[uneasy music]
♪
[news reporter] Little was convicted of three murders
in Los Angeles but has since confessed
to strangling 93 women.
That number is incomprehensible.
But that is the number of lives lost.
[Bobby] The sheriff office
just said there was no foul play.
♪
We talking about you beat beyond recognition,
and you mean to tell me there's no foul play?
Man, who you fooling?
This is-this is a joke, man.
[Tomeka] Had they investigated,
they would've discovered a serial killer.
[Nire] That's right.
Tonight time is running out
to verify his confessions
and provide closure to the victims' families.
[Jillian] The urgency for me is to try
to identify more victims
and dig through these cold cases.
[dramatic music]
This is Alice.
A woman that Sam strangled
here in Los Angeles.
Anything we know about Alice right now,
we know from Sam.
And this is the drive that Sam
would have taken with Alice
before he killed her.
[Rick] This is Imperial Highway.
[Jillian] So this could be the overpass.
He also said he went all the way to the beach.
[scoffs] And there is no beach.
[Rick] Right.
[Jillian] But I did find an article,
but it's from a totally different location
of where he said he dumped her.
If we can confirm this is the right location,
we might actually help solve the Alice case.
♪
[Jillian] Sure. We're a team.
It's me and you.
[sighs]
You fucking asshole.
[dark music]
♪
These are letters from Sam.
I-I have upwards of 100, I would say.
"I will hug you in a death hold
"and put you into my world
"of only you and I.
"For eternity only you and I.
"Please come to me and give me your spirit.
"I want to devour it
"like a piece of cake.
"My beautiful angel.
Mr. Sam."
The analyst from the FBI who went and saw Sam
felt like it would be irresponsible
if I wasn't informed that he plans to kill me,
and I was like, "I-I know."
[laughs]
If I could go back and do it again,
if I could never have heard the name Sam Little,
I probably would.
I never, in a million years,
would have anticipated what it's done to me.
[eerie music]
It's not one murder.
It's not five murders.
It's 93 murders.
♪
The sheer magnitude of it...
it's upended my life for almost two years now,
and my health has suffered.
My family has suffered.
I wake up in a cold sweat,
just yelling...
♪
...more mornings than not.
♪
[Jillian] Mm-hmm.
♪
[news reporter] The FBI calls Samuel Little
America's most prolific serial killer.
[Sam] If you want me to tell my secrets to you,
come down here and look me in my eye
while I do.
[Jillian] My deal with the devil is,
"You will not die alone if you tell me the truth."
[Sam] I'm not gonna admit to those girls.
[Jillian] I don't believe you.
So you tell me the truth right now.
[news reporter] Little strangled 93 victims
between 1970 and 2005.
[Jillian] He was tried and got off
again and again and again.
[news reporter] Investigators believe
that Samuel Little killed more people
than serial killers Ted Bundy,
John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer combined.
[Jillian] If you weren't locked up,
I'd probably be dead by now.
[Sam] You're right.
[Jillian] Okay.
[melancholy music]
[Scott] There's some stuff up here
that we vowed never to bring down.
[Jillian] Which?
Oh, we'll find out when we bring it down.
-[laughs] -There's just some horrific
things in here:
pictures and... keepsakes
and old family heirlooms
that trigger a bunch of old memories.
[Jillian] I-I'm an obsessive documentarian.
I've kept a journal every day of my life
since I was eight years old,
but, um, I never, ever look back at it.
Here.
Um, this is--let's see.
This is my first... book,
the first book I published, anyway.
Um... and, uh, it's my memoir,
Some Girls: My Life in a Harem.
It is about the fact
that I lived in a harem in Southeast Asia
when I was 18.
Oh.
Look, here's a signed...
signed copy of Scott's CD.
This is actually one of my favorite albums of theirs.
It's Everything Will Be Alright in the End.
What's your favorite of-of your recent albums?
Probably Make Believefor me.
And that was so--yeah.
