How could Sam Little, America’s worst serial killer, kill so many people?



The poster for the documentary series Confronting a serial killer – STARZPLAY

  • More than 60 cases, related to Samuel Little’s confessions, have been resolved. The latter died in December 2020, after six years in prison over several life sentences.
  • Confronting a serial killer looks at the serial killer through his relationship with his latest victim, Jillian Lauren.

“According to investigators, Samuel Little would have killed more people than serial killers Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer together”, we learn from the opening credits of Confronting a serial killer, broadcast from this Sunday on Starzplay. It sets the scene. The series of documentaries directed by Joe Berlinger, already behind Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile on Ted Bundy, looks at serial killer Samuel Little, suspected of having killed 93 women in his lifetime.

To locate the character, Samuel Little, also known as Samuel McDowell, was convicted in 2014 for the murders of three women in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1989. DNA traces have allowed authorities to make the connection. with three unresolved cases. All three had been beaten and strangled. But his murderous journey is far from stopping there. Following his incarceration, he claimed responsibility for dozens of other crimes. A question arises throughout the five episodes: how did he manage to kill so many people, throwing the bodies in garbage cans, landfills or highway areas, without ever being caught by the police?

In the mind of a psychopath

Confronting a serial killer spares neither the American legal system nor the patriarchal and misogynistic society. What the Samuel Little case proves, according to journalist Jillian Lauren, at the heart of the documentary series, is that in the eyes of American society, some victims “are worth less” than others. The serial killer and former boxer makes it clear: he chose isolated, precarious young women, mostly prostitutes or drug addicts, whom no one would go looking for. And, apparently, he hit the nail on the head. He has killed his entire life, driving the United States without being stopped for decades. Many of these deaths were classified as overdoses or accidental deaths, even when the body showed signs of strangulation.

The five episodes of the series focus on Samuel Little’s latest victim: Jillian Lauren. The author is trapped by the prisoner. He agreed to confide in her on the condition that she continue to talk to him until his death (in December 2020). She thus embarks on a race against time: to find as many victims of Samuel Little as possible before it is too late. A pact all the more engaging for this mother of a family as she does not come out psychologically unscathed. She is vampirized by the old man who dreams of one thing behind his sweet words: to strangle her too.

The psychopath’s confessions are incredibly violent. Every day, Jillian Lauren listens to this man describe one by one his victims, detail his taste for strangulation that dates back to childhood. Through these numerous discussions, the psychology of the psychopath appears clearly. Samuel Little feels nothing, neither compassion for his victims, nor remorse for the atrocious acts he has committed. He describes strangulation as he would describe an act of love. His words hint at his thirst for possession and his resentment for the fairer sex who turned away from him during his life. Years later, the memory of his crimes remains vivid. It gives many details on the places, the physique of the women, their first names sometimes …

Portraits of his victims

The images of his crimes are so striking that he draws dozens of portraits of his victims for the journalist. An entire room of her house is lined with drawings of women with blood-pigmented eyes (to recall the strangulation), like one imagines a wall covered with clues from a police investigation. One way for her to give importance to all these unidentified women abandoned by the justice system. They also allow him to search for relatives of the victims, to retrace their lives and restore their dignity. And this grueling job allows the journalist to help the police to solve about fifty cases.

For lovers of true crimes, Confronting a serial killer worth the detour. It is rare to hear the confessions of a serial killer. Unlike a Ted Bundy, for example, Samuel Little confesses his crimes. But, despite this, the documentary series never falls into complacency. On the contrary, by adopting the point of view of its latest victim, Jillian Lauren, the series reveals all the monstrosity of the psychopath, his way of thinking and of apprehending the world.



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