The unidentified remains of a woman found in Dade County have been identified.
It was mid-March of 2019 when the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and Hamilton County DA’s Cold Case Unit unveiled a reconstruction of a black female believed to be a victim of serial killer Samuel Little. The body of a nude black woman was found in a wooded area of northwest Georgia on Tuesday, September 29 1981. The body went unidentified for almost 40 years. The Dade County Sheriff’s Office and GBI had started working again on identifying the woman and having facial reconstruction done.
According to information from the GBI, ” 78-year old Samuel Little- the self-proclaimed serial killer who’s confessed to ninety homicides and is among the most prolific in US history-takes responsibility for the 1981 murder of a woman found in Dade County.”
Originally, Little remembered the murder of a woman in Chattanooga in the early 1980’s. The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) contacted the Hamilton County DA’s Cold Case Unit, in August of 2018. Searches through Hamilton County and Chattanooga records by investigators did not find any missing persons or unsolved homicides that matched. The GBI was contacted and Assistant Special Agent In Charge Joe Montgomery remembered the Dade County Case.
On December 19, 2018, the GBI agent in charge of the unidentified woman from Dade County case and the Cold Case Unit supervisor went to Decatur, TX where Little was being held, to interview Samuel Little about this homicide.
GBI case information says, “Little said he met the woman in a nightclub on 9th Street (now MLK Blvd.) in Chattanooga in the early 80s. He described the victim as a light-skinned black female, with a big build, in her early to mid 20s. Little and the woman left the club together and went to a secluded road where Little strangled her. He then rolled her body off an embankment. In Little’s words, the body kept rolling, implying he was on a steep ridge.”
Little’s description of the crime and other information he shared regarding the initial encounter and ultimate homicide confirmed that Little was the one responsible for killing the unidentified woman found dead in Dade County in 1981.
The woman remained unidentified, but after the unveiling of the facial reconstruction in March of 2019, investigators received a lead from someone who believed the unidentified woman to be a missing relative. DNA was provided by family members and labs confirmed the identity of the woman whose body was found in Dade.
The Hamilton County DA’s Cold Case Unit is planning to announce the woman’s identity at a press conference on Friday, October 9.
At Right: A picture of the facial reconstruction done of the unidentified black female found deceased in September of 1981 in Dade County.
