FBI releases drawings by US serial killer to identify victims
WASHINGTON The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released 16 chilling portraits drawn by a man who may be the most prolific serial killer in US history in an attempt to identify some of his victims.
Samuel Little, a 78-year-old drifter, has confessed to 90 murders committed between 1970 and 2005 and law enforcement authorities have corroborated more than 40 of them so far.
Little, a 1.9m-tall former boxer also known as Samuel McDowell, is serving a life sentence for murder in Texas.
He mainly targeted drug addicts and prostitutes during his decades-long coast-to-coast murder spree and many of his victims were never identified.
He usually strangled his victims, the FBI said, and many of the deaths were not investigated as homicides but were attributed to drug overdoses, accidents or natural causes.
The FBI on Tuesday published the 16 portraits drawn by Little from memory in his prison cell and asked the public for help in identifying them.
The drawings include details such as the colour of a victim's eyes or hair or a headscarf she was wearing when she was abducted.
One picture depicts a white woman with green eyes and brown hair between 20 and 25 years old who was killed in Maryland in 1972.
Another is of a black woman between 23 and 25 years old with bright red lipstick and red earrings. She was killed in 1984 in Georgia and may have been a college student.
Another is of a black woman with purple hair, between 25 and 28 years old who was killed in Houston, Texas, decades ago.
Mr Bobby Bland, district attorney in Ector County, Texas, said in December: "He's talking about things, cases that happened up to 50 years ago, and he's giving details on all these different murders, and none of the statements he's made have proven to be false." - AFP
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