Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language, along with references
Speaker 1: to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: I drum those yellow nails on the table, and he
Speaker 2: was like, you got me, Okay, you got me? What
Speaker 2: do you want to know? Do you want to know
Speaker 2: about the first one?
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical
Speaker 1: true crime podcast tenfold More Wicked and the co host
Speaker 1: of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled
Speaker 1: around the world interviewing people for the show, and they
Speaker 1: are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true
Speaker 1: crime stories, and now we want to tell you those
Speaker 1: stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More
Speaker 1: Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make,
Speaker 1: good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories
Speaker 1: behind the stories. What would it be like to interview
Speaker 1: a serial killer? New York Times bestselling author Jillian Lauren knows.
Speaker 1: Her haunting account of confronting Samuel Little is detailed in
Speaker 1: her book Behold the Monster. It's an amazing story, and
Speaker 1: in our chat, Jillian explains how she convinced Little to
Speaker 1: tell her where one unknown victim was buried. I read
Speaker 1: an article that said that Samuel Little has been underreported
Speaker 1: because he's black. Do you think that that's right? Do
Speaker 1: you think that this is some sort of racism within
Speaker 1: how we report on serial killers, that they are the
Speaker 1: typical white male.
Speaker 2: I think that is a piece of it. I think
Speaker 2: a larger piece of it is that because his victims
Speaker 2: were You know, there's this concept that is not mine,
Speaker 2: but I use it and have sort of popularized it recently,
Speaker 2: being less did you know that there are certain victims
Speaker 2: that are more dead, and certain victims that are lested,
Speaker 2: and victims that are lesstad were the victims that were
Speaker 2: cherry picked by Sam Little because he knew that people
Speaker 2: wouldn't listen, wouldn't care. They were largely women of color,
Speaker 2: sex workers, not all of them, often addicted, marginalized women
Speaker 2: who lived on the fringes of society, who you know,
Speaker 2: in a sense, were considered less human already. And when
Speaker 2: a quite beautiful co ed goes missing on spring break,
Speaker 2: that person is the most dead. It'll make all the
Speaker 2: front page news, and even Sam's conviction for three murders
Speaker 2: in the eighties didn't get all that much coverage. It
Speaker 2: wasn't until this second round of jailhouse confessions where he
Speaker 2: really showed the world till he was stopped professing his innocence,
Speaker 2: that he was exposed for who he was and anyone
Speaker 2: started to take interest.
Speaker 1: Well, let's do a very short summary of Samuel Little
Speaker 1: before we really can get into the victims and then
Speaker 1: your relationship with him.
Speaker 2: Sam Little was, as I have been told by his family,
Speaker 2: trouble from the day he was born. Because I think
Speaker 2: a lot of we want to know their stories because
Speaker 2: we're looking for the whys. He was molested by a
Speaker 2: member of his family when he was four years old.
Speaker 2: He wound up in a reform school, the Boys Industrial School,
Speaker 2: at the age of thirteen, for stealing a bicycle for
Speaker 2: nineteen months, and it was a famously abusive place and
Speaker 2: he sustained a lot of head trauma there. He began
Speaker 2: boxing there. He wound up spending you know, until he
Speaker 2: was twenty five, in and out of institutions, the Ohio
Speaker 2: State Reform may which you will know from Shawshank Redemption.
Speaker 2: So when he got out of there, you know, he
Speaker 2: wanted to be a pimp. He wanted to be gangster.
Speaker 2: He wanted to be a fighter. He was a middleweight
Speaker 2: boxing champ in prison, and at that time it was
Speaker 2: a funnel sometimes to the professional fights. And it turned
Speaker 2: out that he really just needed time to find his
Speaker 2: true passion, which was murder.
Speaker 1: How did that start for him? He's obviously out and
Speaker 1: free at some point. Is there some sort of a
Speaker 1: trigger for him that changed everything?
