CINCINNATI — The FBI has released a confessed serial killer's portraits of women he said he killed, including women whose bodies he said he left in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky possibly 10 years apart.
Authorities are hoping someone will recognize the faces in the drawings to help them identify dozens of victims across the country.
Samuel Little, 78, confessed to 90 killings from between 1970 and 2005, the FBI said in November.
The FBI has, so far, released about 25 drawings of women Little said he killed. Locally, Cincinnati police said Little admitted to killing a woman in Cincinnati in either 1974 or '84, saying she was black, about 5'9" or 5'10" and slender. They had sex and then he strangled her and left her body under a billboard or expressway sign.
There are no open cases matching those details, so Cincinnati police have been combing through coroner reports and crimes in other parts of Hamilton County to find possible connections. According to the FBI, some of the killings could have been misidentified as deaths by drug overdoses, accidents or natural causes.
In another local case, Little said he met a white woman in Columbus, Ohio, in 1984 and then killed her and dumped her body somewhere in Northern Kentucky, possibly Covington.
Little was arrested in Kentucky in 2012 and extradited to California on a narcotics charge. There, detectives used DNA evidence to link Little to three unsolved homicides from the 1980s. He confessed to dozens of other killings while serving three consecutive life sentences for murder.
All three of those victims first linked to Little had been beaten and strangled. The FBI said Little targeted marginalized and vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution or addicted to drugs.
Little is originally from northern Ohio. Authorities said he left in the late 1950s and lived a nomadic life, stealing enough to get alcohol and drugs and move on to the next town.
The confessed killer is drawing all the portraits from memory. Investigators said Little remembered many details from the killings, including where he was and what car he was driving, through he wasn't always sure about the dates.
FBI spokesperson Shayne Buchwald told CNN in February that two women had already been identified from their portraits.
The FBI asked anyone reporting a potential case linked to Little to call 800-634-4097.
