LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

JANUARY 2021

Georgia, Ohio, Florida, Ohio, Florida, Maryland, DC, Florida, Ohio, Florida, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland, Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Georgia, California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Nebraska, California, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, New York, Florida, Georgia, California, Michigan, Nevada, Florida, California, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, California, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, New Jersey, Missouri, Florida, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Alabama, Ohio, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, California, Ohio, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, California, Georgia, Florida, California, Mississippi, Ohio, California, California, California…

’49 Ford Mercury, ’57 Ford Fairlane, ’64 Pontiac Grand Prix, ’59 Pontiac Bonneville, ’57 Ford Fairlane, ’58 Ford Mercury, ’59 Ford, ’64 convertible Pontiac Bonneville, ’65 Buick Riviera, ’63 Mercury, ’64 Buick Wildcat, ’68 Pontiac Bonneville, ’64 Wildcat Buick, ’69 Oldsmobile Delta, Pontiac LeMans, ’71 Ford Thunderbird, ’70 Pontiac Grand Prix, ’67 Cadillac Eldorado, ’73 Ford Thunderbird, ’69 Ford Thunderbird, ’68 Chrysler Imperial, ’67 Chrysler 300, ’56 Chevy Bel Air, ’72 Ford Galaxie, ’67 Ford Pinto, ’70 Lincoln Continental Mark III, ’75 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, ’76 Ford Thunderbird, Ford Mercury, ’78 Cadillac Eldorado, ’76 Ford F-150 bubble-top van, ’79 Cadillac Eldorado, ’85 Buick Riviera, ’78 Cadillac Fleetwood, Cadillac, ’85 Buick, ’77 Dodge motorhome, ’85 Chrysler, ’96 Cadillac, ’82 Nissan Maxima, ’95 Oldsmobile, ’89 Oldsmobile 88, ’84 Buick LeSabre, ’87 Ford F-150, ’99 Buick…

Diane, Sarah, Carolyn, Mary, Sarah, Emily, Linda, Norwegian baby, Air Force baby, Marianne, Maryland baby, Prince George baby, Sarah Brown, Agatha White Buffalo, Cuban Donna, Cincinnati baby, Savannah baby, Martha, the other Knoxville baby, Pamela, Mary-Anne, Bobbie, Jo, cowgirl, Angela, pipefitting baby, Macon baby, Carver Village baby, Carver Village baby, Plant City baby, Charleston baby, Clearwater baby, Evelyn, Julia, Cleveland baby, Hilda, Leila, Brenda, billboard baby, Chattanooga Choo Choo baby, Gulfport baby, Jackson ladyboy baby, Tennessee baby, Linda Sue, Atlanta baby, Anna Lee, Dorothy, Fredonia, Rosie, Ohio baby, Nawlins baby, Little Woods baby, Mindy, Patricia Anne, Atlanta stripper baby, Atlanta college baby, Savannah sand pile baby, West Memphis blues baby, Kentucky Vegas baby, Fort Myers baby, San Berdu baby, li’l Savannah baby, Tampa Bay baby, Mary Jo, big yellow LA gal, Laurie, Tonya, Granny, skinny li’l LA banger, Bronco Motel baby, Griffith Park baby, Monroe baby, Carol, Linda Sue, Audrey, Guadalupe, Pine Bluff baby, LA baby, Rose, Alice, Tina, Tracy, Ruby, Bobbie, Denise, Jolanda, Daisy, Melissa, Priscilla, Sheila, T-Money, Ann, Nancy Carol…

Unnamed, Unnamed, Unnamed, Unnamed, Unnamed, Unnamed, Unnamed, Unnamed…

Samuel Little died at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, on December 30, 2020, at approximately 4:35 in the morning due to complications from COVID-19, according to a press release from the prison. He was eighty years old.

Sam sometimes said to his victims, “Take my breath.”

If they weren’t already gone, his breath only meant more suffering. He sometimes gave them CPR postmortem.

The drive between my home and the prison could take anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to two hours. During the years I traveled between hell and home every weekend, I came to loathe that journey with every cell of my body. Even as I loathed it, it was, at times, beautiful.