Speaker 2: Like many serial killers will, hear in an early interest
Speaker 2: in pornography or violent pornography, and in Sam's days, so
Speaker 2: we're talking about nineteen fifty four that he was going
Speaker 2: into dime stores and stealing true detective magazines and he
Speaker 2: started to read about strangulation and he got fixated on
Speaker 2: it and had always been fixated on necks since a
Speaker 2: little girl in his fifth grade class who was stuck
Speaker 2: up was mean to him and she had a long neck,
Speaker 2: and he fantasized about strangling her, fantasized about strangling his teacher,
Speaker 2: and he was unable to have sexual relations without strangling
Speaker 2: a woman. It wasn't until he was almost thirty that
Speaker 2: he killed his first victim, but he had been thinking
Speaker 2: about it and building up to it all that time. Eventually,
Speaker 2: the girlfriend he was with. Her name was Jean. She
Speaker 2: was thirty years older than him. They were together for
Speaker 2: fifteen years, and she was a master shoplifter and they
Speaker 2: drove around the country together and she would shoplift and
Speaker 2: he would sometimes shoplift by date, but mostly she would
Speaker 2: to support them, and then he'd go out at night
Speaker 2: and elicit sex workers or you know, a vulnerable woman
Speaker 2: at a bar.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, what is the number of victims? I know it
Speaker 1: varies based on what he says, what the police said,
Speaker 1: what he was convicted on. What are the number of
Speaker 1: victims that we think it is before you meet him?
Speaker 2: It was only three. He was convicted on three DNA hits,
Speaker 2: three case to case hits that the cold case special
Speaker 2: section in Los Angeles Police Department had a grant from
Speaker 2: the Department of Justice to screen cold case evidence and
Speaker 2: they were screening evidence from the eighties and that's how
Speaker 2: they got these hits. The number of official confessions that
Speaker 2: he gave to the FBI and local police jurisdictions is
Speaker 2: ninety three. The current number of salts is sixty two,
Speaker 2: and those were cleared or cleared by exceptional means. I
Speaker 2: had no idea, no idea.
Speaker 1: Let's go back. He's been convicted and what happens? Do
Speaker 1: you see the story and you think, Wow, this is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to get into somebody's head who really is depraved,
Speaker 1: and to try to figure out what happened. And if
Speaker 1: you can help in any way, you write him a letter,
Speaker 1: reach out to him. And when did that happen?
Speaker 2: Well, the story found me. I was working on a
Speaker 2: mystery novel and I scored an interview with this famous
Speaker 2: police detective, detective Mitzi Roberts. Who if anyone's a fan
Speaker 2: of Michael Connolly, and I think everyone's a fan of
Speaker 2: Michael Connolly. The character of Renee Ballard is based on her.
Speaker 2: She's a tough interview to get. She's a tough interview
Speaker 2: to do too, And so I was interviewing her about
Speaker 2: some historical LA crimes, just about procedure, about her career
Speaker 2: in general. At the very end of the interview, as
Speaker 2: I often do, try to end an interview on a
Speaker 2: high note, I said, what are you the most proud
Speaker 2: of She said, I'm proud of them all. But I
Speaker 2: did catch this serial killer once and I was like,
Speaker 2: I buried the lead, you know, And she said, I'm
Speaker 2: not the one asking the questions here. And so she
Speaker 2: told me about Sam, how she found him, about the
Speaker 2: national manhunt for him because he was transient, so they
Speaker 2: had to locate him, didn't know if he was still
Speaker 2: out there killing or not. I was fascinated by both
Speaker 2: the forensics the detective work that went into it, and
Speaker 2: also she told me that, you know, she'd gone on
Speaker 2: this cross country trip talking to detectives who all thought
Speaker 2: they had cold cases that really looked like Sam's, mo
Speaker 2: that they could match up with him. I mean the
Speaker 2: benefit of his enormous rap sheet is that it's often
Speaker 2: easy to tell he was incarcerated on that day, so
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have been possible. It's helpful in that way
Speaker 2: to know where he was. But she said that alikes
Speaker 2: just wasn't able to really mobilize the effort. There are
Speaker 2: so few resources for cold cases. Who cares. There's no
Speaker 2: one advocating for these missing women. Many times there are
Speaker 2: no family members coming forward. There were transgender victims who
Speaker 2: were likely misgendered, and you know their friends wouldn't have
Speaker 2: come forward because it was illegal. Yeah, so I thought,
Speaker 2: this is an underreported story about a serial killer who
Speaker 2: possibly killed many more women, and I could put some
Speaker 2: heat on it. You know. My own trauma really drove
Speaker 2: me a little bit, gave me that extra mph when
Speaker 2: it was like, oh gosh, I have to really try
Speaker 2: to get into a prison. Figure out how do I
Speaker 2: get into a prison? And so I wrote them a letter,
Speaker 2: and then I applied to get my visitor's clearance, you know,
Speaker 2: and it takes months. So I exchanged these letters with him,
Speaker 2: and then the day came and I was able to
Speaker 2: go and visit him in prison.
