Authorities Identify Woman Suspected of Victim of Samuel Little, America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer

It targeted women, often from marginalized and vulnerable communities, many of whom were involved in prostitution or suffered from drug addiction, and whose bodies had sometimes not been identified and their deaths had not been investigated.

“I would go back to the same town sometimes and pick another grape,” Little once said in an interview with investigators obtained by The Washington Post. “How many grapes do you all have on the vine here?” He said, adding that he would avoid “people who would be immediately missed.”

“I’m not going to go over there in the White Ward and pick a little teenage girl,” Little said, according to The Post.

Two years before his death, Little had confessed to several murders in the South East, including the murder of “Escatawpa Jane Doe”, whose name he said he did not know. The statement from the sheriff’s department did not provide details of the confession and the crime.

In Birdlong’s case, hunters found the skeletal remains of the victim, known as “Escatawpa Jane Doe,” in December 1977, the Sheriff’s Department said. Investigators learned that Little was arrested in Pascagoula, the county seat of Jackson, in August 1977 for child theft.

A medical examination at the time revealed that the remains belonged to a “short African-American woman, with a distinctive gold tooth and possibly wearing a wig” who was likely killed three or four months earlier, according to the sheriff’s department.

How investigators identified the victim

Over the years, several attempts have been made to identify the woman, including using facial reconstructions, computer composites, and DNA analysis. None succeeded – until January 2021, when Othram, a Texas DNA research center, was hired by Mississippi authorities to create a family tree based on the victim’s DNA.

There was a DNA hit: a possible distant cousin of the victim who lived in Texas, according to the sheriff’s department.

An investigator tracked down the cousin and spoke to her 93-year-old grandmother, who said Birdlong, born circa 1933, went missing from Leflore County, Mississippi in the 1970s, the department said.

Another cousin from Texas who recalled the woman’s disappearance during the same period said Birdlong went by the nickname “Nuttin”, had a gold front tooth and wore a wig.

A woman from Leflore County – where family members said Birdlong was missing – said she recalled the woman leaving the county in the 1970s with an “African American who claimed to be passing through the Mississippi. to get to Florida, ”the sheriff said. the ministry said.

“Clara has never been seen or heard from again,” the department said.

Earlier this month, an investigator requested DNA samples from several people closely associated with Birdlong to compare the DNA. With help from the Texas lab, officials confirmed that the DNA matched that of the grandmother that authorities had spoken to, the sheriff’s department said.

His cause of death remains undetermined, the sheriff’s department said.

Little is considered a prime suspect in Birdlong’s death, the department said.