In the early spring, orange poppies frost the desert hills. Once, when they were newly in bloom—luscious and vibrant enough to take your breath away—I pulled the car over to a precarious shoulder and tore my stockings to shreds running through a bramble patch in a pair of heels that suddenly seemed much less sensible. I wanted to see the poppy field from its center. I imagined Glinda’s famous first question of Dorothy upon her entrance to Oz.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

I write this final chapter from a world unimaginably different from the world in which I first heard Sam’s name. We are a country ravaged by a virus, caught in the grips of political discord, isolated, destabilized, attempting to become both teachers and breadwinners in an educational system and economy that are changing before our eyes.

Scott and I euthanized our dog Calvin two days before I got the call about Sam. Calvin kept me awake those final nights, pacing, getting stuck in corners. I heard the jingle of his tags, woke, and carried him onto the lawn to pee. I waited as he sniffed at the night breeze, looked at the trees beyond the gate.

I rubbed his ears until he fell asleep in the downstairs corridor and slept the last night on the floor beside him. I wanted one more day, just one more, just one more again, until no one could look me in the eye anymore.

Calvin was our first dog, in our first house. We got him as practice for the baby we were going to have any second, except we didn’t. I stuck a couch in what was supposed to be the baby’s room so it wouldn’t be empty, and we got our second dog, Peanut. Doggy had been Tariku’s first word of English when we finally brought him home from Ethiopia.

The vet was especially kind, allowing us to come in on short notice. I had called him the day before half hysterical, asking about the exact drug regimen, explaining that I knew a little too much about larger mammals being put to sleep, and it often didn’t go so well. He assured me if he used the drug regimen used in human executions, he’d be sued for malpractice. He talked me through it step-by-step.

Stay-at-home orders were in full effect, masks were required, and no patients passed each other. Only for euthanasia did they allow the owners inside with their pets.

It went exactly as planned. I asked for a little extra time when it was done. “I can’t leave while he’s still warm.”

The doctor and Scott both left, and I kept my palms on Calvin’s head until he started to cool. I kissed him and thanked the staff.

I put Calvin’s tag on my necklace. The jingle shook me awake early the second morning, the morning I found out Sam died.

The most prolific serial killer in United States history spent the last few years of his life a star, showered in love letters and milkshakes and still complaining from his cell about the speed of his mail. He called me ten days before he died. He was ranting, confused. After that, he was in quarantine. I never talked to him again.

If he died, as they say, from COVID-19 complications, he died by suffocation.

In October 2019, the FBI updated the map on their twenty-one-page Samuel Little website to include five removed cases and two added, one in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, and another in New Orleans. Eight new portraits have been added.

The FBI claims to have confirmed sixty-one of Little’s murders at the time I write this. Forty-five of Little’s cases were cleared by exceptional means. He carried eight life sentences.

T-Money?

Bald Head Hill Girl?

Bathtub Girl?

Turban Girl?

Helicopter/Observatory Girl?

I have one or two points on the map for each, but I am missing a third and last. I am missing the location of the body dump and the body itself.

Detective Mitzi Roberts recently secured a new RHD Cold Case Unit, configured in a unique way. The new CCU will be led by Roberts and consist of an all-volunteer squad of retired reserve detectives and officers, including Tim Marcia. Together they’ll chip away at the six thousand unsolved cases that remain on the books in Los Angeles alone.

What was it like talking to a violent psychopath?

Was I frightened? Did I feel like I was staring at the devil himself?

It’s reckless arrogance to think you know the devil. The devil does not dress in red sequined horns and a pitchfork from Halloween Headquarters.

You listen when the devil talks. You let him tell you who he needs you to be. You mustn’t be boring, because murder is many things, but it is not boring. You assemble, piece by piece from genuine facets of yourself, a fictional creation. You hope she is a worthy avatar who will protect you from the inevitable manipulation and annihilation you will face at the hands of someone who is human, but just barely.

Sam Little was a toddler, a wild man, a hustler. He was lazy, vicious, and a murderer to his core. Sam was the classic expression of the id, the cliché Oedipus, the longest shadow, the ultimate psychopath.

I spoke with Debbie on New Year’s Eve 2021 as she was getting ready for a stroll with her husband. There was a light flurry, the kind of snowflakes that land on your eyelashes and make streetlights sparkle, and they wanted to try to catch some on their tongues. We laughed, hoped for a day we might travel again and meet up, and she could show Jovi a dance move or two. She thanked me.

“I never have to wonder again if Alice is okay,” said Debbie. “I know she is.”