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U.S. NEWS Tuesday 8 OcTOber 2019

U.S.: Human smuggling FBI: Inmate is most prolific

leader at Canadian serial killer in U.S. history

border in custody

By TAMARA LUSH and ADRI-
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A sometimes in New York but AN SAINZ
man federal prosecutors usually in Vermont." Associated Press
say led a human smug- Members of the organi- ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) —
gling organization on the zation would guide the The inmate who claims to
U.S.-Canadian border for people across the border have killed more than 90
five years was ordered on foot at night, avoiding women across the country
held Monday until he goes roads and official ports of is now considered to be the
to trial. entry. Once in the United most prolific serial killer in
Godofredo Rivas-Melen- States, the people would U.S. history, the Federal Bu-
dez, 60, a Canadian citizen be picked up by others reau of Investigation said.
who was born in El Salva- working with the organiza- Samuel Little, who has been
dor, was deported from tion and taken to their de- behind bars since 2012,
Canada and taken into sired location in the United told investigators last year
custody by U.S. authori- States. that he was responsible for
ties Oct. 1 in Champlain, Rivas-Melendez was ar- about 90 killings nationwide
New York, officials said in rested in Canada on a U.S. between 1970 and 2005. In
court filings. He pleaded warrant, said Kraig LaPorte, a news release on Sunday,
not guilty last week in U.S. a spokesman for the Ver- the FBI announced that In this Monday, Nov. 26, 2018 file photo, Samuel Little, who often
District Court in Burlington, mont office of the U.S. at- federal crime analysts be- went by the name Samuel McDowell, leaves the Ector County
Vermont. torney. He would not say lieve all of his confessions Courthouse after attending a pre-trial hearing in Odessa, Texas.
No trial date has been set. how many people the or- are credible, and officials Associated Press
His attorney did not return ganization is estimated to have been able to verify 50 described how he spoke murdering four women in
a call seeking comment. have smuggled into the confessions so far.
Beginning in as early as United States. Investigators also provided about a woman he stran- Ohio. He was convicted in
gled in 1993 — and how he California of three slayings
2013 and until August 2018, Officials with the U.S. Border new information and de-
Rivas-Melendez's organiza- Patrol in a 300-mile area tails about five cases in Flor- rolled her down a slope on in 2013 and pleaded guilty
to another killing last year in
a desolate road.
tion charged thousands of that includes upstate New ida, Arkansas, Kentucky,
dollars to smuggle people York, Vermont and New Nevada and Louisiana. "I heard a secondary road Texas.
noise and that meant she Authorities in Knox County,
into Vermont and New York Hampshire have for years The 79-year-old Little is serv-
from Canada, a federal spoken of organizations ing multiple life sentences was still rolling," he said. Tennessee, said Monday
In another video, he de-
that a woman named Mar-
court indictment said. that specialized in helping in California. He says he
He "and other conspirators people cross the border il- strangled his 93 victims, scribed a victim in New Or- tha Cunningham was likely
leans. "She was pretty. Light a victim of Little's. The Knox-
would offer alien smug- legally. nearly all of them women.
gling services to people liv- A Border Patrol agent in Some of his victims were colored, honey brown skin," ville News Sentinel reported
he said with a small smile. in December that a cold
ing in Canada from foreign Vermont last year de- on the margins of soci-
countries, including Central scribed the smuggling as ety. Many were originally "She was tall for a woman. case investigator with the
Beautiful shape. And, uh, Knox County Sheriff's Office
and South America, who "very well organized." deemed overdoses, or
wished to enter the United It is about a six-hour drive attributed to accidental friendly." had identified the victim
It was 1982, and they met who Little called "Martha."
States," the indictment said. to New York City from Ver- or undetermined causes.
Rivas-Melendez would mont's border with Cana- Some bodies were never in a club. She left with him The Knoxville mother's body
in his Lincoln, and they was found in a wooded
house the people seeking da. The areas where the il- found.
to enter the United States il- legal crossing activity shifts, The FBI provided 30 draw- parked by a bayou. area in eastern Knox Coun-
"That's the only one that I ty in 1975. Cunningham's
legally at hotels or his home agents say. ings of some of his victims
until they were ready to try In the summer of 2018, the — color portraits that were ever killed by drowning," he body was found by a pair
said.
of hunters on the after-
entering the United States. focus of illegal crossing was drawn by Little himself in
Members of the organiza- in the Derby Line, Vermont, prison. They are haunting Investigators around the noon of Jan. 18, 1975. She
country are still trying to was bruised and nude from
tion would then drive their area. The Border Patrol says portraits, mostly of black
customers from Montreal that this year, most of the il- women. piece together his confes- the waist down; her panty-
hose and girdle bunched
sions with unidentified re-
"to areas very close to the legal border crossing has The agency also provided
border between Canada shifted west to locations in videos taken during prison mains and unsolved cases around her knees. Her
purse and some of her jew-
from decades past. In Au-
and the United States, upstate New York.q interviews with Little. He
gust , he pleaded guilty to elry were missing. q