Serial killer’s confessions lead to crack in local cold cases

Serial killer’s confessions lead to crack in local cold cases

Man in custody in California linked to Crittenden County deaths By John Rech

news@theeveningtimes.com

The confessions of a convicted murderer may ultimately provide closure to a pair of cold cases from the 1990s with local ties.

Recently, serial killer Samuel Little began confessing to numerous murders while in prison in California. Some of those were in the Lone Star State, and the Texas Rangers extradited Little. He continued to give details and has been definitely linked to the strangulation murderers of 90 women across the country. Two more cases may be linked to bodies found in Crittenden county. If so that will move his murder toll to 92.

Crittenden County Criminal Investigator Lt. Darrell Prewitt indicated the murders happened in Memphis and the bodies dumped on the Arkansas side of the river. One was found on the river edge near the Harahan Bridge, the other in the Mound City vicinity in the early 1990’s. The Sheriff’s Department has been matching details obtained through Little’s interview with the Memphis Police Cold Case Unit.

“This is something that Memphis has done for three or four months now in regards to a body recovered on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River,” said Prewitt. “We are assisting them with anything we can on getting these cases identified and linked to Little.”

Little’s’ mode of operation was to strangle women in desperate situations, those homeless, drug users, or prostitutes. Memphis Police Department interviewed Little about the July 1990 murder case and the interview led to information about another cold case that may match up with the body found October of 1992 near Mound City. Both murders were believed to have happened in Memphis with the bodies being dumped in Crittenden County.

“In interviewing him he admitted to another one,” said Prewitt. “We have not 100 percent connected that to him yet.”

The investigation had not reached a conclusion.

“We are still investigating and we are not ready to release victim names,” said Prewitt, “but, evidently the one in ‘90 was killed in Memphis and brought over here and dumped.“ The Sheriff’s Department is in the process of matching the confession with the facts in its case file.

“We are taking information from 20, 30 years ago and corroborating it,” said Prewitt. ’’It’s a long time ago — some of the time frames are a little off, but he seems to have a good memory for the other details. We are looking through all our cold cases to see if any more meet the criteria for this guy. We are looking at 30 year old evidence. We can’t release much, because we don’t want anyone to jump the gun.”

“We are taking information from 20, 30 years ago and corroborating it… some of the time frames are a little off, but he seems to have a good memory for the other details.”

— Lt. Darrell Prewitt, Crittenden County Sheriffs Office

Photo courtesy of California DOJ

Samuel Little, convicted in 2014 of three murders in California in the 1980s, has confessed to dozens of additional killings, including, possibly, two in the Crittenden County area in the 1990s.