Speaker 1: Set the scene for me about where this is happening
Speaker 1: and what it looks like. Is this a contact visit
Speaker 1: where you actually get to see him face to face
Speaker 1: or is there a glass in between you or a mesh.
Speaker 1: I've done to all three when I worked for then
Speaker 1: since clinic at UT so I mean, I've had contact
Speaker 1: visits with killers where you're there on the other side
Speaker 1: of a round table. What was your experience with him?
Speaker 2: I had no idea what to expect. First of all,
Speaker 2: all I knew I knew a couple of scumbags who
Speaker 2: had done some time at California State Prison, Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: So I called them and they said, you know, you'll
Speaker 2: never get an appointment, get there at six in the morning.
Speaker 2: Wait online. They started finding the cars in at nine thirty,
Speaker 2: and you know you'll get a number and then wait
Speaker 2: and bring quarters because you're not cool if you don't
Speaker 2: bring quarters. And all you can have is quarters in
Speaker 2: a clear bag, quarters, key fob, and your glass, this
Speaker 2: prescription and some photographs.
Speaker 1: What okay, now you have to explain all of that
Speaker 1: except the key fave and probably the photographs.
Speaker 2: Well you can because in order to bring in glasses
Speaker 2: or anything that you know, i'd I have to show
Speaker 2: my prescription.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, okay, what about the quarters, Well.
Speaker 2: The quarters are for the vending machine. So so the
Speaker 2: answer is it was a contact visit and that is
Speaker 2: not what I was expecting at all. Oh when I
Speaker 2: you know, they're like, just go to B block. Okay.
Speaker 2: So I walked through the California desert. It is one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten degrees in the shade out there. It
Speaker 2: is you know, there's a real filling, a biblical kind
Speaker 2: of punishment to this prison. You know, mile high fences
Speaker 2: with constantina wire and the guard towers and the big cages.
Speaker 2: You walk through. All of that I was expecting, but
Speaker 2: I was not expecting to walk into a room where
Speaker 2: there were just tables and and families sitting there, like
Speaker 2: you know, inmates holding their babies, and you know, in
Speaker 2: an area for the kids to play with legos, and
Speaker 2: a photo booth and vending machines all around. Microwaves, I
Speaker 2: was really surprised. I had fully expected the you know,
Speaker 2: like glass, you know, hand on the glass with the phone,
Speaker 2: and there was that in the corner. But they always
Speaker 2: put me a front and center. I was also always
Speaker 2: being recorded.
Speaker 1: Was that the case for everybody or just in this case.
Speaker 2: It's the case for everybody. Everyone's always being recorded. There's
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen cameras in that room. In this case,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that I had inserted myself into the
Speaker 2: middle of a federal investigation. So just as cops, federal
Speaker 2: Texas Rangers, local cops are about to try to crack
Speaker 2: this guy, this journalist shows up, I think the Texas
Speaker 2: Ranger James Holland, who is you know, one of the
Speaker 2: main players in the current you know, Sam Little investigation
Speaker 2: that's still ongoing.
Speaker 1: So Sam Little sits down across from you. You have a
Speaker 1: contact visit, which was terrifying.
Speaker 2: No, he doesn't sit down. He's already sitting. He's in
Speaker 2: a wheelchair. Oh. I was looking at the door the
Speaker 2: other inmates were coming in and out of. But there
Speaker 2: must have been like a special door for his disability
Speaker 2: because he rolled up behind me.
Speaker 1: Oh WHOA. Okay, So he had been convicted of three.
Speaker 1: Had he confessed to any others at this point, Well.
Speaker 2: There were attempted murders that you know, got pled down
Speaker 2: to kidnapping and assault in San Diego. He was acquitted
Speaker 2: in Florida in a latchu of Florida for the murder
Speaker 2: of Patricia Mount because they said there was like a
Speaker 2: lack of physical evidence. And then there was a failure
Speaker 2: to indict by a grand jury for the murder of
Speaker 2: Melinda La Prix in Pasca Go in Mississippi. So he
Speaker 2: had never confessed to anything. He always just said, you know,
Speaker 2: DNA doesn't prove that I did anything, It just proves
Speaker 2: that I was there. Also, there was so much evidence
Speaker 2: destroyed there. You know, he murdered in the South and
Speaker 2: a lot of that evidence was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 2: You know, he professed his innocence until the moment that
Speaker 2: he didn't.
Speaker 1: What is his demeanor is he aloof is he friendly?
Speaker 1: What's he like?
