MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – The faded photo of Rosie Hill shows a smiling teenager with her hands on her hips and a pink hat on her head, standing on the front porch of her mother’s house.
More than 35 years after the image was taken, her mother sits on the couch of that same house in Memphis, Tennessee, holding the picture of her late daughter on her lap, her fingertips barely touching the fragile frame. Minnie Hill speaks lovingly about her daughter, “a beautiful personality,” killed while living as a single mother in Florida.
Authorities say Rosie Hill was one of scores of vulnerable women preyed upon by Samuel Little, declared by the FBI last week as the deadliest serial killer in U.S. history.
“He was nothing but the devil,” she told The Associated Press. “Who knows of a person that killed that many people? What did she do so bad for him to kill her at the time her baby was but 2 years old?”
Little, who has been convicted of eight slayings in California, Texas and Ohio, has confessed to 93 killings across the country between 1970 and 2005, recounting the crimes in astonishing detail. Police have confirmed 50 cases after a Texas Ranger opened a floodgate of confessions more than a year ago, and the FBI this week released disturbing video interviews, hoping to solve additional cold cases.