In the autumn of 1982, the life of 22-year-old Melinda 'Mindy' LaPree was tragically cut short in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Having moved to the coastal city from Florida with her boyfriend, the two were known in the area as shrimpers. LaPree was last seen getting into a car in the Carver Village area with a man later identified as Samuel Little. Three weeks after she was reported missing, her body was discovered in a cemetery in what is now Gautier, a neighboring city.
An autopsy would later reveal that she had been strangled.
The investigation into LaPree's death quickly pointed toward Samuel Little, a man with a transient lifestyle who was known to sell stolen goods. In November 1982, Little was spotted in Ocean Springs in a vehicle matching the description of the one LaPree was last seen entering, making him the prime suspect. He was arrested in connection with her murder, but at the time, the district attorney felt there was insufficient evidence to prosecute, and a grand jury declined to indict him. During this same period, Little was also a suspect in the strangulation death of another woman in Gainesville, Florida, though he was ultimately acquitted in that case after a key witness was lost.
For decades, Melinda LaPree's case remained cold. The break would not come until years later, thanks to the persistent efforts of a Pascagoula detective investigating cold cases and the advancements in DNA technology. In 2012, Los Angeles detectives arrested Samuel Little, then in his 70s and living in a Kentucky shelter, after his DNA linked him to three unsolved murders in their city from the 1980s. Following his conviction for those murders, investigators from across the country began to re-examine cold cases with potential links to Little. Pascagoula detective Darren Versiga was instrumental in connecting Little to LaPree's murder, and even testified at Little's California trial alongside two other women who had been attacked by Little in Pascagoula. In 2018, while imprisoned, Samuel Little confessed to the murder of Melinda LaPree, finally bringing a resolution to the long-unsolved case. Little would go on to confess to numerous other murders across the United States, making him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.