Speaker 2: Oh, he's friendly. It was seventy eight. But you know,
Speaker 2: my feeling about him was like that he looked like
Speaker 2: a ghost. There was just an absence to him immediately,
Speaker 2: and he said, ooh, we you're my angel, come to
Speaker 2: visit me from heaven. God knew I was lonely, so
Speaker 2: he sent you to me, and from there it was
Speaker 2: transaction after transaction for years with him.
Speaker 1: Did you yourself as his friend at all and confident
Speaker 1: on or? I mean, what was the dynamic?
Speaker 2: I mean the dynamic was you know, I felt like
Speaker 2: I was at war, but that war looked a lot
Speaker 2: like friendship. There was, you know, a rapport I had
Speaker 2: to establish with him. These people aren't a joke and
Speaker 2: it's not a TV movie of the week, so I knew, like,
Speaker 2: just don't go into a room and start lying to him.
Speaker 2: It took me being willing to be vulnerable, being willing
Speaker 2: to tell him the truth in order for him to
Speaker 2: start opening up to me. And you know, at the end,
Speaker 2: I think he was pretty much telling me the truth
Speaker 2: to the best of his ability.
Speaker 1: What were the things that you were telling him about you?
Speaker 2: I told him anything He asked, well, I talked about
Speaker 2: my kids and you know, my meat loaf, and gave
Speaker 2: him what I like to think of is a window
Speaker 2: into what it's like to actually be human. And he
Speaker 2: would pretend to sort of understand that and want to
Speaker 2: know that. And he had advice about parent garranting. But
Speaker 2: you know, in his fantasy life, if you had just
Speaker 2: met the right woman. Now, he said to me, if
Speaker 2: I had just met you, I would have been a
Speaker 2: whole different man. You know, we'd have kids. So you know,
Speaker 2: he had this really positive self concept and you know
Speaker 2: he'd been wronged by the world. He was a victim.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. Katherine Ramslin and I have talked about that
Speaker 1: the forensic psychologists, where she says people with psychopathy oftentimes
Speaker 1: it's a poor me.
Speaker 2: The serial killer even oh yeah, btk.
Speaker 1: She said it was every time she interviewed him and
Speaker 1: was lamenting when things would go wrong, not in just
Speaker 1: his life but with the murders, and it's as if
Speaker 1: that was normal, like, well, shit, I just got a
Speaker 1: parking ticket. She said. It was like that. It was like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe this happened. He had that attitude too,
Speaker 1: Sam Little Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean when you say, like I got a parking ticket.
Speaker 2: I have a great example. I had a conversation with
Speaker 2: him where he said, you know, all sins are equal.
Speaker 2: I'm forgiven. He leaved. You know, he was right with Jesus.
Speaker 2: He was saved. He was forgiven. Thought all you needed
Speaker 2: to do was ask every time he killed somebody, he
Speaker 2: asked to be forgiven, and he was forgiven. That's Saint Paul,
Speaker 2: that's the Bible. And I was like, I don't agree
Speaker 2: with you, and he said, that's Jesus, that's the Bible.
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, I think even there's a
Speaker 2: hierarchy in the Bible, and he goes, no, killing is
Speaker 2: no different from stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, there are like the ten commandments,
Speaker 2: so let's say one number one. And he couldn't get it.
Speaker 2: He didn't even know the first commandment. And it's just
Speaker 2: like Jesus is not your apologist, but it's complicity bias, right,
Speaker 2: Like he found justification for what he wanted. He wanted
Speaker 2: and he took There was no question that that was
Speaker 2: what he deserved and that God made him that way.
Speaker 2: Got you know, I said, well, it sounds like you
Speaker 2: were lonely, He said, no, I was hungry. I didn't
Speaker 2: ask to be born liking cake.
Speaker 1: What did he say his motivation was? Could he articulate
Speaker 1: anything at all about what was going on in his
Speaker 1: screwed up mind during all of this love?
Speaker 2: You know, he said, you know, everyone has it wrong
Speaker 2: about me. I don't hate women. I love women. All
Speaker 2: I ever wanted them to do is cry in my arms.
Speaker 2: And then, you know, and then they snubbed me. Then
Speaker 2: they turned away from me, and then they turned their
Speaker 2: noses up, you know, and there's snobby bitches.
Speaker 1: Was he enamored with you? Do you think?
Speaker 2: No? I don't. I think he didn't want to be alone.
