All language subtitles for Confronting.a.Serial.Killer.S01E02

[uneasy music]

I am writing a book
about a serial killer.

[news reporter]
Seventy-four-year-old

Samuel Little was sentenced
today for killing three women

in South Los Angeles
in the 1980s.

But it always nagged at me
because I knew

he was good for more murders.

Sam Little got away with this
for so long

because most of his victims

were in marginalized
populations:

women of color, drug addicts,
prostitutes.

[dramatic music]

[Scott] Once she started
visiting Sam in prison,

that really awoke a lot

of different kind of demons
in her.

[Jillian] Sam starts
confessing to me

all of these cold cases,

all of these murders

that had been long unsolved

throughout the United States.

Then it was like
the floodgates opened.

[whispering] Oh, Jesus.

[normally]
How many victims are there?

[projector whirring]

[uneasy music]

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[Jillian] Right.

[Jillian] Uh, why did she
deserve it?

♪

[Jillian] When I started
writing a book

about Samuel Little,

I-I had no idea

of the scope of it.

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[laughs]

He is a vicious...

killer.

♪

And I thought,

"I have to keep going
with this."

Like, I'm gonna pursue this.

It's about these victims.

I wanna know how he got away
with this for so long.

♪

And I wanna understand

violence against women
in this culture

and why it is
so summarily dismissed.

♪

[news reporter]
The FBI calls Samuel Little

America's most prolific
serial killer.

[Sam] If you want me
to tell my secrets to you,

come down here
and look me in my eye

while I do.

[Jillian]
My deal with the devil is,

"You will not die alone
if you tell me the truth."

[Sam] I'm not gonna admit
to those girls.

[Jillian] I don't believe you.

So you tell me the truth
right now.

[news reporter]
Little strangled 93 victims

between 1970 and 2005.

[Jillian]
He was tried and got off

again and again and again.

[news reporter]
Investigators believe

that Samuel Little
killed more people

than serial killers Ted Bundy,

John Wayne Gacy,
and Jeffrey Dahmer combined.

[Jillian]
If you weren't locked up,

I'd probably be dead by now.

[Sam] You're right.

[operator] You have
a prepaid call from...

[Sam] This is Sam.

[operator] ...an inmate at
the California State Prison,

Los Angeles County,

Lancaster, California.

Mr. Sam.

[Jillian] I started
visiting Sam Little in prison

in August of 2018.

Now not only do I visit him
every other weekend.

I also talk to him
almost daily.

And I record

all my phone conversations
with him.

Are you ready
for some questions?

[Jillian] You haven't asked.
I'll trade you.

You give me one secret,
I'll give you one.

[Jillian] I have access
to this serial killer,

and I hope that I
could have something to offer

to law enforcement,

but, you know,
you don't walk in

and start talking
to a psychopath

and just be like, "So tell me
about how you killed 'em."

♪

You ask a question,

and then you listen
really carefully,

and if you listen hard enough,

you can hear
what they need you to be.

So tell me the truth.

[Sam] If I was--

No, Mr. Sam, you know
I don't-I don't judge you.

I'm just here to listen.

I think of it as, like,

I'm his mommy;
I'm his daughter.

And I'm his ultimate victim.

He's an actor.
He's a psychopath.

♪

Every... interaction he has

is transactional...

♪

...and he is two steps
ahead of you

at any move.

I realize that it is
a really strange relationship

for most people to hear,
for them to understand,

but I'm in this
privileged position

that Sam Little wants
to answer my questions.

It serves him,

and it feels good to him.

So then how can I use that?

♪

If I'm gonna investigate this,
then what are the questions

I'm gonna ask about?

Like, "Why did he get away
with this for so long,

and how?"

I need to look
at all the times

he actually was caught

and find out what went wrong.

[Jillian] Can you walk me
through what happened

with the Patricia Mount case?

Do you remember
picking her up?

[Jillian] I want the truth.

[eerie music]

[Jillian] Sam crawled
the city's underbelly,

drifting from bar to bar,

looking for weed and women,

preferably both.

