November 13, 2023 • 38 mins
What would it be like to interview a serial killer? New York Times best-selling author Jillian Lauren knows. Her haunting account of confronting Samuel Little is detailed in her book Behold the Monster. In our chat, Jillian explains how she convinced Little to tell her where one unknown victim was buried.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language, along with references
to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I drum those yellow nails on the table, and he
was like, you got me, Okay, you got me? What
do you want to know? Do you want to know
about the first one?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical
true crime podcast tenfold More Wicked and the co host
of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled
around the world interviewing people for the show, and they
are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true
(00:49):
crime stories, and now we want to tell you those
stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More
Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make,
good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories
behind the stories. What would it be like to interview
a serial killer? New York Times bestselling author Jillian Lauren knows.
(01:14):
Her haunting account of confronting Samuel Little is detailed in
her book Behold the Monster. It's an amazing story, and
in our chat, Jillian explains how she convinced Little to
tell her where one unknown victim was buried. I read
an article that said that Samuel Little has been underreported
(01:36):
because he's black. Do you think that that's right? Do
you think that this is some sort of racism within
how we report on serial killers, that they are the
typical white male.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I think that is a piece of it. I think
a larger piece of it is that because his victims
were You know, there's this concept that is not mine,
but I use it and have sort of popularized it recently,
being less did you know that there are certain victims
that are more dead, and certain victims that are lested,
(02:09):
and victims that are lesstad were the victims that were
cherry picked by Sam Little because he knew that people
wouldn't listen, wouldn't care. They were largely women of color,
sex workers, not all of them, often addicted, marginalized women
who lived on the fringes of society, who you know,
(02:31):
in a sense, were considered less human already. And when
a quite beautiful co ed goes missing on spring break,
that person is the most dead. It'll make all the
front page news, and even Sam's conviction for three murders
in the eighties didn't get all that much coverage. It
(02:54):
wasn't until this second round of jailhouse confessions where he
really showed the world till he was stopped professing his innocence,
that he was exposed for who he was and anyone
started to take interest.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, let's do a very short summary of Samuel Little
before we really can get into the victims and then
your relationship with him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Sam Little was, as I have been told by his family,
trouble from the day he was born. Because I think
a lot of we want to know their stories because
we're looking for the whys. He was molested by a
member of his family when he was four years old.
He wound up in a reform school, the Boys Industrial School,
(03:38):
at the age of thirteen, for stealing a bicycle for
nineteen months, and it was a famously abusive place and
he sustained a lot of head trauma there. He began
boxing there. He wound up spending you know, until he
was twenty five, in and out of institutions, the Ohio
(03:59):
State Reform may which you will know from Shawshank Redemption.
So when he got out of there, you know, he
wanted to be a pimp. He wanted to be gangster.
He wanted to be a fighter. He was a middleweight
boxing champ in prison, and at that time it was
a funnel sometimes to the professional fights. And it turned
(04:21):
out that he really just needed time to find his
true passion, which was murder.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
How did that start for him? He's obviously out and
free at some point. Is there some sort of a
trigger for him that changed everything?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Like many serial killers will, hear in an early interest
in pornography or violent pornography, and in Sam's days, so
we're talking about nineteen fifty four that he was going
into dime stores and stealing true detective magazines and he
started to read about strangulation and he got fixated on
(05:01):
it and had always been fixated on necks since a
little girl in his fifth grade class who was stuck
up was mean to him and she had a long neck,
and he fantasized about strangling her, fantasized about strangling his teacher,
and he was unable to have sexual relations without strangling
(05:24):
a woman. It wasn't until he was almost thirty that
he killed his first victim, but he had been thinking
about it and building up to it all that time. Eventually,
the girlfriend he was with. Her name was Jean. She
was thirty years older than him. They were together for
fifteen years, and she was a master shoplifter and they
(05:47):
drove around the country together and she would shoplift and
he would sometimes shoplift by date, but mostly she would
to support them, and then he'd go out at night
and elicit sex workers or you know, a vulnerable woman
at a bar.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Ultimately, what is the number of victims? I know it
varies based on what he says, what the police said,
what he was convicted on. What are the number of
victims that we think it is before you meet him?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It was only three. He was convicted on three DNA hits,
three case to case hits that the cold case special
section in Los Angeles Police Department had a grant from
the Department of Justice to screen cold case evidence and
they were screening evidence from the eighties and that's how
(06:35):
they got these hits. The number of official confessions that
he gave to the FBI and local police jurisdictions is
ninety three. The current number of salts is sixty two,
and those were cleared or cleared by exceptional means. I
(06:56):
had no idea, no idea.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Let's go back. He's been convicted and what happens? Do
you see the story and you think, Wow, this is
an opportunity to get into somebody's head who really is depraved,
and to try to figure out what happened. And if
you can help in any way, you write him a letter,
reach out to him. And when did that happen?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, the story found me. I was working on a
mystery novel and I scored an interview with this famous
police detective, detective Mitzi Roberts. Who if anyone's a fan
of Michael Connolly, and I think everyone's a fan of
Michael Connolly. The character of Renee Ballard is based on her.
She's a tough interview to get. She's a tough interview
(07:40):
to do too, And so I was interviewing her about
some historical LA crimes, just about procedure, about her career
in general. At the very end of the interview, as
I often do, try to end an interview on a
high note, I said, what are you the most proud
of She said, I'm proud of them all. But I
(08:00):
did catch this serial killer once and I was like,
I buried the lead, you know, And she said, I'm
not the one asking the questions here. And so she
told me about Sam, how she found him, about the
national manhunt for him because he was transient, so they
(08:21):
had to locate him, didn't know if he was still
out there killing or not. I was fascinated by both
the forensics the detective work that went into it, and
also she told me that, you know, she'd gone on
this cross country trip talking to detectives who all thought
they had cold cases that really looked like Sam's, mo
(08:44):
that they could match up with him. I mean the
benefit of his enormous rap sheet is that it's often
easy to tell he was incarcerated on that day, so
it wouldn't have been possible. It's helpful in that way
to know where he was. But she said that alikes
just wasn't able to really mobilize the effort. There are
(09:05):
so few resources for cold cases. Who cares. There's no
one advocating for these missing women. Many times there are
no family members coming forward. There were transgender victims who
were likely misgendered, and you know their friends wouldn't have
come forward because it was illegal. Yeah, so I thought,
(09:27):
this is an underreported story about a serial killer who
possibly killed many more women, and I could put some
heat on it. You know. My own trauma really drove
me a little bit, gave me that extra mph when
it was like, oh gosh, I have to really try
to get into a prison. Figure out how do I
(09:47):
get into a prison? And so I wrote them a letter,
and then I applied to get my visitor's clearance, you know,
and it takes months. So I exchanged these letters with him,
and then the day came and I was able to
go and visit him in prison.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Set the scene for me about where this is happening
and what it looks like. Is this a contact visit
where you actually get to see him face to face
or is there a glass in between you or a mesh.
