Detectives Solve 1972 Laurel Murder: Police

LAUREL, MD -- A convicted serial killer who confessed to murdering more than 90 people in the 1970s and 1980s has admitted to killing an unidentified woman in Laurel back in 1972, police say.

A Texas Ranger contacted law enforcement in D.C. last month indicating that convicted serial killer Samuel Little murdered someone in the D.C. region sometime in the early 1970s, which prompted Prince George's County Police Cold Case Unit detectives to head to Texas to interview Little, according to a report from the Prince George's County Police Department.

Little, now 78, faces multiple life sentences for murders in California and Texas.

"During the interview, Little told our investigators specific and previously unreported details about an unsolved murder in Laurel that likely took place in the summer of 1972," the report states. "In December of that year, a hunter found the skeletal remains of the victim in a then wooded area off of Route 197 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway."

A medical examiner determined the victim was between 5'2"-5'6", had dirty blonde or reddish hair, and was around 19 years of age. Authorities have been unable to identify her.

"Samuel Little provided PGPD detectives key pieces of information that is narrowing the search for her identity," the report states. "According the Little, he picked up the victim at a bus station on New York Avenue in the District of Columbia. Little says the victim indicated she was recently divorced and from the Massachusetts area. She may also have been a mother."

Cold Case Unit detectives are now working with the FBI, Massachusetts State Police, and the Metropolitan Police Department to try to identify her.

Images via PGPD