A serial killer confessed to 90 murders. Was one of them in Beaufort County?

Beaufort County investigators are reviewing a cold case they believe may be tied to a confessed Texas serial killer who claims he’s murdered more than 90 people in at least 16 states, an official said Friday morning.

The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office has been in contact with the FBI and Texas Rangers about a specific case that happened in the county that has similarities to murders the killer has already confessed to, according to Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Capt. Bob Bromage.

Bromage declined to offer specifics about the local case because it is still under investigation.

Samuel Little, 78, is serving life in prison after being convicted of murdering three people, but now he says he killed almost 90 more from coast to coast between 1970 and 2005, according to the FBI.

If it’s true, Little would be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history. So far, more than 30 of the additional killings have been confirmed.

He targeted marginalized, vulnerable women who were often involved in prostitution and addicted to drugs. Sometimes their bodies would never be identified and their deaths went uninvestigated, an FBI news release said.

The release listed all of the killings Little confessed to, including two cases in Savannah — a black woman between 22 and 23 years old who was killed in 1974 and a 23-year-old black woman killed in 1984. He also confessed to a murder in Charleston in which a 28-year-old black woman was killed between 1977 and 1982.

Although the Charleston case is the only one listed for the state of South Carolina, other local investigators across the state are also reviewing their cases, including one in Columbia involving the 1992 disappearance of 23-year-old Dail Dinwiddie and a 1978 case in Richland County, The State newspaper reported.

Little remembers the circumstances of the killings and his victims in great detail, including where he was and the car he was driving, the FBI release said. However, he is less reliable when it comes to dates, the release said.

The FBI says Little moved frequently which may have allowed him to get away with a number of murders across the country for decades.

Little has had run-ins with the law since 1956 and has been charged with shoplifting, fraud, drug possession, solicitation, and breaking and entering, but police have “only recently begun unraveling the true extent of his crimes,” according to the release.

This story was originally published November 30, 2018 at 11:24 AM.