Serial killer who strangled DMV woman now linked to more than 60 murders

LANDOVER, Md. (FOX 5 DC) - The killer behind a longtime cold case out of Prince George's County is connected to more than 60 murders across the country, prosecutors say.

79-year-old Samuel Little may be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. A California inmate, Little is in failing health and now cooperating with detectives investigating murders dating back to the 1970s.

One of them was a Landover woman whose murder local detectives tried to solve for 46 years.

Little told investigators last year in that he met the woman at the Greyhound Bus Station at New York Avenue Northwest - the façade is still there.

He told the investigators they hung out for a few days and then went for a ride up the BW Parkway to a dirt road near 197 - and that's where he strangled her and left her in the woods.

Little said it would have been around May of 1972. Her body was discovered by a man walking through the woods seven months later.

Little told police he thought the woman was from Massachusetts. Investigators are now hoping to find the victim's family.

"To summarize all that, 5-foot-2 to 5-foot-6, white female, blondish colored hair - she possibly had a child that he says she mentioned at one point and she was divorced and possibly lived in the Massachusetts area so that's the most important I think for us to contact her family," Detective Bernie Nelson told Fox 5 DC last year.

Police do have DNA and would be able to positively identify the woman if a family member came forward.

A Texas prosecutor said Friday that Little is behind more than 60 murders across 14 states.