Transient pleads not guilty to killing three women in 1980s

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A 72-year-old man charged with killing three women in Los Angeles in the late 1980s after DNA linked him to slayings pleaded not guilty Monday.

Samuel Little, 72, was arrested in Louisville, Ky., in September by U.S. Marshals on an unrelated narcotics warrant while investigators built their case. Little was charged with three murder counts and the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders.

He allegedly strangled his victims during sexual attacks and is accused of killing Carol Alford, 41, Audrey Nelson, 35, and Guadalupe Apadaca, 46. Their bodies were found south of downtown Los Angeles.

Little is a longtime transient with police interactions in two dozen states, authorities said. He moved to California in the 1980s after he was accused but not convicted of two murders and two attempted murders in Gainesville, Fla., and Pascagoula, Miss.

Little was convicted of assault and the false imprisonment of two San Diego women in separate cases. He received two years in prison. He was paroled, which was when detectives believe he killed the three women in Los Angeles.

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