I've done to all three when I worked for then
since clinic at UT so I mean, I've had contact
visits with killers where you're there on the other side
of a round table. What was your experience with him?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I had no idea what to expect. First of all,
all I knew I knew a couple of scumbags who
had done some time at California State Prison, Los Angeles.
So I called them and they said, you know, you'll
never get an appointment, get there at six in the morning.
Wait online. They started finding the cars in at nine thirty,
and you know you'll get a number and then wait
(10:49):
and bring quarters because you're not cool if you don't
bring quarters. And all you can have is quarters in
a clear bag, quarters, key fob, and your glass, this
prescription and some photographs.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
What okay, now you have to explain all of that
except the key fave and probably the photographs.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well you can because in order to bring in glasses
or anything that you know, i'd I have to show
my prescription.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh wow, okay, what about the quarters, Well.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
The quarters are for the vending machine. So so the
answer is it was a contact visit and that is
not what I was expecting at all. Oh when I
you know, they're like, just go to B block. Okay.
So I walked through the California desert. It is one
hundred and ten degrees in the shade out there. It
(11:37):
is you know, there's a real filling, a biblical kind
of punishment to this prison. You know, mile high fences
with constantina wire and the guard towers and the big cages.
You walk through. All of that I was expecting, but
I was not expecting to walk into a room where
there were just tables and and families sitting there, like
(12:03):
you know, inmates holding their babies, and you know, in
an area for the kids to play with legos, and
a photo booth and vending machines all around. Microwaves, I
was really surprised. I had fully expected the you know,
like glass, you know, hand on the glass with the phone,
(12:24):
and there was that in the corner. But they always
put me a front and center. I was also always
being recorded.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Was that the case for everybody or just in this case.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
It's the case for everybody. Everyone's always being recorded. There's
you know, nineteen cameras in that room. In this case,
I didn't know that I had inserted myself into the
middle of a federal investigation. So just as cops, federal
Texas Rangers, local cops are about to try to crack
(12:58):
this guy, this journalist shows up, I think the Texas
Ranger James Holland, who is you know, one of the
main players in the current you know, Sam Little investigation
that's still ongoing.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So Sam Little sits down across from you. You have a
contact visit, which was terrifying.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
No, he doesn't sit down. He's already sitting. He's in
a wheelchair. Oh. I was looking at the door the
other inmates were coming in and out of. But there
must have been like a special door for his disability
because he rolled up behind me.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Oh WHOA. Okay, So he had been convicted of three.
Had he confessed to any others at this point, Well.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
There were attempted murders that you know, got pled down
to kidnapping and assault in San Diego. He was acquitted
in Florida in a latchu of Florida for the murder
of Patricia Mount because they said there was like a
lack of physical evidence. And then there was a failure
to indict by a grand jury for the murder of
(13:57):
Melinda La Prix in Pasca Go in Mississippi. So he
had never confessed to anything. He always just said, you know,
DNA doesn't prove that I did anything, It just proves
that I was there. Also, there was so much evidence
destroyed there. You know, he murdered in the South and
a lot of that evidence was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
(14:19):
You know, he professed his innocence until the moment that
he didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
What is his demeanor is he aloof is he friendly?
What's he like?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh, he's friendly. It was seventy eight. But you know,
my feeling about him was like that he looked like
a ghost. There was just an absence to him immediately,
and he said, ooh, we you're my angel, come to
visit me from heaven. God knew I was lonely, so
(14:52):
he sent you to me, and from there it was
transaction after transaction for years with him.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Did you yourself as his friend at all and confident
on or? I mean, what was the dynamic?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I mean the dynamic was you know, I felt like
I was at war, but that war looked a lot
like friendship. There was, you know, a rapport I had
to establish with him. These people aren't a joke and
it's not a TV movie of the week, so I knew, like,
just don't go into a room and start lying to him.
(15:24):
It took me being willing to be vulnerable, being willing
to tell him the truth in order for him to
start opening up to me. And you know, at the end,
I think he was pretty much telling me the truth
to the best of his ability.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
What were the things that you were telling him about you?
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I told him anything He asked, well, I talked about
my kids and you know, my meat loaf, and gave
him what I like to think of is a window
into what it's like to actually be human. And he
would pretend to sort of understand that and want to
know that. And he had advice about parent garranting. But
(16:02):
you know, in his fantasy life, if you had just
met the right woman. Now, he said to me, if
I had just met you, I would have been a
whole different man. You know, we'd have kids. So you know,
he had this really positive self concept and you know
he'd been wronged by the world. He was a victim.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Oh gosh. Katherine Ramslin and I have talked about that
the forensic psychologists, where she says people with psychopathy oftentimes
it's a poor me.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
The serial killer even oh yeah, btk.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
She said it was every time she interviewed him and
was lamenting when things would go wrong, not in just
his life but with the murders, and it's as if
that was normal, like, well, shit, I just got a
parking ticket. She said. It was like that. It was like,
I can't believe this happened. He had that attitude too,
Sam Little Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I mean when you say, like I got a parking ticket.
I have a great example. I had a conversation with
him where he said, you know, all sins are equal.
I'm forgiven. He leaved. You know, he was right with Jesus.
He was saved. He was forgiven. Thought all you needed
to do was ask every time he killed somebody, he
asked to be forgiven, and he was forgiven. That's Saint Paul,
(17:11):
that's the Bible. And I was like, I don't agree
with you, and he said, that's Jesus, that's the Bible.
And I said, you know, I think even there's a
hierarchy in the Bible, and he goes, no, killing is
no different from stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.
I was like, well, there are like the ten commandments,
(17:34):
so let's say one number one. And he couldn't get it.
He didn't even know the first commandment. And it's just
like Jesus is not your apologist, but it's complicity bias, right,
Like he found justification for what he wanted. He wanted
and he took There was no question that that was
(17:56):
what he deserved and that God made him that way.
Got you know, I said, well, it sounds like you
were lonely, He said, no, I was hungry. I didn't
ask to be born liking cake.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
What did he say his motivation was? Could he articulate
anything at all about what was going on in his
screwed up mind during all of this love?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You know, he said, you know, everyone has it wrong
about me. I don't hate women. I love women. All
I ever wanted them to do is cry in my arms.
And then, you know, and then they snubbed me. Then
they turned away from me, and then they turned their
noses up, you know, and there's snobby bitches.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Was he enamored with you? Do you think?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
No? I don't. I think he didn't want to be alone.