Speaker 2: I think he wanted a friend and anyone a journalist,
Speaker 2: and then you know, I think by the time he
Speaker 2: started confessing, I don't think it was his impulse. His
Speaker 2: impulse was attention. I mean, you know, he had all
Speaker 2: these detectives coming, you know, bringing him oranges from Florida,
Speaker 2: bringing him barbecue from Kentucky, just flattering, flattering, flattering him,
Speaker 2: getting these confessions out of him, trying to match their
Speaker 2: cold cases. He was having the time of his life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was getting McDonald's milkshakes he was getting to talk
Speaker 2: to this journalist. He was just really having a good time.
Speaker 2: But then he started to feel the effects of the fame,
Speaker 2: get the fan letters and people paying for traces of
Speaker 2: his hand.
Speaker 1: Ugh, it's disgusting.
Speaker 2: It's disgusting. And you know, once he started to get that,
Speaker 2: then he started to really enjoy it and played to
Speaker 2: it and start to get into the ego place where
Speaker 2: he was just like, I did this thing, you know,
Speaker 2: like I did the most in the world. I was
Speaker 2: the best. You know, I did this in the shadows.
Speaker 2: No one. They just thought I was a petty thief
Speaker 2: and the whole time I was a murderer. I fooled
Speaker 2: them all.
Speaker 1: How does the first confession to you happen and then
Speaker 1: the rest just spill out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, once the damn broke. I mean it was always
Speaker 2: back and forth and he would mess with me. But
Speaker 2: you know how the first confession happened was you know,
Speaker 2: I'd been sitting with him, like in total for over
Speaker 2: six hours, and I was just like, this is it.
Speaker 2: If he keeps bullshiting me, I'm out, Like I don't
Speaker 2: have this kind of time. I'm missing my kid's soccer game.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to sit here and listen
Speaker 2: to how innocent he is and how they've done him wrong.
Speaker 2: He started to tell a story about this woman and
Speaker 2: get kind of lost in his own mind, and he
Speaker 2: stopped him and he said I want a TV and
Speaker 2: I said I want things too. He's like, are you
Speaker 2: going to get me a TV? And I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, am I? And he was like a
Speaker 2: drum those yellow nails on the table and he was like,
Speaker 2: you got me, Okay, you got me. What do you
Speaker 2: want to know? Do you want to know about the
Speaker 2: first one? And then he just started this real like
Speaker 2: incantation of murders. I mean it was like thirteen that
Speaker 2: first day. I was, you know, I was just keeping
Speaker 2: my eye on the ball. At that point, I was like,
Speaker 2: there is no room here for sentimentality or her or shock.
Speaker 2: Just remember every single thing he says, Remember every single
Speaker 2: thing he does.
Speaker 1: Did he know everybody's name?
Speaker 2: He knew almost no one's name.
Speaker 1: Because they were anonymous to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he didn't spend enough time. The murder
Speaker 2: that I solved from bottom to top was a woman
Speaker 2: named Alice, and he knew her name. He remembered her
Speaker 2: name because he thought it was a pretty name, and
Speaker 2: that was actually one of the things that helped us
Speaker 2: saw that case.
Speaker 1: So tell me what happens with Ellis, when it happens,
Speaker 1: and where and all of them.
Speaker 2: So, in the middle of this nationwide investigation, we're hit
Speaker 2: with COVID, Black Lives Matter protests are happening. Cold cases
Speaker 2: got really put to the side for a while, and
Speaker 2: I just had all the confessions and all this information,
Speaker 2: and I just decided to start really exploring them in depth,
Speaker 2: one by one, just in the same way I was
Speaker 2: exploring these women's lives, you know, by meeting their families,
Speaker 2: by walking their footsteps. So I began to, you know,
Speaker 2: follow his confession, Like he gives very specific directions that
Speaker 2: he drove. And if you're not in Los Angeles, none
Speaker 2: of this is going to make sense to you. But
Speaker 2: I can just say that basically, he was saying he
Speaker 2: left the body under underpass on a street that was
Speaker 2: on its way to the beach. Except that was in
Speaker 2: North South Street, and here the beach is west. It's
Speaker 2: the east west streets that go to the beach. You
Speaker 2: don't get more west than this beach, you know. I
Speaker 2: found the place he picked her up I found the
Speaker 2: liquor store she went, and I could not find the
Speaker 2: place that he said he dumped his body. And I
Speaker 2: just started thinking about things that didn't often gel in
Speaker 2: his confessions, and one of those was how long he drove,
Speaker 2: because he drove so much. I mean, his cars were
Speaker 2: where he killed. He drove from one city to another,
Speaker 2: you know, almost every day, if not every three days.