♪

♪

[Kenny]
On September the 12th, 1982,

we were notified that, uh,

there had been a discovery
of a female body

in the middle
of absolutely nowhere

in a hayfield.

[pensive music]

Found the body laying
approximately in this area.

It was the body of a late 20s,

early 30s white female.

She was nude.
She was laying on her back.

♪

She had defecation, you know,
smeared on her body

and on the clothes.

She had obvious bruising
on the neck area.

You can almost see
the handprints.

She was strangled to death.

♪

I wonder
if the original case file

has got my notes still in it.

There you go. That's her.

That's the victim,
Tricia Mount.

♪

Several witnesses
that knew Patricia Mount

had seen her
at Willie Mae's tavern

the night before,

speaking to a Black male.

They described him
as around 40s,

pretty good-sized fella,
big hands.

♪

Couple of the witnesses, uh,
actually saw Patricia

get in his car.

It was a small station wagon,

tan or brown in color.

♪

[Greg] She was 26 years old.

She had a very low IQ,

an IQ of around 40,
from her paperwork.

Basically little girl

because
of her mental capabilities

just thrown aside.

You know, there's no way

that should happen.

♪

[Jillian] Sam was good
at finding the weak link.

He could look at a room

and see that somebody
was lonely

or see that somebody
was hungry

or see that somebody

really needed a fix,

and that's where he would go.

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[eerie metallic squealing]

♪

[Jillian] Right.

♪

We're working the case,

but we're basically
at a dead end.

We knew he wasn't
from-from the Gainesville area.

None of the witnesses
ever saw him before.

We put out a BOLO,

which is
"be on the lookout for,"

to southeastern United States

with the description
of a suspect

and-and a vehicle
fitting the description

we were looking for.

[Jillian] After Sam killed
Patricia Mount,

he left Florida and went
to Pascagoula, Mississippi,

where he then killed
Melinda LaPree.

[desolate music]

A few months later,
he was arrested there

in Mississippi

for shoplifting.

♪

They were able to connect

the brown Pinto station wagon

that he was driving

with a report
about a murder in Florida,

and law enforcement
got in touch with each other.

[Greg] In early December,
we get notified

that Pascagoula, Mississippi,
has a person in custody

for the murder down there

that matches the description
of our murder,

and he matched
the physical description

of our suspect.

[Kenny] And his name
was Sam McDowell,

also identified as Sam Little.

Several of the witness
positively identified Sam

from a photographic lineup.

So we, uh, obtained
a-a warrant for his arrest

for the murder of Pat Mount.

♪

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[Kenny] We interviewed
Sam McDowell.

You could almost sense
the evil in the room.

We showed him a picture
of the victim,

Patricia Mount.

He had a-a slight reaction.

He knew who we were
talking about,

but, uh, he adamantly denied
ever seeing her,

and never was she in his car.

[dramatic music]

[Greg] We knew that we were--

basically had
a circumstantial case.

The only evidence we had

was three witnesses

from Willie Mae's bar

identifying him
out of a lineup.

We were concerned.

We were hoping
we'd get more evidence.

We found out then Sam Little

was arrested for shoplifting
in Mississippi.

He had two individuals
with him.

[Kenny] One, a teenage boy,
Danny Beckless,

and an older Black woman

by the name of Orelia Dorsey.

[Jillian] Orelia Jean Dorsey

was 27 years older than Sam.

He met her in a jailhouse
in Cleveland.

She was
a convicted shoplifter.

She was his girlfriend,

and he traveled the country
with her.

He called her Jean.

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Wow, it sounds like
she really-she really took

good care of you.

Unfortunately,
we couldn't sit down

and interview her

because Orelia
was no longer there.

But we subsequently interviewed
Danny Beckless.

He was a young teenager,

approximately 16 years old.

Danny indicated to us
that he had been traveling

with, uh, Sam McDowell
and Orelia Dorsey

for a period of time

and they had been staying

in the-in the Gainesville
area.

