SHEPARD: No such thing as a routine arrest

In my many years of investigating crimes, I often wonder about the ones who got away, at least potentially, while on this Earth. 

On March 28, 1994 a man who was homeless, a drifter, was arrested in Jackson. 

He was squatting in an abandoned house on Fox Street, which is off East Chester Street. 

Officer David DeMoss answered the call and arrested Samuel Little. 

He was a 53-year-old male who stated he was disabled. 

The arrest was not extraordinary by any means. But in the law enforcement world, sometimes things are not what they seem. Sometimes they are down right a horror story. 

Samuel Little managed to get out of this charge of trespassing because the landlord did not wish to prosecute him. She just wanted to be rid of him. 

The charge was dropped in Jackson City Court the following day. That could have been the end of this story as far as Jackson and Madison County were concerned. I think you know by now that wasn’t the case. 

Sometime back in the early 2020s, several stories ran in the media about Samuel Little being a serial killer. 

He got caught when his DNA matched samples recovered in investigations of several murder victims, and he eventually was convicted of eight murders, mostly of female sex workers. 

During one of these media stories, he spoke about other crimes he had committed, and he realized he was never going to be released from prison. 

In 2012, technology caught up with him. The State of California had arrested him on an outstanding drug charge and obtained his DNA. That DNA linked him to three homicides in that state. 

He was eventually convicted of those crimes, and he was sentenced to prison and received a life without parole sentence in 2014. 

That led to the FBI linking him to at least five more homicides. At some point, after realizing he was never going to get out, he started a campaign to get transferred to what he believed was a better prison. 

That campaign led to him confessing to multiple additional murders throughout the United States. This led to several news agencies reporting on his crimes at the national level. One was on the Biography Channel. I saw this article and became interested in it. 

Samuel Little had a particular method of killing his victims, rarely deviating from his normal method of operation (M.O.). 

He confessed to the FBI that he primarily killed people that no one would care about, in his mind, prostitutes. 

He would get on top of them, strangle them to death and beat the back of their heads into the ground. He was a big, powerful man who had participated in boxing competitions. 

He also told the agents that he traveled all over the US and rarely stayed in one area for a very long time. 

After I was aware of these news stories, and still working, I became curious. I looked in the Jackson Police Department computer system for this man and his alias, Sammy McDowell. It popped up that in 1994, he was arrested here as I previously mentioned. 

Larecia McCalister was found murdered by the exact same cause of death on June 4, 1994, about two months after we know Samuel Little was here in Jackson. 

Larecia McCalister was found in a field near Jackson Regional Airport. She died because of strangulation, and her head was beaten into the ground. 

That homicide has never been solved. I am highly suspicious that Samuel Little committed this crime. In many instances, detectives don’t believe very much in coincidences. 

In another similar case, Erica Hardy was found dead on May 3, 2000 across from Charter Cable on Christmasville Road inside Jackson City Limits. 

She also had worked as a prostitute, and her manner of death was the same as Larecia McCalister. 

That homicide also has never been solved. 

None of this means that Samuel Little committed these crimes, but there is a good possibility.  Both crimes were featured as unsolved homicides by Jackson-Madison County Crimestoppers. 

I have spoken with both Madison County Sheriff Julian Wiser and Jackson Police Chief Thom Corley about these two cases. 

No one at this time is saying that Samuel Little was the killer in either of these cases. However, there may be additional forensic testing that may be able to shed some light on these two unsolved murders and bring closure to any family members. 

Samuel Little died in prison on December 20, 2020, at the age of 80. He never got his transfer to another facility. He remained defiant and hateful to the families of his victims. 

According to the FBI, they confirmed that he killed at least 93 people. That makes him one of the most prolific serial killers in United States history. Officer DeMoss went on to retire from JPD as a Lieutenant.

Captain Jeff Shepard retired from the Jackson Police Department after 32 years. Many of those years were spent as a criminal investigator. He is currently the president of the local Fraternal Order of Police and an avid historian. 

Sources: Jackson, Tennessee Police Department; Samuel Little: Biography, Serial Killer, Criminal, from the Biography Channel; personal memories of the author; Jackson-Madison County Crimestoppers.