I think he wanted a friend and anyone a journalist,
and then you know, I think by the time he
started confessing, I don't think it was his impulse. His
impulse was attention. I mean, you know, he had all
these detectives coming, you know, bringing him oranges from Florida,
(19:15):
bringing him barbecue from Kentucky, just flattering, flattering, flattering him,
getting these confessions out of him, trying to match their
cold cases. He was having the time of his life. Yeah,
he was getting McDonald's milkshakes he was getting to talk
to this journalist. He was just really having a good time.
(19:36):
But then he started to feel the effects of the fame,
get the fan letters and people paying for traces of
his hand.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Ugh, it's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
It's disgusting. And you know, once he started to get that,
then he started to really enjoy it and played to
it and start to get into the ego place where
he was just like, I did this thing, you know,
like I did the most in the world. I was
the best. You know, I did this in the shadows.
(20:12):
No one. They just thought I was a petty thief
and the whole time I was a murderer. I fooled
them all.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
How does the first confession to you happen and then
the rest just spill out?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, once the damn broke. I mean it was always
back and forth and he would mess with me. But
you know how the first confession happened was you know,
I'd been sitting with him, like in total for over
six hours, and I was just like, this is it.
If he keeps bullshiting me, I'm out, Like I don't
(20:44):
have this kind of time. I'm missing my kid's soccer game.
You know, I'm not going to sit here and listen
to how innocent he is and how they've done him wrong.
He started to tell a story about this woman and
get kind of lost in his own mind, and he
stopped him and he said I want a TV and
I said I want things too. He's like, are you
(21:06):
going to get me a TV? And I was like,
I don't know, am I? And he was like a
drum those yellow nails on the table and he was like,
you got me, Okay, you got me. What do you
want to know? Do you want to know about the
first one? And then he just started this real like
incantation of murders. I mean it was like thirteen that
(21:27):
first day. I was, you know, I was just keeping
my eye on the ball. At that point, I was like,
there is no room here for sentimentality or her or shock.
Just remember every single thing he says, Remember every single
thing he does.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Did he know everybody's name?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
He knew almost no one's name.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Because they were anonymous to him.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, I mean he didn't spend enough time. The murder
that I solved from bottom to top was a woman
named Alice, and he knew her name. He remembered her
name because he thought it was a pretty name, and
that was actually one of the things that helped us
saw that case.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So tell me what happens with Ellis, when it happens,
and where and all of them.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So, in the middle of this nationwide investigation, we're hit
with COVID, Black Lives Matter protests are happening. Cold cases
got really put to the side for a while, and
I just had all the confessions and all this information,
and I just decided to start really exploring them in depth,
(22:35):
one by one, just in the same way I was
exploring these women's lives, you know, by meeting their families,
by walking their footsteps. So I began to, you know,
follow his confession, Like he gives very specific directions that
he drove. And if you're not in Los Angeles, none
of this is going to make sense to you. But
(22:56):
I can just say that basically, he was saying he
left the body under underpass on a street that was
on its way to the beach. Except that was in
North South Street, and here the beach is west. It's
the east west streets that go to the beach. You
don't get more west than this beach, you know. I
found the place he picked her up I found the
(23:18):
liquor store she went, and I could not find the
place that he said he dumped his body. And I
just started thinking about things that didn't often gel in
his confessions, and one of those was how long he drove,
because he drove so much. I mean, his cars were
where he killed. He drove from one city to another,
(23:41):
you know, almost every day, if not every three days.
He was always on the move, so he had a
weird concept of driving and time. And also this is
when he was on crack, when his mind started to
get a little more adult, and it was possible that
he took a turn he didn't remember, and he said
(24:04):
he was going to Dominique College. And then it started
to occur to me that, you know, everything was right
about it, except if you took this one turn, you'd
be going to Long Beach. Long Beach is south from here.
It's not the Beach, it's a town called Long Beach.
And in this town there's a college called cal State Domingus.
(24:28):
Once I brought in the scope of where I was looking,
I found some articles that seemed to match his confession,
and I went to the place and confirmed the details,
and then I called Detective Rick Jackson. I really thought
that I had enough. I just condensed that. I mean,
(24:48):
that case took me probably six months, wow, because he
didn't always want to talk about it, and it was
a lot of me going back to him and saying
it couldn't have been this. I called it to to
Rick Jackson, who is the original template for the Harry
Bosch character in the HBO show, and he's retired now
(25:09):
and he's sort of a mentor of mine. It's always
good to have if you can have a cop call
for you so you don't sound like the crazy person
calling the tip line, you know, like I solved a murder. Yeah.
And he was like, give me, give me a minute,
and he called Long Beach and coming back in twenty
(25:31):
minutes and he was like, you're sitting down, you know. Yes,
they have his case and it is still open and
the victim, the victim is identified and her name is
Alice Denise Duvall. Well, you could have knocked me over
with a feather. I was like, well, you know, I mean,
I know that doesn't confirm it. It doesn't. He's like,
(25:55):
you know, it pretty much does, kiddo, Like you solved
a murder very close with their family.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Now it was just a cold case right at that point?
Did they do any DNA?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yes? And then of course yeah. I mean you know,
when I say solved a murder, then I always have
to clarify I can't solve a murder. I'm not a detective.
But that I did walk into Long Beach Police Department
with you know, and give them all the information, the
drawings I had, the articles, the overhead maps, the historical
overhead maps, all that and the confession and then they
(26:31):
were able to run a YSDR DNA and they got
a partial and they cleared the case.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
What was Sam Little's reaction when you told him this that, well,
I took your information and I went and now you're
connected to this case. Were you able to tell him.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
That, yeah, I was on the phone with him.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Did he freak out? What was his reaction?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
He said, he was like, you did good. I think
you did good, honey, you did really good? God?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
What was that? What does that mean is that he's
trying to be sort of a father figure to you
and both of you, so you'll continue to speak with him.
Or did he want to help really in a twisted way?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No, he wanted he wanted all the benefits of helping.
I mean, it's not like he wanted to help because
he cared about the victims or their families, or.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
He wanted recognition.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He wanted that recognition and also he wanted to be
seen as a good guy who wanted to help.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So this is one case over the span of how
long how many people did he confess to killing?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
To you specifically, Well, there was a point at which
the Texas Rangers asked me if I could back off
my conversations with him about the murders because it was
such an intense investigation, and you know, he could tell.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
A Wing that story. But if he tells a Wing
that story to me and then I call in with it,
you know, then that just gives them a whole bunch
of other details they have to investigate if they think
they've already got it. They were like, you know, don't
contaminate the investigation, you know, by solving these yourself. You know.
