side of the highway.

Cpt. Crystal Lablanc from Louisianna received a call that Little had confessed to a murder in her jurisdiction.  It was about Melissa Thomas.  Lablanc drove from Lousianna to Texas, she said with no radio on, just praying.  She wanted to make sure she asked him all the questions she needed to.

Then Pascagoula, Mississippi gets their turn.  Det. Darren Versiga comes down to interview Little.  He had always suspected Little for Mindy LaPree, and now he was going to get the chance to talk to Little face-to-face.  The documentary did say that he was worried that Little would recognize him as the man who testified against him in the trial, but when he got there and Little recognized him, Jim Holland played it off like, “Nah, this is some other fat white dude.  They all look the same.” (Versiga was fine with this) Samuel Little laughed and they all moved forward with the interview.

During all of these interviews, Palazzolo says that Little is “engaging,” “funny,” “witty,” and a “great story teller.”  She said that they began to see how he was able to charm women into coming with him.  Little would say, “God in Heaven knows that I didn’t have no power to stop.  He made me.  He knew what I was going to be.”

One other thing that Holland had to warn the other people who came to question Little about…reliving these memories gets Little…excited.  He gets aroused.  And, boy does he.  During Little’s conversation with Rick Bell, he starts rubbing himself under the table!  It’s on video and everything!  THEN poor Rick Bell and his questioning partner decide they had enough evidence and were ready to leave and they FIST BUMP THIS MAN WHO HAS BEEN JACKING IT UNDER THE TABLE WITH THAT HAND!

Little confesses and confesses, on and on and draws his victims from memory.  While drawing the portraits if he knew the woman’s name he’d write it on there along with any little details he remembered.  These portraits would later be used to attempt to close even more cases.