Yeah, I--that was...
probably the last time I had, like, a real blast
making a whole record was with--
[Jillian] Make Believe?
No, the Everything Will Be Alright in the End...
[Jillian] Everything?Yeah.
...'cause it was Ric Ocasek,
-and we were there every day... -Yeah.
...and the whole band was there.
Okay, this one, the "photos and keeps,"
not that one.
This is, like...
[Scott] You-you just wanna just steady it there
and I'll come grab it?
[Jillian grunts]
My husband on a Sunday night
has to, you know, be making a pot of spaghetti
while I come home from prison,
and then I unload it all on him.
[laughs]
That's a lot... for anyone.
Oh, wait, no! Look, here's a cute one of us.
[disquieting music]
[Jillian] Yeah, I love him with all my heart,
and he is--
you know, he's my partner in life.
I feel like he's-- like you were with Jean,
we have the same kind of path,
and he's my road dog,
and he is the father of my sons.
Yes, I love him.
♪
You know, as-as uncomfortable as it is
to-to be around and to hear
her talking to him, you know,
and to kind of see the damage that it's done to her,
you know, coming home from prison on Sunday
or every day on the phone,
you know, for however many months,
you know, I just keep thinking about the victims' families
and how the--all these women
were just kind of, like, just brushed off.
It's not about me.
It's just, like, "How can I support you
"in getting this project done,
"which we agreed is gonna ruin our lives
"and possibly institutionalize us,
"but, uh, with the goal to be the--
to do some, you know-- to help?"
And that we were strong enough
and our marriage was strong enough
that we could get through it, you know,
and we can recover.
You know, and then it trickles down into the kids too.
I miss my kids' soccer games
to go to a prison an hour and a half away...
Can I open my present?
[Tariku] Yes.
[Jillian] ...you know, and-and spend my Sundays
in a men's maximum security prison...
Oh, they're beautiful!
And they're real.
[Jillian] ...eating Lay's potato chips
with a man who,
as much as we talk about everything,
I hate his fucking guts.
Uh, pretty much the main thing we talk about is murder
at this point, so a year and a half of murder.
-[Jillian] A lot of murder. -We're a little murdered out.
[laughs]
[Jillian] I'm not scared of Sam Little,
and it's not because...
he can't or won't hurt me
or doesn't want to, 'cause he does.
Of course he does.
He-he tells me as much.
♪
You know--
[Jillian] I was just scared you were gonna kill me.
[Jillian] Well, not now,
'cause prison.
But I'm not scared of him, 'cause I just won't be.
♪
I just won't be.
♪
I just refuse to be.
He feeds off women's fear,
and I won't give it to him.
♪
Her going through these cases
and poring over these stories
and looking through the-the victims' histories
and then hearing Sam, you know, tell her about it
and what she's had to do to get Sam
to open up to her and trust her,
uh, and then the effect on her
has just been devastating.
♪
[crying]
Feels to me like he's trying to kill her
like, through the phone, basically.
♪
She kind of has to go emotionally to a place
that would destroy most humans.
♪
I can't talk to this piece of shit anymore.
[Scott] And even though she's, you know,
definitely one of the toughest people I've ever met, it's...
it's just--it's ruinous.
This story, this man, is fucking ruinous.
♪
[Jillian] You never get used to it.
Sam's memory is imbued with rich detail.
Every time he tells me about a murder,
I find myself irrationally hoping
this will be the one that got away,
but she never does.
♪
I'm actively looking into the confessions
that haven't been matched yet to cold cases
and Jane Does because I have access to him,
so I can find something out,
then go ask him some questions about it,
and I-I've been focusing on Los Angeles
because that's where I live,
so I can go and look at the spots
and actually see what he's talking about,
see what works or doesn't work.
[Jillian] Uh-huh.
Tell me more about Alice.
♪
[Jillian] My friend Justin Hairston
is coming over.
Hey.