[Kenny] We pressed him
if he could remember

the night of the homicide

in Gainesville months earlier

of Patricia Mount.

[disquieting music]

[Greg] He said he thought
Sam left the motel

around seven o'clock
that night.

♪

[Kenny] The next morning,
Danny went out and found

brown matter, fecal matter,

on the back seat of the car.

♪

[Greg]
And he said the car smelled.

Orelia had wiped it up
and cleaned it

the best she could.

[Jillian] The police suspected
that Sam,

he was killing at night,

and Orelia,

she would clean his car out

in the morning,
and they would move on.

They would not stay anywhere

for more than three days.

♪

Danny also would talk
about, uh, Sam bragging to him

about picking prostitutes up,
and then he said,

you know,
he would get rid of them.

♪

[Greg] Sam did mention
one time

that he had hurt ladies.

He had told Beckless that.

♪

Greg and I decided
that we probably had

a serious serial killer
on our hands.

♪

Going into trial,

we felt pretty good
at that point.

♪

[Greg] Then we start trying
to locate Danny Beckless,

and... we can't find him.

♪

Danny was gone.

[Kenny] This was a blow
to the state's case

because without Beckless there,

we couldn't use anything
that Beckless, uh, had told us

because it'd be considered
hearsay

and the judge
would not allow it.

♪

He never for a second
thought he would be convicted.

Samuel Little's victims
were ignored

for all of these years

in large part because

they were
in marginalized populations.

♪

[Kenny] Pat Mount had
a lot of trouble in her life.

She was mentally retarded.
She was an alcoholic.

She hung around the bars,

was known to get drunk

and leave with different men.

All this was brought up
during the trial.

And I-I felt a lot of people,

including the jury,
felt that she was

less of a person

rather than being a victim
of a homicide,

that she was
almost asking for it.

I feel personally

that, uh, if she'd have been

a University of Florida
student,

a lot different trial
would've been conducted.

♪

[Greg] We disseminated
the information.

We felt he was
a serial killer,

and we put it out nationwide.

That's all we could do
is warn people.

You throw a life away,
basically,

a life, basically, of a child,

even though she was
26 years old.

And you feel sorry for someone,

that you couldn't do them
justice to help them.

♪

I just felt like somehow,

we should've been able
to keep him in jail.

[Jillian] There was
such a miscarriage of justice.

They had him again and again.

When I read his rap sheet,
I was shocked.

He served far less time

for rape, assault, and murder

than he did for his first
breaking and entry charge

when he was 16 years old.

[melancholy music]

♪

He went
to the Ohio State Reformatory

at the age of 16.

[Jillian] Yeah.

And that was where
he learned to box.

[Jillian] I knew
that I wanted to write

a more extensive piece

about Sam Little,
and, you know,

a big piece of his identity
is boxing.

I felt that in order
to understand him,

I would have to go
and just give it a try.

[trainer] Seven, eight.

[Jillian] And boxing
has given me a perspective

on the Sam Little story
in many ways.

[uneasy music]

What were the nicknames
they called you?

[bell dings]

[people clamoring]

[Jillian] Sam was
the middleweight champion

of the Ohio State Reformatory,

and boxing culture
in the prisons in the '60s

was actually a funnel
into professional boxing.

So Sam Little is 24

when he gets
out of the reformatory.

[desolate music]

He goes and fights
an amateur fight

in Cleveland.

He has all these people
in his corner,

saying hang back,

except he's a KO fighter.

He is a powerhouse, right,

and they're saying
hang back, hang back,

and he got his lip split,

and he lost by points.

♪

He put his boxing gloves
in the trash

and said,
"I'm never fighting again."

He took that rage
somewhere else.

♪

Why don't you tell me
why you stopped boxing?

[Jillian] I mean, I feel like
that's really interesting,

Sam, for you to say that,

because you are actually
a killer.

But you have killed people.

So you did have
a killer instinct.

[Sam] I-I--

[Jillian] Right.

I was not calculating

in the kind of emotional toll

talking to the psychopath
would take.

♪

I'm pretty angry.