Speaker 2: He was always on the move, so he had a
Speaker 2: weird concept of driving and time. And also this is
Speaker 2: when he was on crack, when his mind started to
Speaker 2: get a little more adult, and it was possible that
Speaker 2: he took a turn he didn't remember, and he said
Speaker 2: he was going to Dominique College. And then it started
Speaker 2: to occur to me that, you know, everything was right
Speaker 2: about it, except if you took this one turn, you'd
Speaker 2: be going to Long Beach. Long Beach is south from here.
Speaker 2: It's not the Beach, it's a town called Long Beach.
Speaker 2: And in this town there's a college called cal State Domingus.
Speaker 2: Once I brought in the scope of where I was looking,
Speaker 2: I found some articles that seemed to match his confession,
Speaker 2: and I went to the place and confirmed the details,
Speaker 2: and then I called Detective Rick Jackson. I really thought
Speaker 2: that I had enough. I just condensed that. I mean,
Speaker 2: that case took me probably six months, wow, because he
Speaker 2: didn't always want to talk about it, and it was
Speaker 2: a lot of me going back to him and saying
Speaker 2: it couldn't have been this. I called it to to
Speaker 2: Rick Jackson, who is the original template for the Harry
Speaker 2: Bosch character in the HBO show, and he's retired now
Speaker 2: and he's sort of a mentor of mine. It's always
Speaker 2: good to have if you can have a cop call
Speaker 2: for you so you don't sound like the crazy person
Speaker 2: calling the tip line, you know, like I solved a murder. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he was like, give me, give me a minute,
Speaker 2: and he called Long Beach and coming back in twenty
Speaker 2: minutes and he was like, you're sitting down, you know. Yes,
Speaker 2: they have his case and it is still open and
Speaker 2: the victim, the victim is identified and her name is
Speaker 2: Alice Denise Duvall. Well, you could have knocked me over
Speaker 2: with a feather. I was like, well, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I know that doesn't confirm it. It doesn't. He's like,
Speaker 2: you know, it pretty much does, kiddo, Like you solved
Speaker 2: a murder very close with their family.
Speaker 1: Now it was just a cold case right at that point?
Speaker 1: Did they do any DNA?
Speaker 2: Yes? And then of course yeah. I mean you know,
Speaker 2: when I say solved a murder, then I always have
Speaker 2: to clarify I can't solve a murder. I'm not a detective.
Speaker 2: But that I did walk into Long Beach Police Department
Speaker 2: with you know, and give them all the information, the
Speaker 2: drawings I had, the articles, the overhead maps, the historical
Speaker 2: overhead maps, all that and the confession and then they
Speaker 2: were able to run a YSDR DNA and they got
Speaker 2: a partial and they cleared the case.
Speaker 1: What was Sam Little's reaction when you told him this that, well,
Speaker 1: I took your information and I went and now you're
Speaker 1: connected to this case. Were you able to tell him.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, I was on the phone with him.
Speaker 1: Did he freak out? What was his reaction?
Speaker 2: He said, he was like, you did good. I think
Speaker 2: you did good, honey, you did really good? God?
Speaker 1: What was that? What does that mean is that he's
Speaker 1: trying to be sort of a father figure to you
Speaker 1: and both of you, so you'll continue to speak with him.
Speaker 1: Or did he want to help really in a twisted way?
Speaker 2: No, he wanted he wanted all the benefits of helping.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like he wanted to help because
Speaker 2: he cared about the victims or their families, or.
Speaker 1: He wanted recognition.
Speaker 2: He wanted that recognition and also he wanted to be
Speaker 2: seen as a good guy who wanted to help.
Speaker 1: So this is one case over the span of how
Speaker 1: long how many people did he confess to killing?
Speaker 3: To you specifically, Well, there was a point at which
Speaker 3: the Texas Rangers asked me if I could back off
Speaker 3: my conversations with him about the murders because it was
Speaker 3: such an intense investigation, and you know, he could tell.
Speaker 2: A Wing that story. But if he tells a Wing
Speaker 2: that story to me and then I call in with it,
Speaker 2: you know, then that just gives them a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of other details they have to investigate if they think
Speaker 2: they've already got it. They were like, you know, don't
Speaker 2: contaminate the investigation, you know, by solving these yourself. You know.
