Investigation Discovery Serial killer Samuel Little, aka the Choke and Stroke Killer
As part of Investigation Discovery’s 2020 Serial Killers Week, the network is airing a two-part special on Samuel Little, who confessed to killing 93 victims. Little was careful when choosing his victims, which is in part why he was able to get away with so many murders over the course of 40 years before getting caught in 2012.
The first part of the ID special, entitled “The 93 Victims of Samuel Little,” airs on Monday, August 31 at 9/8c. The synopsis reads, “A chance phone call brings together an FBI crime analyst, a DOJ forensics expert and a Texas Ranger, who join forces in an attempt to gain a cold-case murder confession from convicted killer Samuel Little. They get much more than they ever imagined.”
Part 2 airs the following day, on Tuesday, September 1. The official description reads, “After uncovering the vast scope of Samuel Little’s murders, an FBI crime analyst, DOJ forensics expert and a Texas Ranger must discover the identities of more than 90 victims he’s claimed and close those cases.”
Little Chose Victims Who He Believed Wouldn’t Be ‘Immediately Missed’ When They Disappeared
According to Oxygen, Little bragged in an interview about how he was able to get away with his serial killings without getting caught. He said, “I didn’t go f–king around out there with the people that would be immediately missed and very important to either family or business or somebody. I’m not going over there in a white neighborhood and pick out a little young teenage girl, like the weirdies do.”
Laughing, Little told investigators, “They didn’t know who the hell was doing it. I would go back to the same city sometimes, pluck me another grape… How many grapes have y’all got on the vine here?”
Per FBI.gov, ViCAP Crime Analyst Christie Palazzolo reported that “For many years, Samuel Little believed he would not be caught because he thought no one was accounting for his victims.” Melinda Rose LaPree, according to Clarion Ledger, LaPree had run away from home to Pascagoula and was doing pot and cocaine while her boyfriend “pimped her out for money.” Little chose to target victims who were “living on the fringes of society,” Oxygen reported. Nevertheless, LaPree had family who missed her after her disappearance. Her oldest brother Bob LaPree said, “Mindy came from a loving family, but she just had really some unfortunate turns in her life with her mother dying when she was just 7. But she was brilliant and [a] musical genius. She taught herself any instrument she wanted.”
Little Drew Portraits of His Victims From Memory to Help Identify Them
Oxygen reports that Little was able to, years later, draw his victims’ portraits from memory, and that he did so in order to help them get identified. Beth Karas, a former prosecutor and investigative journalist, told Oxygen, “It’s not just faces. He remembers little things about each victim. One had a limp. Another had a teenage daughter … He can picture the crime scenes and his victims in photographic detail.”
Little claimed, “As a child, I got attracted to the neck.” Several of his confessed killings were strangulations. According to Clarion Ledger, he confessed to strangling Alice Denise “Tina” Taylor, Tracy Lynn Johnson, Julia Critchfield, and Melinda “Mindy” LaPree.
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