I mean, I don't, like,
function

in the world
as an angry person,

but if I think hard enough

about the things
that I've experienced

and also the things
that I'm researching

with the Sam Little story
and these victims,

I can get pretty angry.

I'm somebody
who has experienced

domestic abuse.

I am somebody who has done

sex work in my life.

I'm someone
who has certainly done

plenty of drugs.

I have a post-traumatic
stress disorder diagnosis.

Uh, boxing allows me
to lean into the pain.

♪

There are many ways

of dealing with trauma:

by running away,

by being addicted,

and...

I think that that is

a large part of how Sam

chose his victims.

He was a predator.

He could walk in a room

and see who was
the easiest prey.

♪

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[Jillian] They weren't
all prostitutes.

[Laurie] You know,
you don't think

things like that
are gonna happen to you

'cause I wasn't that person.

I just tried some risky stuff.

My name is Laurie Barros.

I'm one
of the few surviving victims

of Samuel McDowell Little.

♪

It's written all over you
somehow or another,

how you carry yourself,

that you don't care
about yourself,

you don't respect yourself,

you have no confidence.

And in--that was true.
I had none.

[suspenseful music]

[Jillian] Remember,
pick the ones

no one will notice are gone.

Remember,
don't leave them alive.

Remember, don't get caught.

Remember, if the above fails,

get a lawyer.

Remember, deny, deny, deny.

♪

[Jillian] That was Laurie
and Tonya?

That was the two women
in San Diego?

That case?

♪

[siren wailing]

[Laurie] I was going
through a divorce

and, you know,
from an abusive husband,

wasn't caring very much

about how I was handling
my life,

and that night,
I got dressed up.

I was bored. I was lonesome.

And my friend

had a meth dealer
that lived downtown.

I thought I would go see
if he was home,

do a few lines, right?

[ominous music]

So I had gotten out of my car,

but I don't think I made it
to the end of the block.

♪

I remember getting
the feeling--

you know how you get a feeling
somebody's following you?

♪

I instantly just froze up

and got really scared.

I thought,
"Don't act like you're scared.

Don't act like you're scared."

He was-he was behind me now,

kind of got me in a chokehold,

shoved me into his car.

It seemed like
he drove around aimlessly

for a little bit,

and driving up this dirt road,

it was pitch-black,
just emptiness,

and I remember
he pulled up there

and turned the car off.

I just assumed,
"I'm gonna-I'm gonna get raped.

Prepare yourself."

And...

he...

turned around and pretty much
took me by the neck

and pushed me in the back seat,

right over the seat.

♪

He--like this. He had his f--

just pressing down.

And my--his hands
are around my neck.

His thumbs are
on those hyoid bones,

and he kept pressing harder.

♪

He had told me to swallow,

says, "I love it
when you swallow."

And I went unconscious.

♪

[sighs]

And I remember
coming back to consciousness.

I know he thought I was dead,

and I knew that
because I played dead.

♪

I remember kind of talking
to God

and saying, "I'm sorry.
I did this to myself."

I was so ashamed.

[Jillian] As survivors
of violence,

one of the most difficult
things

is that we often blame
ourselves.

We're working with a set
of cultural assumptions

that cause us

to internalize.

♪

[pensive music]

♪

I grew up with a kind
of insatiable curiosity

that has gotten me
into a lot of trouble.

But I don't think
that any of that

really translated
into some of my more...

self-destructive behaviors

until I had an experience
at summer camp

when I was 12 years old,

when I had a relationship
with a much older counselor.

Him.

And he was 21.

We got caught,
and he got fired,

and I was publicly humiliated

and then went from being,
you know,

this awkward...

preteen, really, um,

you know, to being
the town slut, basically.

♪

You know? I mean,
what-what would you do

if a 21-year-old

touched
your 12-year-old daughter?

♪

I don't know what I would do,

but, uh, I-I...

w-wouldn't do
what my parents did,

and I wouldn't do
what the camp directors did,

which was, you know, blame me.

♪

I was publicly humiliated.