(28:14):
So there was a time that I did back off
it when it was during the really heavy confessions. So
you know, I would say I got probably thirty six
or thirty seven detailed confessions out of him.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean, that's amazing. Is this something he would have
done with anybody or any journalist who would have given
him the time and the patience to sit there and
listen to him eventually. Or do you think it was
something between the two of you that made him feel valued,
whether it was a value for you, you know, your value
(28:50):
was not his wonderful stories. The value to you was
getting answers for victims, helping law enforcement, and of course
the book.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, and understanding trying to understand, you know how we're
always trying to understand these egregious and aberran people who seem,
you know, inhuman. You know, he did have great stories,
But yeah, I was doing this to keep them talking.
I was doing this to get the book. I was
doing it to get the end of the story. I
(29:18):
was doing it because at this time, by that time,
you know, I was so committed to the victims. It
just I feel like that I'd been living with them
for so long, you know, every minute of every day,
just in my thoughts and in my dreams, and I
was really committed to doing everything I can to restore
(29:40):
their names, restore their humanity, to try to give them
a voice, you know, I mean, I can never give
them back their voice but I thought it was a
worthy effort to try.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
How does this relationship ultimately end? Or the confessions do
they wind down naturally? I know the rangers said, back off.
Do you ever return to that?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I do return to them, And that was when I
was I started to look more deeply into the confessions.
And that was when I was solving the Alice case
and trying on a couple of others, you know, I
mean it's still ongoing, and how it ended. His confessions
got they just got more confused. There were so many.
(30:27):
I think they had less value to me at the end.
You know, I knew he was going to die at
some point, and I thought, you know, would I be comfortable?
You know, I would keep a little list of questions.
I'd be like, if this is the last time you
get to talk to him, what are the things you
think are the most important? To know You're never going
to get every last bit of information out of him.
(30:50):
We'll be left with whatever we get here. Now. I
got a text at about five in the morning on
December thirtieth, twenty twenty, and it said pick up your phone.
It was from one of the detectives involved in the case,
and an hour later, I got a call from the
prison and the individual on the phone told me that
(31:11):
Sam Little had died of complications from COVID and we're
sorry for your loss. And I just didn't know what
to say to that. I was like, no, don't apologize
to me for this or feel like I need comfort.
It was just kind of this sort of like shocking
feeling of quiet because I'd been so hyper vigilant, you know,
(31:33):
I carried my phone and a reporter's notebook around the
house with me and a little side purse, because god
forbid i'd be outside with the dogs and miss a
call from a detective or from Sam. If I missed
a call, then I'd get punished for days. So he
(31:54):
was just very controlling in that way. I don't think
anyone could have done it. No, well, I do think
I have an understanding that you let them tell you
who to be, you know. I let him tell me
what he sort of needed. And then I became that.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Are the police grateful or are they annoyed or sometimes
both at your involvement in this? Yes, I answered yes
on all of that.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Okay, I think that I've had every kind of experience
with law enforcement on this there is a general resistance
to the press from law enforcement. It tends to be
an insular community. So that's a classic. You know, there's
always going to be a back and forth, you know,
(32:41):
especially when you're talking to the FBI. You know, they
really have very specific questions you can ask and are
monitoring you, and you have to go through a lot
of people, and so, you know, I think that many
of the cops were incredibly gracious with me. I say grateful,
They were gracious. They helped me. I had a question
(33:05):
for them, you know, how to look at something or
how to understand something, and they were very supportive for
the most part, or you wouldn't talk to me at all.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
So Sam Little does one last thing before he does,
and I know that it must have been a shock
to you. He leaves you everything right in his will.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, he left me all of his possessions.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I mean, that must have just been like, what the hell.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yes, but I knew that he was naming me his
next of kin because I wanted to donate his brain
to these neuroscientists at UC Irvine and at Stanford, and
he also knew that. And then you know, it was
the middle of COVID when he died, there were meat
trucks at the coroner's office. His paperwork wasn't in order,
(33:56):
and you know, by the time I could have gotten
his brain, it was useless. So that was like a
real shame. But I didn't know that that was going
to happen. I just I had hoped it would happen differently.
You know, I was trying to make a silk purse
out of a sow's ear. I'm like, listen, you guys,
I'm not being gohole, but this brain needs to be
(34:17):
kept at this temperature, you know, until we work this out.
But you know they weren't or weren't willing or couldn't
comply at the time. So yeah, I was so surprised
when the boxes of his stuff showed up. And then
I tell this one story about Sam that I think
really encompasses, you know how many levels he was always
(34:39):
working on. So at the very end our last conversation
before then he went to the medical unit and I
didn't talk to him again for ten days before he died.
He was like, you know, you sent me ram in,
but you didn't send me a hot pot or just
like these other bitches. You know how popular. I am
right now, you know how much I can make from,
(35:03):
you know, just drawing my hand for somebody. And then
I got a letter in the mail from the prison
and I opened it and he left me one thousand
and ninety seven dollars and something since and I was like,
he had this money all along, He had all this
money all along.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
What did all of that mean? Ultimately, I mean, just
to end this, Why did he do that? What did
that symbolize to you?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
He was always on the make. You know, you couldn't
trust him at all. I could never trust him. I
could only trust that the whatever barter I offered him
at whatever time was valuable enough for him to hold
up his end of the bargain, or I'd be gone,
blabbing her whole story to another reporter, robably gone.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Clearly another illustration of a transactional relationship that sounds like
a terrible thing for me to say. Transactional relationship sounds
so cold. But you are, in your book, are allowing
people to understand just a little bit more about someone
who affected so many people and cost terror for people.
(36:15):
You know, and you also this work while I know
it has gone into a book that you benefit from
this work has helped close chapters for families hopefully moving forward, because,
as you said, this is an open investigation that must
feel gratifying to a certain extent, but it also has
to be still, like is the stink off of you yet?
(36:37):
From Sam Little and spending all that time listening to
everything he had to say.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Never it really was the story of a lifetime in
some ways, you know that story wait for bet are
scared of? You know. I was sure I couldn't do it.
I didn't feel equal to it. You know. I was
so overwhelmed by all of a sudden dealing with all
this law enforcement and legal issues, and you know, having
(37:06):
my record subpoenad, I thought, this is going to be
the one I can't do. It's going to be the
one I fail, you know, And I failed in many ways.
I made many mistakes, and those are all there in
the book too. But you know, I do think that
it's a journey, and yes, we do want to see
(37:29):
inside the mind of monsters, you know, and we also
want to see into the heart of humanity. I hope
that I can both bring attention to the issue of
violence against women and the dismissal of violence against women,
particularly marginalized women. That is my great hope.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly
right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi. Our associate
producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive
(38:25):
produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow
Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked
and on Twitter at tenfold more. And if you know
of a historical crime that could use some attention from
the crew at tenfold more Wicked, email us at info
at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also take your suggestions for
(38:46):
true crime authors for Wicked Words
This story contains adult content and language, along with references
to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I drum those yellow nails on the table, and he
was like, you got me, Okay, you got me? What
do you want to know? Do you want to know
about the first one?
