Retired North Charleston investigator recalls face-to-face talk with serial killer Sam Little

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – It has been almost a week since the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office announced they identified the remains of a woman likely killed by a serial killer in October 1974. Now, one investigator is talking about the time he sat face-to-face with killer Sam Little to get important details about the crimes he committed.

“In 2017, I was a major commander of investigations, and the FBI initially called,” said retired Deputy Chief Ken Hagge, who worked for the North Charleston Police Department.

Hagge said serial killer Sam Little, believed to be responsible for killing at least 94 women, told them he killed a woman in the North Charleston area. Little is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history.

Hagge eventually flew out to Los Angeles to question Little.

“He’s a large man,” he recalled. “When he shook my hand when I flew to LA to interview him, his hand wrapped around my hand like twice.”

They talked for seven hours. Hagge said Little told him he picked up a woman, Jackie, in North Charleston.

“Sam was driving the area one or two o’clock in the afternoon and he saw a girl walking,” he recounted. “He picked her up.”

He ate dinner with her but did not kill her.

“I said did you kill Jackie? And he said ‘No, I didn’t have enough time.’”

Little later stopped by a nightclub on Reynolds Avenue, and picked up another woman, now believed to have been Leola Bryant.

“At some point, she got nervous and jumped out of the car. He laughed when he told the story- it was dark, he couldn’t see, but he just heard pitter patter, pitter patter, pitter patter,” Hagee said. “And I said, well where did you find her? He said about 45 minutes later when I couldn’t find anybody, I went back to the same bar, and she eventually went with me.”

He said Little described killing the woman he met.

“When Sam got excited you could see his fingers doing this, he would start rolling his fingers, and then it got down to how he killed her, and he would start touching his neck when he said that he strangled her.”

Leola Bryant went missing in 1974, but bones were found off Highway 52 near Goose Creek in 1977.

It was announced last week that the case was solved. Bryant’s family said she would have been at the bar on Reynolds around the time she went missing. Little admitted to leaving the body in the woods in a similar area. He also drew a picture of his victim.

Hagee said Sam was pure evil.

“Later, my cell phone rang, and it was Sam. He was calling me from prison. He wanted to know when I was coming back, and I said I’m not coming back, Sam. So, he asked me if I thought he was going to heaven and I said no, I don’t think so,” he said.