The remains of a woman who met a gruesome fate 40 years ago have finally been identified with the help of new DNA technology.
Patricia Parker has been identified and is believed to have been a victim of Samuel Little, one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers.
The 80-year-old Little is currently serving consecutive life sentences for murder after confessing to killing 93 women.
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According to an ABC News report, Little shared the names of all of his victims he could remember, including the places and details of their deaths. That evidence provided closure in at least 60 slayings.
Parker’s remains were identified through DNA samples provided by her son after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released a sketch and a clay rendering of the woman last March, calling for assistance in her identification.
GBI Special Agent in Charge Joe Montgomery said numerous friends and family of Parker came forward after the depiction was released.
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“Her family has been looking for her for 30-plus years and the comfort in her son … to know that his mom didn’t leave him, that she was actually killed, and that’s how she left his life, that to me was the best part of this case,” Montgomery said at a news conference on Friday.
Parker’s body was discovered in September of 1981 in Dade County, Georgia near the Tennessee border, but she was listed as a “Jane Doe” for 39 years.
Montgomery disclosed that Little had provided details into Parker’s murder, telling authorities he had met a woman in a bar in Chattanooga but killed her in Georgia. However, he did not or could not provide her name.
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Georgia prosecutors are currently deciding whether or not to charge Little with Parker’s murder. The elderly man is in poor health, and his consecutive life sentences have all but guaranteed that he will die in prison.
Little’s story was profiled in the 2019 documentary Confessions of a Serial Killer, shown on Investigation Discovery.
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