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical
true crime podcast tenfold More Wicked and the co host
of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled
around the world interviewing people for the show, and they
are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true
(00:49):
crime stories, and now we want to tell you those
stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More
Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make,
good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories
behind the stories. What would it be like to interview
a serial killer? New York Times bestselling author Jillian Lauren knows.
(01:14):
Her haunting account of confronting Samuel Little is detailed in
her book Behold the Monster. It's an amazing story, and
in our chat, Jillian explains how she convinced Little to
tell her where one unknown victim was buried. I read
an article that said that Samuel Little has been underreported
(01:36):
because he's black. Do you think that that's right? Do
you think that this is some sort of racism within
how we report on serial killers, that they are the
typical white male.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I think that is a piece of it. I think
a larger piece of it is that because his victims
were You know, there's this concept that is not mine,
but I use it and have sort of popularized it recently,
being less did you know that there are certain victims
that are more dead, and certain victims that are lested,
(02:09):
and victims that are lesstad were the victims that were
cherry picked by Sam Little because he knew that people
wouldn't listen, wouldn't care. They were largely women of color,
sex workers, not all of them, often addicted, marginalized women
who lived on the fringes of society, who you know,
(02:31):
in a sense, were considered less human already. And when
a quite beautiful co ed goes missing on spring break,
that person is the most dead. It'll make all the
front page news, and even Sam's conviction for three murders
in the eighties didn't get all that much coverage. It
(02:54):
wasn't until this second round of jailhouse confessions where he
really showed the world till he was stopped professing his innocence,
that he was exposed for who he was and anyone
started to take interest.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Well, let's do a very short summary of Samuel Little
before we really can get into the victims and then
your relationship with him.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Sam Little was, as I have been told by his family,
trouble from the day he was born. Because I think
a lot of we want to know their stories because
we're looking for the whys. He was molested by a
member of his family when he was four years old.
He wound up in a reform school, the Boys Industrial School,
(03:38):
at the age of thirteen, for stealing a bicycle for
nineteen months, and it was a famously abusive place and
he sustained a lot of head trauma there. He began
boxing there. He wound up spending you know, until he
was twenty five, in and out of institutions, the Ohio
(03:59):
State Reform may which you will know from Shawshank Redemption.
So when he got out of there, you know, he
wanted to be a pimp. He wanted to be gangster.
He wanted to be a fighter. He was a middleweight
boxing champ in prison, and at that time it was
a funnel sometimes to the professional fights. And it turned
(04:21):
out that he really just needed time to find his
true passion, which was murder.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
How did that start for him? He's obviously out and
free at some point. Is there some sort of a
trigger for him that changed everything?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Like many serial killers will, hear in an early interest
in pornography or violent pornography, and in Sam's days, so
we're talking about nineteen fifty four that he was going
into dime stores and stealing true detective magazines and he
started to read about strangulation and he got fixated on
(05:01):
it and had always been fixated on necks since a
little girl in his fifth grade class who was stuck
up was mean to him and she had a long neck,
and he fantasized about strangling her, fantasized about strangling his teacher,
and he was unable to have sexual relations without strangling
(05:24):
a woman. It wasn't until he was almost thirty that
he killed his first victim, but he had been thinking
about it and building up to it all that time. Eventually,
the girlfriend he was with. Her name was Jean. She
was thirty years older than him. They were together for
fifteen years, and she was a master shoplifter and they
(05:47):
drove around the country together and she would shoplift and
he would sometimes shoplift by date, but mostly she would
to support them, and then he'd go out at night
and elicit sex workers or you know, a vulnerable woman
at a bar.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Ultimately, what is the number of victims? I know it
varies based on what he says, what the police said,
what he was convicted on. What are the number of
victims that we think it is before you meet him?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It was only three. He was convicted on three DNA hits,
three case to case hits that the cold case special
section in Los Angeles Police Department had a grant from
the Department of Justice to screen cold case evidence and
they were screening evidence from the eighties and that's how
(06:35):
they got these hits. The number of official confessions that
he gave to the FBI and local police jurisdictions is
ninety three. The current number of salts is sixty two,
and those were cleared or cleared by exceptional means. I
(06:56):
had no idea, no idea.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Let's go back. He's been convicted and what happens? Do
you see the story and you think, Wow, this is
an opportunity to get into somebody's head who really is depraved,
and to try to figure out what happened. And if
you can help in any way, you write him a letter,
reach out to him. And when did that happen?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, the story found me. I was working on a
mystery novel and I scored an interview with this famous
police detective, detective Mitzi Roberts. Who if anyone's a fan
of Michael Connolly, and I think everyone's a fan of
Michael Connolly. The character of Renee Ballard is based on her.
She's a tough interview to get. She's a tough interview
(07:40):
to do too, And so I was interviewing her about
some historical LA crimes, just about procedure, about her career
in general. At the very end of the interview, as
I often do, try to end an interview on a
high note, I said, what are you the most proud
of She said, I'm proud of them all. But I
(08:00):
did catch this serial killer once and I was like,
I buried the lead, you know, And she said, I'm
not the one asking the questions here. And so she
told me about Sam, how she found him, about the
national manhunt for him because he was transient, so they
(08:21):
had to locate him, didn't know if he was still
out there killing or not. I was fascinated by both
the forensics the detective work that went into it, and
also she told me that, you know, she'd gone on
this cross country trip talking to detectives who all thought
they had cold cases that really looked like Sam's, mo
(08:44):
that they could match up with him. I mean the
benefit of his enormous rap sheet is that it's often
easy to tell he was incarcerated on that day, so
it wouldn't have been possible. It's helpful in that way
to know where he was. But she said that alikes
just wasn't able to really mobilize the effort. There are
(09:05):
so few resources for cold cases. Who cares. There's no
one advocating for these missing women. Many times there are
no family members coming forward. There were transgender victims who
were likely misgendered, and you know their friends wouldn't have
come forward because it was illegal. Yeah, so I thought,
(09:27):
this is an underreported story about a serial killer who
possibly killed many more women, and I could put some
heat on it. You know. My own trauma really drove
me a little bit, gave me that extra mph when
it was like, oh gosh, I have to really try
to get into a prison. Figure out how do I
(09:47):
get into a prison? And so I wrote them a letter,
and then I applied to get my visitor's clearance, you know,
and it takes months. So I exchanged these letters with him,
and then the day came and I was able to
go and visit him in prison.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Set the scene for me about where this is happening
and what it looks like. Is this a contact visit
where you actually get to see him face to face
or is there a glass in between you or a mesh.