He's a very dear friend of my family.
He's also our boxing coach,
and he is a highly trained combat veteran,
so he'll sometimes come along with me on research trips
if I'm going to areas
that can be dangerous
so I have somebody watching my back.
Thanks for coming over today.
[Justin] No problem.
[Jillian] He's been really helpful to me
because he sees things that I don't see,
and he asks me questions
that sometimes spark ideas or plans.
So what are we getting into today?
Mm, I'm gonna show you.
We've been focusing on the LA confessions.
The victim that we're looking at today
is a woman that Sam strangled
around 1991,
probably sometime June, July,
sometime in the summer; he remembers it was warm.
He said her name was Alice,
and the way that he described it,
he described a particular motel
that he picked her up at on Central and 55th Street.
[desolate music]
Did you meet Alice at that motel?
[Jillian] It's-it's not a motel anymore,
but I'm looking at it right now.
He was able to identify the building
when I showed him a picture of it
as, um, the building where he picked up Alice.
[Justin] Right.
[Jillian] Now we need to follow his directions from there
to try to locate the place where he killed her.
♪
So this is the map that he drew for me.
He said he drove down Central, strangled her,
left her under an overpass of some kind
or a bridge.
[Jillian] Okay.
And I just keep-keep going, keep going.
Where did you stop?
[Jillian] So, like, west, toward the beach?
[Jillian] Initially when he told me about it,
he was like, "It's all the way down Central,
toward the beach, toward the beach,"
and I was just like--
you know, I'm looking at the map, and I'm like,
"Central doesn't go to the beach."
[Justin] Right.
And like many of his confessions,
it's frustrating, because there'll be
three or four things that are, like, perfect
and then one thing that doesn't fit.
He says that he heard from someone on the street
that there had been an article in the newspaper
that a bicyclist riding over an overpass
had spotted the body.
[foreboding music]
I've been searching and searching
for that article...
-Mm-hmm. -...and, uh...
I could not find one
for either one of these overpasses
I already looked at on Central.
But we just had a little wild card
thrown into this,
because I did find an article,
but it's from a totally different location
ten miles south of where he said he dumped her.
It's in the city of Long Beach.
It's from the LA Times, June 12, 1991,
about a woman who had been strangled
who was discovered by a cyclist,
and it says, "A man walking with his wife and child
"near the Metro Rail Blue Line in Long Beach
"stumbled across the body of a woman Monday night
"about 500 feet south
"of the dead end of Dominguez Street
"around 7:30 p.m.
"Detectives believe she died elsewhere
and that her body was dumped near the tracks,"
which would be consistent with what he generally did.
-[Justin] Right. -[Jillian] No visible signs
of trauma on the woman,
that also was often true for him
because strangulation--
-Strangulation, right. -Mm-hmm.
"Twenty or 30 years old,
"fully clothed but no shoes,
purse, money, or identification."
[Justin] What did he do with their belongings?
[Jillian] Also smart.
You know, he would throw them out
in different locations.
-Oh, just get rid of them? -Mm-hmm.
He wouldn't keep stuff, would he, like trophies or--
No.
[Jillian] We need to drive down to Long Beach
and try to find the location from this article.
I'm really looking forward to actually looking
at the geography of the locations
and seeing how it matches or doesn't match
his descriptions.
[somber music]
Do you remember when you strangled her?
Can you tell me about that?
[Jillian] Uh-huh.
[Jillian] We're gonna imagine ourselves
looking through his eyes and seeing
if this site makes sense,
based on the story that he told me.
[ominous music]
This is a totally new spot
that we just found from finding this article.
♪
[Justin] It says to go-- is that a street?
Okay, that's a street.
[Jillian] Here's the Blue Line.
♪
[Justin] You wanna go back to the train tracks--
[Jillian] Hang on, let me just figure out
where Dominguez Street is,
and then-and then we'll have it.
[cell phone ringing]
[Jillian] It's Sam.