Speaker 2: So there was a time that I did back off
Speaker 2: it when it was during the really heavy confessions. So
Speaker 2: you know, I would say I got probably thirty six
Speaker 2: or thirty seven detailed confessions out of him.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's amazing. Is this something he would have
Speaker 1: done with anybody or any journalist who would have given
Speaker 1: him the time and the patience to sit there and
Speaker 1: listen to him eventually. Or do you think it was
Speaker 1: something between the two of you that made him feel valued,
Speaker 1: whether it was a value for you, you know, your value
Speaker 1: was not his wonderful stories. The value to you was
Speaker 1: getting answers for victims, helping law enforcement, and of course
Speaker 1: the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and understanding trying to understand, you know how we're
Speaker 2: always trying to understand these egregious and aberran people who seem,
Speaker 2: you know, inhuman. You know, he did have great stories,
Speaker 2: But yeah, I was doing this to keep them talking.
Speaker 2: I was doing this to get the book. I was
Speaker 2: doing it to get the end of the story. I
Speaker 2: was doing it because at this time, by that time,
Speaker 2: you know, I was so committed to the victims. It
Speaker 2: just I feel like that I'd been living with them
Speaker 2: for so long, you know, every minute of every day,
Speaker 2: just in my thoughts and in my dreams, and I
Speaker 2: was really committed to doing everything I can to restore
Speaker 2: their names, restore their humanity, to try to give them
Speaker 2: a voice, you know, I mean, I can never give
Speaker 2: them back their voice but I thought it was a
Speaker 2: worthy effort to try.
Speaker 1: How does this relationship ultimately end? Or the confessions do
Speaker 1: they wind down naturally? I know the rangers said, back off.
Speaker 1: Do you ever return to that?
Speaker 2: I do return to them, And that was when I
Speaker 2: was I started to look more deeply into the confessions.
Speaker 2: And that was when I was solving the Alice case
Speaker 2: and trying on a couple of others, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean it's still ongoing, and how it ended. His confessions
Speaker 2: got they just got more confused. There were so many.
Speaker 2: I think they had less value to me at the end.
Speaker 2: You know, I knew he was going to die at
Speaker 2: some point, and I thought, you know, would I be comfortable?
Speaker 2: You know, I would keep a little list of questions.
Speaker 2: I'd be like, if this is the last time you
Speaker 2: get to talk to him, what are the things you
Speaker 2: think are the most important? To know You're never going
Speaker 2: to get every last bit of information out of him.
Speaker 2: We'll be left with whatever we get here. Now. I
Speaker 2: got a text at about five in the morning on
Speaker 2: December thirtieth, twenty twenty, and it said pick up your phone.
Speaker 2: It was from one of the detectives involved in the case,
Speaker 2: and an hour later, I got a call from the
Speaker 2: prison and the individual on the phone told me that
Speaker 2: Sam Little had died of complications from COVID and we're
Speaker 2: sorry for your loss. And I just didn't know what
Speaker 2: to say to that. I was like, no, don't apologize
Speaker 2: to me for this or feel like I need comfort.
Speaker 2: It was just kind of this sort of like shocking
Speaker 2: feeling of quiet because I'd been so hyper vigilant, you know,
Speaker 2: I carried my phone and a reporter's notebook around the
Speaker 2: house with me and a little side purse, because god
Speaker 2: forbid i'd be outside with the dogs and miss a
Speaker 2: call from a detective or from Sam. If I missed
Speaker 2: a call, then I'd get punished for days. So he
Speaker 2: was just very controlling in that way. I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone could have done it. No, well, I do think
Speaker 2: I have an understanding that you let them tell you
Speaker 2: who to be, you know. I let him tell me
Speaker 2: what he sort of needed. And then I became that.
Speaker 1: Are the police grateful or are they annoyed or sometimes
Speaker 1: both at your involvement in this? Yes, I answered yes
Speaker 1: on all of that.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think that I've had every kind of experience
Speaker 2: with law enforcement on this there is a general resistance
Speaker 2: to the press from law enforcement. It tends to be
Speaker 2: an insular community. So that's a classic. You know, there's
Speaker 2: always going to be a back and forth, you know,
Speaker 2: especially when you're talking to the FBI. You know, they
Speaker 2: really have very specific questions you can ask and are
Speaker 2: monitoring you, and you have to go through a lot
Speaker 2: of people, and so, you know, I think that many
Speaker 2: of the cops were incredibly gracious with me. I say grateful,
Speaker 2: They were gracious. They helped me. I had a question
Speaker 2: for them, you know, how to look at something or
Speaker 2: how to understand something, and they were very supportive for
Speaker 2: the most part, or you wouldn't talk to me at all.