You know, the general...

opinion was that I seduced him

and, uh, you know, caused him
to lose his job,

and, uh--and my whole life
changed after that.

♪

I started to internalize

those kind of ideas
about myself.

You know, I was bad,
I was wrong,

I was shameful,

and, uh--you know,

and I started to act out
in self-destructive ways.

I was anorexic. I was a cutter.

I still carry those scars
physically.

It was a formative experience,

changed my life.

The experience
of not being believed,

being blamed, it changed

my idea about myself,

and, uh, I can look
at that experience

and see that that was where

my more self-destructive
behaviors

started to manifest.

♪

I feel connected
with these victims

because it could've been me
any night of the week

for a very long time
in my life.

[Laurie] It's probably been
about 25, 26 years

since I've been back here
to this site.

[eerie music]

When Sam Little
was pushing me out of the car,

I know he thought I was dead.

[exhales heavily]

I was laying in dirt,
but there was trash around me.

I was just kind of
sprawled out on my back,

and I didn't move a muscle.

The idea that I'm laying
in trash

has never left me,

that image and just kind of...

such a metaphor
for how I've kind of felt

so much of my life.

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[Jillian]
Yeah, 'cause you were.

[Jillian] But you thought
she was dead.

[desolate music]

♪

[Wayne] We're going
into Logan Heights now,

and, you know,
back in 1984, when I joined

the San Diego
Police Department,

this was kind of the start
of the gang area.

Thirty-Second Street,

all the girls
who were prostituting

would be
along the street here.

They're just trying to get by.

♪

My name's Wayne Spees,

and I'm a detective sergeant

retired from San Diego
Police Department.

[tense music]

On October 25th,
I was working night watch.

♪

I was probably a week in
in my phase training,

and my training officer
was Lou Tamani.

In lineup that day,

Lou shows me this flyer.

We call them a BOLO,
a "be on the lookout."

So this is the BOLO

that we received in lineup
that night.

It says that this guy

had attacked a woman,

that he drove her
to a-a location,

and raped her
and strangled her,

and then he threw her
out of the car,

thinking probably she was dead,

and, uh--and then, you know,
left her there.

♪

The victim is 22-year-old
Laurie Barros.

She gave
a really good description

of the car and of our suspect:

a Black male,

40 to 45 years old,
six foot one,

230 to 240 pounds,

He had a gold pinkie ring
with two diamonds.

The vehicle he was driving

was a black two-door
large American-made car.

It had three foam dice hanging
from the rearview mirror.

♪

[engine turning over]

And now we're out
a month later,

patrolling the-the area.

That night,

just before five
in the morning,

the sun hasn't come up yet.

Radio slows down, and...

my partner Lou's telling me

about this area
where this woman was attacked,

and Lou says to take
the right turn off of 36th.

It's a dead-end street,
and then it goes

into a, uh, dirt lot

with just these piles
of trash.

♪

And we want to sneak up
on anybody

so we don't wanna alert them
with our lights on,

so we turn our lights out.

♪

We can see, you know,
the outline

of-of a car up in front of us.

♪

Lou said, "Okay, closer,
closer, closer,"

and then he said,
"When I say so,

"turn the spotlights on

and turn the headlights on,
high beams."

♪

And, uh, as we're pulling up,
he tells me.

He says, "All right,
light them up."

♪

And that's when we can see,

you know, the-the car.

We see it's the car
that matches this description.

It's a large black
American-made car.

It's a T-bird.

And we see movement
in the back seat,

and we see a head,
you know, pop up,

and then the door opens
on the passenger side,

and he jumps out of the car.

♪

He gets out, and he looks
directly, uh, at us,

and I notice he's-he's
pulling his pants up.

He's zipping up his pants.

So I--in a very firm voice,
I say,

"Get over here.
I need to talk to you."

As he's approaching me,
I have my light,

my flashlight, on him,

and as I put the light
on his face,

I can see the scratches
on his throat,

and they're fresh;
they're-they're bleeding.

You know, and he has a-a clump

of, like, mucus-y blood
on his shirt.