-[Justin] Samuel. -[Jillian] Sam.
[operator] This is Global Tel Link.
You have a prepaid call from...
[Sam] Mr. Sam.
[line beeps]
[Jillian] Mr. Sam.
[Jillian] You managed to call.
I wanna tell you that right now,
I'm looking for Alice.
I'm in--almost to Long Beach,
and I am looking
at one other overpass
that I found in an article
where there was a body found.
So there might yet be one more place.
[Jillian] It was 1991.
[Sam] Hmm.
Almost to Long Beach,
and it was an overpass.
I-I am in an area right now
that I-I read an article about.
[Jillian] I think you-you drove long distances
pretty easily.
Well, I'm not-I'm not sure it was yours.
I'm just here looking around.
I'm doing--here doing my thing.
[Jillian] Okay, Mr. Sam.
Bye-bye.
Um, so, uh...
we now know he may have driven to Long Beach, he says.
We're gonna go take a look at the geography
and get the lay of the land
and see what fits and what doesn't.
We're just gonna go straight.
[Justin] And left on Dominguez right there.
[Jillian] And left--
so it's, like, the second street.
That looks like it.
That's definitely where the street dead-ends.
[Justin clears throat]
♪
[Jillian] Here we go.
So it's 500 feet south
of the dead end
-of Dominguez Street. -[Justin] Okay.
♪
-[Jillian] Is that a trail? -[Justin] South.
[Justin] Let's see.
[Jillian] Is there, like, a bike path
that goes over there?
I think there is.
[Justin] There is. So--oh, there's an overpass.
[Jillian] Oh, yeah, look, and it's right near the road,
and there's an overpass with a bike--
So a woman's body found near Blue Line tracks
June 12, 1991.
And the tracks are...
For--oh, yeah, right up there.
-You ready? -[Jillian] Let's do it.
[investigative music]
I-I think that that's a pedestrian
or a bicycle trail
up there somewhere,
um, and this is the...
...this is the Long Beach Freeway,
so this is 710 here.
♪
So one of the things he said
was that if she had rolled two or three feet,
she would've been on the freeway.
♪
He said looked up and saw an overpass.
That is a pedestrian overpass.
Hey, yo, and come this way.
[Jillian] Oh, yeah. Look at that.
[Justin] Yeah.
Goes all the way up.
-Got it? -[Jillian] Yup.
[Justin] There's train tracks.
♪
[Jillian] God, would you be walking
your bicycle by here...
-...or would you be walking... -[Justin] That's the overpass.
[Jillian] ...your bicycle over there?
[Justin] So that's the-- 'cause the end of Dominguez,
-and then that's south. -[Jillian] Yeah.
So we came south...
-Five hundred feet. -We're at the tracks...
-Yeah. -...the train tracks,
so we're, like--we're close.
[Jillian] This is it.
I mean, th-this is where it's describing, for sure.
♪
Whether it was Sam's victim, we don't know,
but it sure looks like a lot of Sam's crime scenes.
♪
Coming here at night gave me a chance
to see it through his eyes,
and this spot feels very Sam to me.
[melancholy music]
♪
Well, the first questions that I have
are gonna be for law enforcement,
because I wanna know, uh, was this case closed?
You know, is--or is it still a cold case?
♪
And if it's still cold,
could the victim be Alice?
[uneasy music]
It's easy to look at from the outside and say,
"Well, why can't you just find this case?
"He says he killed this woman
on this corner in this year."
There's this... conception
that he has this photographic memory,
which is sort of a myth.
Yes, some details are really specific,
but when I started really looking into it,
the dates are all off.
He doesn't know anyone's name for the most part.
What I learned was
that if you can find the key
to unlock
the detail where he's wrong...
♪
...you can start to follow the thread.
♪
And then maybe I can then pass that on
to law enforcement
and they can translate that
into a solve of a case.
♪
[news reporter] The FBI is asking for help
connecting victims to this man
you see right now on your screen.
