Georgia Home of Prolific Serial Killer

By John Kuykendall

The State of Georgia has seen a number of serial killers over the years and some will never be forgotten like Wayne Williams in Atlanta, the Stocking Strangler in Columbus and others who will never be forgotten. However, there was one serial killer who was actually from Georgia who is believed to have claimed the most victims of any other serial killer in the United States.
Reynolds, a quiet and quaint rural town just happens to be the home of what the FBI believes to be the man with the highest number of murders.
Samuel Little was born in Reynolds in 1940. According to court records and Georgia history books, Little’s mother was a prostitute who abandoned him. Authorities even believe his mother may have given birth to Little when she was in jail.
Not long after Little was born, his family moved to Ohio. There, Little was mainly raised by his grandmother.
Little told authorities he began to think about killing women when he was in kindergarten and as a teenager he collected crime magazines, especially magazines that depicted the strangulation of women.
You check all this out on the Internet, it’s all there.
Little moved around the United States when he got older and was jailed many times. The first time he had law troubles was as a teenager and that trend continued throughout his life as an adult. At the age of 35, Little had been arrested 26 times.
Little was charged with his first murder in 1982 in Mississippi of a 22 year-old woman but a grand jury decided not to indict him on the charge. However, Little was extradited to Florida and tried for the murder of another woman, but was also acquitted of the charge due to jurors not believing or not trusting witness testimonies.
He was then off to California where he was arrested for beating and strangling two women. After serving two and a half years for those crimes, he was released, moved to Los Angeles where he murdered 10 women.
His story goes on and on. Eventually, Little confessed to 93 murders. However, law enforcement only connected him to 60 murders. However, he was only ever charged with and convicted of eight murders.
I’m not sure any person in his or her right mind could sleep at night knowing all those deaths were on their hands.
For years, the argument has continued of whether serial killers are a product of their environment of if they are simply born as killers. I’m not sure there is a way to make determination or if its a combination of the two and even possibly other reasons.
However, experts do believe there are contributing factors, according to some criminologists, such as child abuse. According to one study, the most common factor is child abuse it’s in the background of almost all serial killers.
You may wonder how a person can get by with so many murders before being caught. That is a good question but not one that can be answered easily.
In most cases, the serial killer will make a mistake. Also, it takes a great deal of work and profiling by law enforcement to put together a profile that might lead to the arrest of the killer, and law enforcement has to have enough evidence to make a case. So, there are many reasons.
Profiling is on of the most common procedures used by law enforcement in most serial killer investigations. A trained profiler will analyze evidence, look at the crime scene to determine actions taken by the killer, use the victim’s background to shed light into the killer’s motivation and other things and much more. Does profiling work? According to what I’ve researched, profiles are useful in solving a case between 50 and 85% of the time.
All that data, studies and criminology is great, but I believe a serial killer just likes the thrill of the kill.
I once sat on the jury of a murder trial. The question was proposed to the defendant in the case, if he had the opportunity to kill again if he would. He didn’t hesitate to answer and his reply to the officer who asked the question during his interrogation was, “Yes I would, it’s was better than sex.”
Enough said, I believe.

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