And then he looks down
at my gun,

and I just told him; I said,

you know,
"Don't do anything stupid."

He identified himself to me
as Samuel McDowell.

♪

So I put him
in the back of the car.

He's handcuffed.
He's not going anywhere.

We got him.

And now I make my way up,

uh, to the back seat
of the T-bird.

♪

When I... got up to the car,

I was on the passenger side,

and I can see a woman
back there,

and she's naked,

and she's shoved down
behind the driver's seat

on the floor,

and her hips
and her-and her legs

are-are up on the seat,
spread.

She had, you know,
a lot of redness,

um, and bruising
around her-her neck.

There was blood
coming from her nose

and from her mouth,
like she'd been punched.

Her eyes were rolled back
in her head,

and it wasn't till the--
she started gurgling

that I realized
that she's still alive.

[indistinct
police radio chatter]

And Lou said, "You're safe.
I'm a police officer."

And then that's when she said,

you know, "He raped me.
He raped me."

[Jillian] To-that was Tonya,

when you got caught
in the act?

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[dramatic music]

[Wayne] The victim
was being treated

in the hospital.

We learned her name
was Tonya Jackson.

She says she met
Samuel McDowell

in a bar downtown,

and he offered her money
for sex, and she agreed,

and then, uh, he drove her
to that location

where she was attacked.

Now he's in the back seat,
strangling this woman.

♪

She was moments
away, uh, from death.

No doubt in my mind
that, you know,

he would've killed her.

So the charges at that point

were the kidnap,

the rape,

and then the attempted murder.

He said, "Yeah, I'll talk.

I'll tell you
exactly what happened."

You know, to me, he says,

"That-that doctor's exam's

not gonna show any rape,"

and he said, "The only thing
that's gonna show

is where my hands were
around her neck."

And, uh, I remember
thinking to myself,

"Wow, that's a pretty
incriminating, uh, statement."

I took my notepad out,

and I put quotation marks,
you know,

and I wrote that down.

And then he said,

"I just kicked
the shit out of her."

Uh, "That bitch deserved it."

He goes, "I should've killed
that whore."

♪

[Wayne] So once we get him
down to the station,

we hand him off
to the sex crimes detective

who handled the first case,
Laurie Barros.

He then brings Laurie down

and is going to have her
identify, if she can,

Sam Little in a lineup.

[uneasy music]

[door creaks]

♪

[Laurie] And I picked him out
in a matter of seconds.

♪

And just to let him know
that I was on this side

of the-the glass...

♪

...I made him repeat the words

that I knew would probably...

make him a little anxious,
which was,

"Swallow for me.
I love it when you swallow."

Made him say that...

♪

...'cause I was looking for him
to-to-to be unnerved by it.

And... I fell to my knees

and just broke,

just kind of crumbled.

Um, I knew that was him.

♪

[Wayne] So now we know
we have him

for two cases.

Samuel McDowell was charged
with both the attacks

on Laurie Barros
and Tonya Jackson.

It's what we call a slam dunk.

I mean, you caught the man
in the act.

♪

So in my mind,

this guy's going away
for a long time,

and we got
a really dangerous predator

off the street.

[Gary] Samuel McDowell,
serial murderer, rapist,

torturer, strangler.

Let's see what we got here.

These are notes I haven't seen

in decades...

on this case.

I'm Gary Rempel.

I'm a retired
district attorney

for San Diego County.

I tried the 1985 case
of Samuel Little,

also known as McDowell,

in which he, uh, raped
and assaulted

and tried to strangle
two women.

We had a solid identification.

The, uh, first one had ended

with the victim
being left for dead

in a trash heap,
and in the second one,

police officer happened
on the scene

and actually interrupted
this, uh, man

as he was strangling
his victim

in the back seat of his car.

There was no doubt in my mind
I had the right guy.

So one of the first things
I did

was look
at Sam Little's rap sheet.

Many, many arrests

but not much time served.

Violent assault, rape,
attempted murder.

In Mississippi,
attempted murder, first degree.