This is Samuel Little.
He confessed to 93 murders.
♪
This is a map
of all of Sam's known and suspected murders.
♪
The black pins represent solves,
meaning the victim has been identified,
and the red pins represent unsolveds,
which means that the victim
has not been identified yet.
[melancholy music]
I keep this, and it reminds me
of really, truly the-the scope
of the wreckage that he caused.
♪
It's important for me
to see visually
what 93 dead women
looks like.
It-it's really hard to wrap your head
around that number.
Just to keep it in perspective is,
I imagine, um, there are-are 93 houses...
♪
...like a street with 93 houses on it,
and every single one of those houses
has a family in it,
and every one of them suffered
a loss that is very...
difficult for most of us to imagine.
♪
[news reporter] Thirty-four unsolved murders
have been linked to Little.
Now the FBI is trying to solve several more
with help from the public and haunting paintings
drawn by the monster who claims he killed them.
The FBI is hoping to solve as many cases
as quickly as possible.
Sam Little is 78 years old and in poor health.
♪
[Jillian] Do I think that these families
deserve answers?
Yes.
But "closure" is a tough word.
I have not talked to one family member
of a murder victim who has ever said that word.
I feel like it's a word that other people use...
...to reconcile themselves
with violence.
[ethereal music]
Here's Mary Brosley.
♪
Here's Rose Evans.
This is Denise Brothers.
This is Agatha White Buffalo.
What I try to do is piece together
something like the truth.
♪
I truly believe that all of these cases
can be matched.
♪
This is an unidentified victim.
[uneasy music]
Gulfport.
You remember Gulfport?
[news reporter] Little confessed to killing
five women in Gulfport, Mississippi,
between the years of 1977 and 1992.
Three of these victims have been identified
as Julia Critchfield,
Tina Taylor,
and Tracy Lynn Johnson.
The names of the other two victims
are still unknown.
You strangled two friends in one night, right,
in Gulfport?
♪
[Jeremy] In the early '90s, about '92,
I called my father,
wanted to just check in on him,
and, uh, he told me, "Son,
they found somebody dead round here."
♪
Tina Taylor:
light-skinned complexion, petite girl.
You know, she had about two or three kids,
and her mother and her brother were looking for her.
♪
[news reporter] The body of 27-year-old Tina Taylor
was found under a pile of tires in 1992
in Gulfport.
Jermaine Taylor was ten,
his brother Marcus just seven.
[Marcus] I wonder if my mama screamed out for help.
I wonder if my mama thought about us
when it was going on.
[news reporter] Investigators checking Little's confessions
say he is giving them specific details
of the murders that no one but the killer would know.
You know, you can never be at peace
with losing your mama,
but you can be at peace
knowing that, you know, hey, you know what happened.
♪
[Jeremy] Tracy was a nice girl too.
I growed up with her.
I remember we used to play kickball.
We used to swim out here.
She knew everybody round here.
We all knew her.
[news reporter] Christmas has never been the same
for the family of Tracy Lynn Johnson,
the 19-year-old who went missing from Gulfport
in December 1992.
A few weeks later, in January of 1993,
Johnson's body was found,
and her family learned she had been murdered.
It's just disbelief, knowing that this happened
in-in such a small town, Mississippi.
The pictures that we have here,
you will see her smile.
It lit up the room,
and that was her.
[Jeremy] Tracy,
you know, I think about her sometimes,
you know.
You know, what kind of person would she have been?
Would she have been-- would she have children?
You know?
What kind of occupation would she have had?
We didn't know all these years till up to now
this man, Samuel Little,
was the one that actually was picking these girls up,
taking them off, and killing them.
♪
Took mothers from daughters, mothers from fathers,
sisters from brothers.
Somebody's being held accountable now,
and that's what we want.