I've done to all three when I worked for then
since clinic at UT so I mean, I've had contact
visits with killers where you're there on the other side
of a round table. What was your experience with him?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I had no idea what to expect. First of all,
all I knew I knew a couple of scumbags who
had done some time at California State Prison, Los Angeles.
So I called them and they said, you know, you'll
never get an appointment, get there at six in the morning.
Wait online. They started finding the cars in at nine thirty,
and you know you'll get a number and then wait
(10:49):
and bring quarters because you're not cool if you don't
bring quarters. And all you can have is quarters in
a clear bag, quarters, key fob, and your glass, this
prescription and some photographs.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
What okay, now you have to explain all of that
except the key fave and probably the photographs.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Well you can because in order to bring in glasses
or anything that you know, i'd I have to show
my prescription.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh wow, okay, what about the quarters, Well.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
The quarters are for the vending machine. So so the
answer is it was a contact visit and that is
not what I was expecting at all. Oh when I
you know, they're like, just go to B block. Okay.
So I walked through the California desert. It is one
hundred and ten degrees in the shade out there. It
(11:37):
is you know, there's a real filling, a biblical kind
of punishment to this prison. You know, mile high fences
with constantina wire and the guard towers and the big cages.
You walk through. All of that I was expecting, but
I was not expecting to walk into a room where
there were just tables and and families sitting there, like
(12:03):
you know, inmates holding their babies, and you know, in
an area for the kids to play with legos, and
a photo booth and vending machines all around. Microwaves, I
was really surprised. I had fully expected the you know,
like glass, you know, hand on the glass with the phone,
(12:24):
and there was that in the corner. But they always
put me a front and center. I was also always
being recorded.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Was that the case for everybody or just in this case.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
It's the case for everybody. Everyone's always being recorded. There's
you know, nineteen cameras in that room. In this case,
I didn't know that I had inserted myself into the
middle of a federal investigation. So just as cops, federal
Texas Rangers, local cops are about to try to crack
(12:58):
this guy, this journalist shows up, I think the Texas
Ranger James Holland, who is you know, one of the
main players in the current you know, Sam Little investigation
that's still ongoing.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So Sam Little sits down across from you. You have a
contact visit, which was terrifying.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
No, he doesn't sit down. He's already sitting. He's in
a wheelchair. Oh. I was looking at the door the
other inmates were coming in and out of. But there
must have been like a special door for his disability
because he rolled up behind me.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Oh WHOA. Okay, So he had been convicted of three.
Had he confessed to any others at this point, Well.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
There were attempted murders that you know, got pled down
to kidnapping and assault in San Diego. He was acquitted
in Florida in a latchu of Florida for the murder
of Patricia Mount because they said there was like a
lack of physical evidence. And then there was a failure
to indict by a grand jury for the murder of
(13:57):
Melinda La Prix in Pasca Go in Mississippi. So he
had never confessed to anything. He always just said, you know,
DNA doesn't prove that I did anything, It just proves
that I was there. Also, there was so much evidence
destroyed there. You know, he murdered in the South and
a lot of that evidence was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.
(14:19):
You know, he professed his innocence until the moment that
he didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
What is his demeanor is he aloof is he friendly?
What's he like?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Oh, he's friendly. It was seventy eight. But you know,
my feeling about him was like that he looked like
a ghost. There was just an absence to him immediately,
and he said, ooh, we you're my angel, come to
visit me from heaven. God knew I was lonely, so
(14:52):
he sent you to me, and from there it was
transaction after transaction for years with him.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Did you yourself as his friend at all and confident
on or? I mean, what was the dynamic?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I mean the dynamic was you know, I felt like
I was at war, but that war looked a lot
like friendship. There was, you know, a rapport I had
to establish with him. These people aren't a joke and
it's not a TV movie of the week, so I knew, like,
just don't go into a room and start lying to him.
(15:24):
It took me being willing to be vulnerable, being willing
to tell him the truth in order for him to
start opening up to me. And you know, at the end,
I think he was pretty much telling me the truth
to the best of his ability.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
What were the things that you were telling him about you?
Speaker 2 (15:41):
I told him anything He asked, well, I talked about
my kids and you know, my meat loaf, and gave
him what I like to think of is a window
into what it's like to actually be human. And he
would pretend to sort of understand that and want to
know that. And he had advice about parent garranting. But
(16:02):
you know, in his fantasy life, if you had just
met the right woman. Now, he said to me, if
I had just met you, I would have been a
whole different man. You know, we'd have kids. So you know,
he had this really positive self concept and you know
he'd been wronged by the world. He was a victim.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Oh gosh. Katherine Ramslin and I have talked about that
the forensic psychologists, where she says people with psychopathy oftentimes
it's a poor me.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
The serial killer even oh yeah, btk.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
She said it was every time she interviewed him and
was lamenting when things would go wrong, not in just
his life but with the murders, and it's as if
that was normal, like, well, shit, I just got a
parking ticket. She said. It was like that. It was like,
I can't believe this happened. He had that attitude too,
Sam Little Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
I mean when you say, like I got a parking ticket.
I have a great example. I had a conversation with
him where he said, you know, all sins are equal.
I'm forgiven. He leaved. You know, he was right with Jesus.
He was saved. He was forgiven. Thought all you needed
to do was ask every time he killed somebody, he
asked to be forgiven, and he was forgiven. That's Saint Paul,
(17:11):
that's the Bible. And I was like, I don't agree
with you, and he said, that's Jesus, that's the Bible.
And I said, you know, I think even there's a
hierarchy in the Bible, and he goes, no, killing is
no different from stealing a cookie from the cookie jar.
I was like, well, there are like the ten commandments,
(17:34):
so let's say one number one. And he couldn't get it.
He didn't even know the first commandment. And it's just
like Jesus is not your apologist, but it's complicity bias, right,
Like he found justification for what he wanted. He wanted
and he took There was no question that that was
(17:56):
what he deserved and that God made him that way.
Got you know, I said, well, it sounds like you
were lonely, He said, no, I was hungry. I didn't
ask to be born liking cake.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
What did he say his motivation was? Could he articulate
anything at all about what was going on in his
screwed up mind during all of this love?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
You know, he said, you know, everyone has it wrong
about me. I don't hate women. I love women. All
I ever wanted them to do is cry in my arms.
And then, you know, and then they snubbed me. Then
they turned away from me, and then they turned their
noses up, you know, and there's snobby bitches.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Was he enamored with you? Do you think?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
No? I don't. I think he didn't want to be alone.