Gainesville, Florida,
acquitted.

An acquittal's
kind of unusual.

That was a bit of a red flag.

♪

So having all these facts
in mind, uh,

I began to prepare my case,

and the first thing I did,
of course,

would be to interview
the victims.

The first victim I interviewed
is Tonya Jackson,

who was saved by the officer.

[Jillian] Well, I mean,
it-it is violent.

It's violent
to strangle someone,

right, Mr. Sam?

[Gary] Tonya Jackson

openly admitted
she was a prostitute.

She denied there had been

any conflict over a fee
or any other reason

for him to attack her

other than
for his own pleasure.

♪

But if the cop
hadn't come along

and interrupted
the-the crime in the act,

she wouldn't have made a very
good witness on the stand.

She just was, uh,

you know, poorly educated,
uh, not a strong speaker,

and appeared to be a person
of few words.

But then I interviewed
the second witness,

Laurie Barros.

[Laurie] When I had
my first meeting

with DDA Gary Rempel,

I can remember
sitting down in there

and just b-trembling.

Uh...

[ominous music]

I gave him
all the gory details

of what happened to me.

♪

So I heard her story,
and she really seemed

to make an excellent witness.

She was
a very attractive lady,

dressed modestly but nicely.

I thought there'd be
no problems in the case.

The only thing was the timing.

What's she doing
out in the street

at 11:30 in downtown San Diego
at that time of night?

So I just wanted to know
why she was there.

♪

So I brought her in
for further questioning.

[Laurie] I knew something
was wrong,

and he told me; he said,

"Yeah, we-we had
to pull your record, you know?

It's what we do."

[dramatic music]

I got arrested a couple times,

and--you know,
with a group of girls

for prostitution.

Being arrested was

horribly humiliating

and definitely a wake-up call,

going, "What are you doing?"

She came clean.
I said, "That-that's okay.

He still didn't have the right
to do what he did."

But now I had information

that affected her credibility

as a witness and as a victim.

♪

[Laurie] When I testified
at trial,

I was
an absolute nervous wreck.

Felt like all the pressure
was on me

to make sure that the jury
would believe me.

♪

[Gary] Both my victims
did a pretty good job.

They shared their horror.

[eerie music]

Then it was
the defense attorney.

Little took the stand.
He kept his mild demeanor.

He testified
that as to Laurie Barros,

he knew nothing
about that case;

he had nothing
to do with that case;

he in fact was
with, uh, a friend

that he travels with,
an older lady

that he takes care of,

a lady living
on social security

named Jean.

[Jillian] Didn't Jean
take the stand,

uh, at one of your trials?

Was it San Diego?

[Jillian] Wow.

[Gary] Jean testified
unequivocally and strongly

that during the, uh, time
in question,

she had been with Sam

and that, uh, there was no way

he could've committed
the crimes alleged.

She was
the consummate alibi witness,

the little under-oath
church lady.

♪

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

She must have known.

You're not cleaning blood
and shit and earrings

out of the back of a car
and thinking, you know,

"My boyfriend's
just fucking around."

I think she absolutely knew,

and I think she enabled it.

[Gary] But as to Tonya,

Sam said she was trying

to cheat him
out of some money,

and he refused to pay her,
and so she attacked him,

and he was simply
fighting her off

when the officer
arrived on the scene.

♪

[Jillian] Sam had
a unique ability

for finding the people
who would not be credible,

regardless of what they said.

Even if they lived,
who would believe them?

Somehow, this man

was more credible

than these victims?

♪

[Laurie] I didn't hear
from anyone

after I testified.

I had no idea that the jury
didn't believe me.

♪

I had no idea that...

there was a hung jury.

♪

[mournful music]

[Gary]
Tonya couldn't be located

for the second trial.

We were faced with a...

extremely weak case
that was going to possibly end

in an acquittal,

so we accepted a plea

to two felony counts,

assault with intent to inflict
great bodily injury.

We're darn lucky we got
to send this guy away

four years to prison
for what he had done.

I don't even know if he served

every minute
of those four years.