[news reporter] The district attorney
has issued a warrant for the arrest
of 78-year-old Samuel Little,
and the Harrison County Sheriff's Department
believes he is responsible
for the unsolved 1978 murder
of Julia Critchfield.
Can you tell me about Julia?
[Sam] Who?
[Jillian] Julia Critchfield
in Gulfport.
Mm-hmm.
[Jillian] Mm-hmm.
[mournful music]
[June] There's Mama.
[Coyce] That's where I got it from.
[June] Oh, the bangs.
That reminds me of her.
I was 15
when my mother was taken from me.
I remember my mother
as a very loving, nurturing, caring person
with a-a huge heart.
♪
They say you get closure
after all this time has passed, you know.
"Now you've got him behind bars.
Oh, you got closure," you know?
But it's so not true.
I can't change my heart.
Them feelings are just like they were yesterday
because I relive it.
♪
[Coyce] My mother was taken from us
from an evil person.
I have no closure.
I have no closure
until I see the interrogation
and I see him convicted.
That will be mine.
That will be my peace.
♪
[Jillian] Sam has confessed to me,
Sam has confessed to law enforcement officials
across the country,
and that's wonderful,
but a courtroom
is a different kind of confession,
and I do think that there is an aspect
of the ritual of a trial.
It is what we've agreed upon as a society
as the best we can do,
imperfect as it is, for justice.
[disquieting music]
♪
[Jillian] Mm-hmm.
[Jillian] I will be there.
What's happening today is,
we're here in Cleveland,
and we are going to the courthouse
to watch Samuel Little plead, by Skype,
guilty to two murders here.
The victims are Mary Jo Peyton
and Rose Evans.
They were both sex workers.
Mary Jo was killed in the mid-'80s,
and Rose was murdered
in the early '90s.
You know, there was always a chance
that any of these women could have...
pulled their life together,
could have made any number of choices,
and he really took all of those choices
away from them.
♪
I'm nervous.
He's always a wild card, so...
you never really know what he's gonna do.
He is a psycho,
so... [laughs]
...they're notoriously hard to count on.
♪
I have never,
in an official and legal context,
heard the word "guilty" come out of his mouth,
and I am very much looking forward
to seeing that.
[bailiff] All rise.
The court of common pleas is now open.
The Honorable John J. Russo presiding.
♪
All right, thank you. You may be seated.
♪
Mr. Bell.
[Richard] Thank you, Your Honor.
Some people have asked, "Why?
"Why go forward with these cases
if he's already serving time in prison?"
This defendant needs to be held accountable
for each of these crimes,
so we've taken the position that he must plead guilty
before this court.
The defendant has killed 93 women across America.
In my 30 years' experience, Your Honor,
I've never seen anything like this
or met anyone that was this callous.
This particular case, this man here,
if you can call him that,
he's gotten away with it for a long period of time.
After meeting him, it's clear
anyone who followed his pattern
could definitely get away.
I know that people have said, you know,
he's the luckiest guy in the world
that he got away with this for so long.
Uh, I don't find it a function of luck.
I think that it was a failure of the criminal justice system.
♪
It's racism, and it's misogyny,
and-and it's embedded in our society,
and it's embedded in our criminal justice system,
and hopefully this story is...
making a little dent in that.
[John] Mr. Little, sir, how do you now plead
to count one, the aggravated murder charge,
causing the death with purpose
and prior calculation and design
of Mary Jo Peyton, sir?
How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?
Guilty.
[John] All right, sir, I accept your plea of guilty
and find you guilty.
Sir, how do you plead to count six,
aggravated murder,
where you purposely,
with prior calculation and design,
did cause the death of Rose Evans?
Guilty or not guilty?
Guilty.
All right, sir, I'll accept your plea of guilty
on count six and find you guilty.
Um, Mr. Little would like me
to read from the following statement.
Mr. Little sincerely apologizes
for the two Cleveland deaths
of Mary Jo Peyton and Rose Evans.
[Jillian] No, you're not. I don't believe you.