Speaker 1: So Sam Little does one last thing before he does,
Speaker 1: and I know that it must have been a shock
Speaker 1: to you. He leaves you everything right in his will.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he left me all of his possessions.
Speaker 1: I mean, that must have just been like, what the hell.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I knew that he was naming me his
Speaker 2: next of kin because I wanted to donate his brain
Speaker 2: to these neuroscientists at UC Irvine and at Stanford, and
Speaker 2: he also knew that. And then you know, it was
Speaker 2: the middle of COVID when he died, there were meat
Speaker 2: trucks at the coroner's office. His paperwork wasn't in order,
Speaker 2: and you know, by the time I could have gotten
Speaker 2: his brain, it was useless. So that was like a
Speaker 2: real shame. But I didn't know that that was going
Speaker 2: to happen. I just I had hoped it would happen differently.
Speaker 2: You know, I was trying to make a silk purse
Speaker 2: out of a sow's ear. I'm like, listen, you guys,
Speaker 2: I'm not being gohole, but this brain needs to be
Speaker 2: kept at this temperature, you know, until we work this out.
Speaker 2: But you know they weren't or weren't willing or couldn't
Speaker 2: comply at the time. So yeah, I was so surprised
Speaker 2: when the boxes of his stuff showed up. And then
Speaker 2: I tell this one story about Sam that I think
Speaker 2: really encompasses, you know how many levels he was always
Speaker 2: working on. So at the very end our last conversation
Speaker 2: before then he went to the medical unit and I
Speaker 2: didn't talk to him again for ten days before he died.
Speaker 2: He was like, you know, you sent me ram in,
Speaker 2: but you didn't send me a hot pot or just
Speaker 2: like these other bitches. You know how popular. I am
Speaker 2: right now, you know how much I can make from,
Speaker 2: you know, just drawing my hand for somebody. And then
Speaker 2: I got a letter in the mail from the prison
Speaker 2: and I opened it and he left me one thousand
Speaker 2: and ninety seven dollars and something since and I was like,
Speaker 2: he had this money all along, He had all this
Speaker 2: money all along.
Speaker 1: What did all of that mean? Ultimately, I mean, just
Speaker 1: to end this, Why did he do that? What did
Speaker 1: that symbolize to you?
Speaker 2: He was always on the make. You know, you couldn't
Speaker 2: trust him at all. I could never trust him. I
Speaker 2: could only trust that the whatever barter I offered him
Speaker 2: at whatever time was valuable enough for him to hold
Speaker 2: up his end of the bargain, or I'd be gone,
Speaker 2: blabbing her whole story to another reporter, robably gone.
Speaker 1: Clearly another illustration of a transactional relationship that sounds like
Speaker 1: a terrible thing for me to say. Transactional relationship sounds
Speaker 1: so cold. But you are, in your book, are allowing
Speaker 1: people to understand just a little bit more about someone
Speaker 1: who affected so many people and cost terror for people.
Speaker 1: You know, and you also this work while I know
Speaker 1: it has gone into a book that you benefit from
Speaker 1: this work has helped close chapters for families hopefully moving forward, because,
Speaker 1: as you said, this is an open investigation that must
Speaker 1: feel gratifying to a certain extent, but it also has
Speaker 1: to be still, like is the stink off of you yet?
Speaker 1: From Sam Little and spending all that time listening to
Speaker 1: everything he had to say.
Speaker 2: Never it really was the story of a lifetime in
Speaker 2: some ways, you know that story wait for bet are
Speaker 2: scared of? You know. I was sure I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel equal to it. You know. I was
Speaker 2: so overwhelmed by all of a sudden dealing with all
Speaker 2: this law enforcement and legal issues, and you know, having
Speaker 2: my record subpoenad, I thought, this is going to be
Speaker 2: the one I can't do. It's going to be the
Speaker 2: one I fail, you know, And I failed in many ways.
Speaker 2: I made many mistakes, and those are all there in
Speaker 2: the book too. But you know, I do think that
Speaker 2: it's a journey, and yes, we do want to see
Speaker 2: inside the mind of monsters, you know, and we also
Speaker 2: want to see into the heart of humanity. I hope
Speaker 2: that I can both bring attention to the issue of
Speaker 2: violence against women and the dismissal of violence against women,
Speaker 2: particularly marginalized women. That is my great hope.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly
Speaker 1: right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi. Our associate
Speaker 1: producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Speaker 1: Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive
Speaker 1: produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow
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