I think he wanted a friend and anyone a journalist,
and then you know, I think by the time he
started confessing, I don't think it was his impulse. His
impulse was attention. I mean, you know, he had all
these detectives coming, you know, bringing him oranges from Florida,
(19:15):
bringing him barbecue from Kentucky, just flattering, flattering, flattering him,
getting these confessions out of him, trying to match their
cold cases. He was having the time of his life. Yeah,
he was getting McDonald's milkshakes he was getting to talk
to this journalist. He was just really having a good time.
(19:36):
But then he started to feel the effects of the fame,
get the fan letters and people paying for traces of
his hand.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Ugh, it's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
It's disgusting. And you know, once he started to get that,
then he started to really enjoy it and played to
it and start to get into the ego place where
he was just like, I did this thing, you know,
like I did the most in the world. I was
the best. You know, I did this in the shadows.
(20:12):
No one. They just thought I was a petty thief
and the whole time I was a murderer. I fooled
them all.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
How does the first confession to you happen and then
the rest just spill out?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, once the damn broke. I mean it was always
back and forth and he would mess with me. But
you know how the first confession happened was you know,
I'd been sitting with him, like in total for over
six hours, and I was just like, this is it.
If he keeps bullshiting me, I'm out, Like I don't
(20:44):
have this kind of time. I'm missing my kid's soccer game.
You know, I'm not going to sit here and listen
to how innocent he is and how they've done him wrong.
He started to tell a story about this woman and
get kind of lost in his own mind, and he
stopped him and he said I want a TV and
I said I want things too. He's like, are you
(21:06):
going to get me a TV? And I was like,
I don't know, am I? And he was like a
drum those yellow nails on the table and he was like,
you got me, Okay, you got me. What do you
want to know? Do you want to know about the
first one? And then he just started this real like
incantation of murders. I mean it was like thirteen that
(21:27):
first day. I was, you know, I was just keeping
my eye on the ball. At that point, I was like,
there is no room here for sentimentality or her or shock.
Just remember every single thing he says, Remember every single
thing he does.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
Did he know everybody's name?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
He knew almost no one's name.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Because they were anonymous to him.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Yeah, I mean he didn't spend enough time. The murder
that I solved from bottom to top was a woman
named Alice, and he knew her name. He remembered her
name because he thought it was a pretty name, and
that was actually one of the things that helped us
saw that case.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So tell me what happens with Ellis, when it happens,
and where and all of them.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So, in the middle of this nationwide investigation, we're hit
with COVID, Black Lives Matter protests are happening. Cold cases
got really put to the side for a while, and
I just had all the confessions and all this information,
and I just decided to start really exploring them in depth,
(22:35):
one by one, just in the same way I was
exploring these women's lives, you know, by meeting their families,
by walking their footsteps. So I began to, you know,
follow his confession, Like he gives very specific directions that
he drove. And if you're not in Los Angeles, none
of this is going to make sense to you. But
(22:56):
I can just say that basically, he was saying he
left the body under underpass on a street that was
on its way to the beach. Except that was in
North South Street, and here the beach is west. It's
the east west streets that go to the beach. You
don't get more west than this beach, you know. I
found the place he picked her up I found the
(23:18):
liquor store she went, and I could not find the
place that he said he dumped his body. And I
just started thinking about things that didn't often gel in
his confessions, and one of those was how long he drove,
because he drove so much. I mean, his cars were
where he killed. He drove from one city to another,
(23:41):
you know, almost every day, if not every three days.
He was always on the move, so he had a
weird concept of driving and time. And also this is
when he was on crack, when his mind started to
get a little more adult, and it was possible that
he took a turn he didn't remember, and he said
(24:04):
he was going to Dominique College. And then it started
to occur to me that, you know, everything was right
about it, except if you took this one turn, you'd
be going to Long Beach. Long Beach is south from here.
It's not the Beach, it's a town called Long Beach.
And in this town there's a college called cal State Domingus.
(24:28):
Once I brought in the scope of where I was looking,
I found some articles that seemed to match his confession,
and I went to the place and confirmed the details,
and then I called Detective Rick Jackson. I really thought
that I had enough. I just condensed that. I mean,
(24:48):
that case took me probably six months, wow, because he
didn't always want to talk about it, and it was
a lot of me going back to him and saying
it couldn't have been this. I called it to to
Rick Jackson, who is the original template for the Harry
Bosch character in the HBO show, and he's retired now
(25:09):
and he's sort of a mentor of mine. It's always
good to have if you can have a cop call
for you so you don't sound like the crazy person
calling the tip line, you know, like I solved a murder. Yeah.
And he was like, give me, give me a minute,
and he called Long Beach and coming back in twenty
(25:31):
minutes and he was like, you're sitting down, you know. Yes,
they have his case and it is still open and
the victim, the victim is identified and her name is
Alice Denise Duvall. Well, you could have knocked me over
with a feather. I was like, well, you know, I mean,
I know that doesn't confirm it. It doesn't. He's like,
(25:55):
you know, it pretty much does, kiddo, Like you solved
a murder very close with their family.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Now it was just a cold case right at that point?
Did they do any DNA?
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yes? And then of course yeah. I mean you know,
when I say solved a murder, then I always have
to clarify I can't solve a murder. I'm not a detective.
But that I did walk into Long Beach Police Department
with you know, and give them all the information, the
drawings I had, the articles, the overhead maps, the historical
overhead maps, all that and the confession and then they
(26:31):
were able to run a YSDR DNA and they got
a partial and they cleared the case.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
What was Sam Little's reaction when you told him this that, well,
I took your information and I went and now you're
connected to this case. Were you able to tell him.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
That, yeah, I was on the phone with him.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Did he freak out? What was his reaction?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
He said, he was like, you did good. I think
you did good, honey, you did really good? God?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
What was that? What does that mean is that he's
trying to be sort of a father figure to you
and both of you, so you'll continue to speak with him.
Or did he want to help really in a twisted way?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No, he wanted he wanted all the benefits of helping.
I mean, it's not like he wanted to help because
he cared about the victims or their families, or.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
He wanted recognition.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
He wanted that recognition and also he wanted to be
seen as a good guy who wanted to help.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So this is one case over the span of how
long how many people did he confess to killing?
Speaker 3 (27:36):
To you specifically, Well, there was a point at which
the Texas Rangers asked me if I could back off
my conversations with him about the murders because it was
such an intense investigation, and you know, he could tell.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
A Wing that story. But if he tells a Wing
that story to me and then I call in with it,
you know, then that just gives them a whole bunch
of other details they have to investigate if they think
they've already got it. They were like, you know, don't
contaminate the investigation, you know, by solving these yourself. You know.