I think you know you're supposed to say
that you're ashamed
because that's, like, what most people
would feel,
but I don't think you actually feel that way.
Am I right?
[Jillian] Of course.
Again, he sincerely apologizes
for causing the deaths
of Mary Jo Peyton and Rose Evans.
♪
All right, Mr. Little, the heinous crimes
that you committed against these women
all across the United States
have left many people with, uh,
what I would say, a hole in their lives
because they didn't have an opportunity for closure.
You know, 93 women
and the-and the pain and suffering
that you've caused the families
is, uh, indescribable,
unacceptable, and inhuman,
uh, and at this time, we'll conclude today's hearing.
We'll adjourn.
♪
I just wanted to thank you personally.
I've been following this case for a year and a half,
and this is the first time
I got to watch the word "guilty"
come out of his mouth.
I--this was really important to me.
-Thank you for saying that. -Thank you.
Thanks for being here.
Yes. Thank you.
[brooding music]
It made a difference to sit in that courtroom in Cleveland
and watch him plead guilty.
It was tremendously moving for me,
because whether or not this man
is ever a risk on the street again,
the public acknowledgment
of what he did,
of what these victims suffered,
it honors the victims,
and it's important for the families.
Do you think the families of your victims
who you murdered
should forgive you?
What I really hope to do with this work
ultimately is to bring some visibility
to the issue of violence against women.
The story about Sam Little's victims
is a story about violence against women
on a massive scale.
But this is also something
that's an epidemic in our society.
[melancholy music]
♪
All right, so what's next?
We're not waiting around for a phone call.
I sent everything Justin and I found in Long Beach
straight to Rick Jackson,
and he was like, "Hang on a second.
"Let me call the Long Beach PD
"to find out, has this been solved?
"Was that body ever identified?
You know, was anyone ever arrested for it?"
I haven't heard back from him yet.
I'm gonna text Rick, and I sent him this article,
and--but that was before we visited the site,
and, um, so we just looked at these overhead maps...
...and we found a bike path.
There's a bike path right above it.
♪
So I'm just gonna text Rick right now and see
if he contacted his friends
at Long Beach PD.
Rick's got a lot of street cred,
so, um, an introduction wouldn't hurt.
♪
Rick talked to Long Beach PD,
and he said he can hook me up with somebody there
who works cold cases.
-[Rick] Hello. -Hey, Rick.
[Rick] How are you?
I'm doing well today. How are you?
[Rick] Well, I just talked to Long Beach.
[Jillian] Oh, okay.
[Rick] And they found the case.
[gasps] Uh-huh?
[Rick] And it happened on June 10th in '91.
It's unsolved still.
Oh, last name is Duvall.
[Jillian] Uh-huh, do they say if it was-was
a white or Black woman?
[Rick] She's a Black woman,
35, from LA,
and her first name happens to be Alice.
[gasps] Really?
-[Rick] Congratulations. -Really?
Oh, yeah, and we went there last night.
I mean, obviously that's not a confirmation
or anything, but we went there last night--
[Rick] Pretty much-- it pretty much is.
-[laughs] -[Rick] Pretty much is.
So yeah, when he said that, I said, you know,
"Her first name's Alice."
He goes, like, "Alice Duvall?
And I said, "You're shitting me."
-He goes, "No." -[laughs]
[Rick] Um, she was strangled.
Um, uh, she was a prostitute.
Um, they had--you know, they got that much.
So it's right down the line. It-it's her.
Okay, they're gonna assign somebody to it,
and then they will reach out to you.
You'll probably go down there.
I told them you have drawings of Alice.
[Jillian] Oh, Rick, thank you so much
for making that call, and thank you.
-[Rick] Yeah, no problem. -Thank you for everything.
-[Rick] I'll just pass on-- -[line clicks]
Oops, they're calling me right now.
-I'll call you back. -Okay.
-All right, thanks, Rick. -[Rick] Okay, bye.