That was the best
we could get him,

and that's what we gave him.

♪

[sighs]

This was the worst outcome
of my career.

They didn't do their job.

♪

Whether Tonya was around
or not,

they had enough evidence
from what happened to me.

The details I gave them,
the report I gave them,

the drawing I gave of him,

and the fact he was caught
in the act

is unbelievable to me

that they could not have made
that trial work.

Somebody fucked up,

big-time.

♪

Hi.

[Gary] Hi. You must be Laurie.

[Laurie] I'm Laurie.
Please come in.

[sighs]

Very different seating
than 35 years ago.

Yeah.

So, uh, I've been curious
a few times the...

-Yeah, yeah.
-...case has come up,

and, you know, we-we didn't
see you for that second trial.

-Yeah.
-And, uh...

and I don't know
if they didn't-didn't do

a good job locating you,
or I didn't know

if you'd just made yourself
scarce or what.

-What happened?
-No one ever called me

or followed up with me at all.

-They didn't follow up?
-Never.

I never knew
there was a second trial.

I didn't know
there was a hung jury

in the first trial.

I never got a call from anyone

to follow up after I testified.

Uh, we were put in a bad spot.

We, uh, couldn't go forward,

and we had to, uh,

make a deal with this crook

and, uh, you know, consequently

managed to send him to prison
but not-not long enough.

-Right.
-Yeah.

Because we're prostitutes,

we're women,
it doesn't really matter.

That's ultimately--
what came out of that is...

"Who cares?"

Well, I think they
don't believe women sometimes

when they have got a record
for being a prostitute

and then they-they, uh-

they deny it when it comes
for a trial

on this particular occasion.

I didn't deny it.

But you were doing
prostitution.

Am I correct? Okay.

Five or six times,
I was out on the streets,

doing prostitution.

I remember being
in your office,

and I fully admitted it;
I was humiliated.

I'm embarrassed of what I did.

But it shouldn't change
anything.

I didn't deserve for some guy

to try and murder me.

There's no way
he should've been able

to plea out like this so easily

with so much evidence.

Now, you understand,

without a witness,
we didn't have a trial.

I'm a witness.
It happened to me.

Right, but--

This is crazy.
I didn't go anywhere.

Just, uh, a fucking phone call.

Can you think of any reason
why you wouldn't have called?

Weren't you curious
to know what happened?

I-I would've called;
I'd like to know what happened

if I was in your shoes.

You're gonna put this on me?

-Did you feel--
-I cannot--

What a metaphor
all this has become.

Being dumped in trash,
never called,

never contacted.

If you cared so much,

it-it should've come from you.

I'm sorry you think I didn't do

the best could be done.

It didn't go well this time,

and this is just
a horrible, horrible case.

Failed. They failed.

They failed me.

They failed every woman
after me

that was killed.

I'm trying to point out
the massive failure

of the system.

Nothing's gonna change

if all we're doing
is defending ourself

and saying
we did everything right.

We did not.

Women have died

because everybody's got
the same mindset.

They're stuck.
Their hands are tied.

"I did my best."
No, nobody fought.

We just respond to the system
and on to the next.

[breathes deeply]

So guess what.

All the deaths after me
are on them.

Have fun sleeping at night
with that,

'cause you do not get
to escape it.

He went on a killing spree
after he got out of prison

for serving
two and a half years,

immediately after he got out.

[indistinct
police radio chatter]

[Jillian] I want you to tell me

about when you got
out of prison in San Diego.

You remember that?

[disquieting music]

[Jillian] Mm-hmm.

[Jillian] When I took on
this serial killer story,

I was like,
"This can't be real."

[dramatic music]

This man, who everyone knew
was killing women,

got off again and again
and again.

And I thought, "Oh, gosh.

"Like, I'm gonna get
the answer.

"I'm gonna get the answer

"of why you feel
you need to control women

"and why you feel
you need to own women

"and, if you can't,
why you feel

you need to destroy women."

It's like, "I'm gonna get it.
I'm gonna get the answer."

♪