(28:14):
So there was a time that I did back off
it when it was during the really heavy confessions. So
you know, I would say I got probably thirty six
or thirty seven detailed confessions out of him.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
I mean, that's amazing. Is this something he would have
done with anybody or any journalist who would have given
him the time and the patience to sit there and
listen to him eventually. Or do you think it was
something between the two of you that made him feel valued,
whether it was a value for you, you know, your value
(28:50):
was not his wonderful stories. The value to you was
getting answers for victims, helping law enforcement, and of course
the book.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Yeah, and understanding trying to understand, you know how we're
always trying to understand these egregious and aberran people who seem,
you know, inhuman. You know, he did have great stories,
But yeah, I was doing this to keep them talking.
I was doing this to get the book. I was
doing it to get the end of the story. I
(29:18):
was doing it because at this time, by that time,
you know, I was so committed to the victims. It
just I feel like that I'd been living with them
for so long, you know, every minute of every day,
just in my thoughts and in my dreams, and I
was really committed to doing everything I can to restore
(29:40):
their names, restore their humanity, to try to give them
a voice, you know, I mean, I can never give
them back their voice but I thought it was a
worthy effort to try.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
How does this relationship ultimately end? Or the confessions do
they wind down naturally? I know the rangers said, back off.
Do you ever return to that?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I do return to them, And that was when I
was I started to look more deeply into the confessions.
And that was when I was solving the Alice case
and trying on a couple of others, you know, I
mean it's still ongoing, and how it ended. His confessions
got they just got more confused. There were so many.
(30:27):
I think they had less value to me at the end.
You know, I knew he was going to die at
some point, and I thought, you know, would I be comfortable?
You know, I would keep a little list of questions.
I'd be like, if this is the last time you
get to talk to him, what are the things you
think are the most important? To know You're never going
to get every last bit of information out of him.
(30:50):
We'll be left with whatever we get here. Now. I
got a text at about five in the morning on
December thirtieth, twenty twenty, and it said pick up your phone.
It was from one of the detectives involved in the case,
and an hour later, I got a call from the
prison and the individual on the phone told me that
(31:11):
Sam Little had died of complications from COVID and we're
sorry for your loss. And I just didn't know what
to say to that. I was like, no, don't apologize
to me for this or feel like I need comfort.
It was just kind of this sort of like shocking
feeling of quiet because I'd been so hyper vigilant, you know,
(31:33):
I carried my phone and a reporter's notebook around the
house with me and a little side purse, because god
forbid i'd be outside with the dogs and miss a
call from a detective or from Sam. If I missed
a call, then I'd get punished for days. So he
(31:54):
was just very controlling in that way. I don't think
anyone could have done it. No, well, I do think
I have an understanding that you let them tell you
who to be, you know. I let him tell me
what he sort of needed. And then I became that.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Are the police grateful or are they annoyed or sometimes
both at your involvement in this? Yes, I answered yes
on all of that.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Okay, I think that I've had every kind of experience
with law enforcement on this there is a general resistance
to the press from law enforcement. It tends to be
an insular community. So that's a classic. You know, there's
always going to be a back and forth, you know,
(32:41):
especially when you're talking to the FBI. You know, they
really have very specific questions you can ask and are
monitoring you, and you have to go through a lot
of people, and so, you know, I think that many
of the cops were incredibly gracious with me. I say grateful,
They were gracious. They helped me. I had a question
(33:05):
for them, you know, how to look at something or
how to understand something, and they were very supportive for
the most part, or you wouldn't talk to me at all.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
So Sam Little does one last thing before he does,
and I know that it must have been a shock
to you. He leaves you everything right in his will.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, he left me all of his possessions.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
I mean, that must have just been like, what the hell.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yes, but I knew that he was naming me his
next of kin because I wanted to donate his brain
to these neuroscientists at UC Irvine and at Stanford, and
he also knew that. And then you know, it was
the middle of COVID when he died, there were meat
trucks at the coroner's office. His paperwork wasn't in order,
(33:56):
and you know, by the time I could have gotten
his brain, it was useless. So that was like a
real shame. But I didn't know that that was going
to happen. I just I had hoped it would happen differently.
You know, I was trying to make a silk purse
out of a sow's ear. I'm like, listen, you guys,
I'm not being gohole, but this brain needs to be
(34:17):
kept at this temperature, you know, until we work this out.
But you know they weren't or weren't willing or couldn't
comply at the time. So yeah, I was so surprised
when the boxes of his stuff showed up. And then
I tell this one story about Sam that I think
really encompasses, you know how many levels he was always
(34:39):
working on. So at the very end our last conversation
before then he went to the medical unit and I
didn't talk to him again for ten days before he died.
He was like, you know, you sent me ram in,
but you didn't send me a hot pot or just
like these other bitches. You know how popular. I am
right now, you know how much I can make from,
(35:03):
you know, just drawing my hand for somebody. And then
I got a letter in the mail from the prison
and I opened it and he left me one thousand
and ninety seven dollars and something since and I was like,
he had this money all along, He had all this
money all along.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
What did all of that mean? Ultimately, I mean, just
to end this, Why did he do that? What did
that symbolize to you?
Speaker 2 (35:32):
He was always on the make. You know, you couldn't
trust him at all. I could never trust him. I
could only trust that the whatever barter I offered him
at whatever time was valuable enough for him to hold
up his end of the bargain, or I'd be gone,
blabbing her whole story to another reporter, robably gone.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Clearly another illustration of a transactional relationship that sounds like
a terrible thing for me to say. Transactional relationship sounds
so cold. But you are, in your book, are allowing
people to understand just a little bit more about someone
who affected so many people and cost terror for people.
(36:15):
You know, and you also this work while I know
it has gone into a book that you benefit from
this work has helped close chapters for families hopefully moving forward, because,
as you said, this is an open investigation that must
feel gratifying to a certain extent, but it also has
to be still, like is the stink off of you yet?
(36:37):
From Sam Little and spending all that time listening to
everything he had to say.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Never it really was the story of a lifetime in
some ways, you know that story wait for bet are
scared of? You know. I was sure I couldn't do it.
I didn't feel equal to it. You know. I was
so overwhelmed by all of a sudden dealing with all
this law enforcement and legal issues, and you know, having
(37:06):
my record subpoenad, I thought, this is going to be
the one I can't do. It's going to be the
one I fail, you know, And I failed in many ways.
I made many mistakes, and those are all there in
the book too. But you know, I do think that
it's a journey, and yes, we do want to see
(37:29):
inside the mind of monsters, you know, and we also
want to see into the heart of humanity. I hope
that I can both bring attention to the issue of
violence against women and the dismissal of violence against women,
particularly marginalized women. That is my great hope.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly
right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi. Our associate
producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.
Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive
(38:25):
produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow
Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked
and on Twitter at tenfold more. And if you know
of a historical crime that could use some attention from
the crew at tenfold more Wicked, email us at info
at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also take your suggestions for
(38:46):
true crime authors for Wicked Words
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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