[laughs]
[gentle music]
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
[laughter and crying]
♪
[Amaia] I found her on ancestry.com,
and then from there, I was-- mother's maiden name.
[Jillian] Wait, go back. I wanna see that.
[Amaia] I found her on three other people's
family trees,
and so these are the family tree,
people who have saved her on their family tree.
And there's her mother.
[soft piano music]
[Della] So cute.
I know. She's so cute.
[Jillian] She's adorable.
♪
Once the Long Beach PD
confirms the case and closes it
and notifies the family, then...
we can potentially reach out, but yeah.
♪
I'm putting Alice's picture up on the board.
It's Alice Denise Duvall.
♪
[gulls calling]
[somber music]
♪
Are you Detective Hubbard?
[Hubbard] Yes, I'm Detective Hubbard.
-Hi. So nice to meet you. -Thanks for coming out.
This is my partner, Detective Gamboa.
-Hi. -Nice to meet you.
So if you would, we will come upstairs,
and we can do our interview.
[Jillian] Okay, great.
There has not been anything more gratifying
for me in my life
than contributing to solving these murders,
and I'm not gonna stop.
[suspenseful music]
♪
Hey, can I ask you guys a question?
Yeah, okay.
There are still 16 more
unsolved homicides I'm looking into
that took place here in Los Angeles.
So I'm looking for any information
about a woman; she was killed right around this area.
I hope I can help law enforcement
identify more of Sam's victims.
This is a woman who used to hang out
at the liquor store,
went missing about the mid-mid-'90s.
She was a prostitute.
We're trying to find out who she was
so that we can tell her family.
♪
[Mitzi] Prostitutes, drug users,
they were easy prey.
And I think Jillian puts it-puts it best.
She calls them the "less dead,"
'cause they just didn't seem to mean as much to society.
And that was the brilliance of Sam Little.
He knew that he would pick these victims
and that nobody was going to fight for them.
It sickened me to think
how many times he could've been stopped
had the system done its job.
[Jillian] Does this woman look familiar to you at all?
Is this the only picture you have?
-Why don't you take this one? -Okay.
I'm gonna put my number on it.
[Tomeka] I don't think the justice system
treats all victims the same.
People low on the totem pole
that's prostitutes, drug addicts,
I don't think they get the proper, you know,
investigation,
the TLC it takes to, you know, solve a case.
♪
[Jillian] They are out here somewhere...
...and I wanna know
that I left no stone unturned.
♪
[Beth] And you wanna be able to close
as many cases as you can
'cause you wanna be able
to bring answers to families
who have been waiting for decades.
It's not closure.
It's a sense of justice.
[pensive music]
♪
[Sam] There we are.
[Marsh] Mr. Little, you have signed
both of these guilty-finding pleas, haven't you?
[Sam] Yes.
They start, "I, Samuel Little,
"hereby freely and voluntarily
"withdraw my former plea of not guilty
and enter a plea of guilty."
Mr. Little, what is your plea to the charge of murder
of victim Anna Stewart
and a Jane Doe victim?
Guilty.
♪
[Jillian] I don't have to try
to make these victims important.
They are important,
and they're important to me.
♪
They don't have to have been good.
They don't have to have been right.
They don't have to have done anything.
They are important.
♪
Even when I turn in the book,
I feel like it's my responsibility
to pursue these unsolved cases
until I've exhausted every possibility
and that I can live with myself.
Are you okay? Are you feeling okay?
[Jillian] Okay.
No, you know what you have to do?
You-you do have something more to do, Mr. Sam.
[Jillian] Yeah, so...
you can stay alive for that, okay?
[Jillian] That's our deal, right?
[suspenseful music]
My deal with Sam
ends when Sam dies.
[Sam] Yeah, I love you.
[Jillian] So until then,
I'll stick around,
and I'll take his calls.
♪
This is not a story
that will ever end for me
till he's dead.
[sighs]
♪