The One Where Robin Meets the Serial Killer...

I wouldn’t normally burden my faithful blog readers (which, as of today total zero) with this sort of crap, but something happened to me in the early 80’s that jumped back out in front of me almost two years ago AND jumped back out in front of me again today.

Think of this as a study in how seemingly random events in someone’s life (in this case, my life) can tie to something much larger.

So let’s start with what happened nearly two years ago…April of 2013 to be precise.  I’m minding my own business perusing a local news site online when I came across a link to an article entitled, “Cold Case Arrest Prompts Cross Country Probe”.   There is a photo of the guy LAPD had arrested next to the link.  Something about the photo flipped a switch in my brain so I clicked the link to read the story.

The story was about a 74 year old named Samuel Little who was arrested in a Kentucky homeless shelter and was being charged in California for the murder of three women in the late 1980’s.  The article detailed things about the guy’s life over the course of 56 years.  In all that time, he only spent 10 years in prison for stuff like shoplifting, armed robbery and rape.  He had been suspected of and tried for murder twice, but there was never enough evidence to convict.  This time, they had DNA evidence. 

The article also mentioned that while he had been living in California he had driven a beat-up station wagon with the fake wood paneling down the sides (remember those jewels?).  It also said that he had used the alias, George McDowell.  That did it for me.  The guy I knew was driving a station wagon like, but called himself George McDaniel.  Too close for a mere coincidence.

The reason for publishing the article nationwide was there was now a large law enforcement task trying to pin more unsolved killings on this guy and they were looking for anyone who could shed some light on Little’s movements.  States involved included California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio.    

So now, let’s step back in time a bit to around 1984 (the exact date is a bit unclear to me…hey, those years all run together).  I had just come home from work while living in San Diego. I always parked my Chevy pickup on the street out in the front of the condo. As I was going into the door, I heard a loud screech of tires and turned to see a car hit the left rear corner of my truck, swerve off across the street, jump the curb of a vacant lot, and do a complete 360 in the lot before coming to a stop. I went out to see the damage to the truck. The guy saw me and got out of the car (the beat up station wagon with the fake wood panels down the side).  In the meantime, a neighbor came out and told me he called police.

The driver reeked of alcohol though he wasn't stumbling around or anything. I could see there was a young woman still sitting in his car.  He shook my hand and identified himself as George McDaniel.  He apologized for causing me trouble and told me that his daughter (who is still in the car) said something to him that distracted him and he veered into my vehicle. He assured me he had insurance. When he heard that the neighbor had called police, the guy started getting really nervous and crosses the street to his car.  He said he wanted to check on his daughter though he got back in on the driver side. We could hear him trying to start it when the police arrived.

One cop gets the guy out of the car and is talking to him. The other cop goes over the passenger side and is trying to get the girl out, but she refuses. He saw that she was injured and called for paramedics. By now another patrol car shows up and the cop driving that car came over to talk to me. Soon thereafter the paramedics and were trying to coax the girl out of the car so they could treat her though she still refuses.

The original article mentioned that he had been a professional boxer in his younger days and it certainly fit.  This was a big man; I would have made him as a heavy weight.  The police conducted a sobriety test on the guy, which he failed.  One of the cops pulled out handcuffs and the guy resisted...it took both of those officers to take him down and cuff him.

The girl refused treatment so the paramedics left.  The police put the girl in the back seat of the other police car.  One of the cops came over and gave me an accident report so I could file with my insurance company. I mentioned to him that the guy said he had insurance. That’s when I learned that he didn’t have insurance.  In fact, he didn't even have a valid driver’s license. Then the cop tells me that they recognized the "daughter" as a known prostitute. The cop said the guy admitted they were fooling around as they were coming down my street and that he just veered into my pickup.

Okay, hopefully you’re still with me here.  Let’s jump to today.  For some reason I was thinking about all of this stuff and Googled the guy.  Turns out, he was convicted in September 2014 and sentenced to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.  His attorney indicated that they would appeal (insert attorney joke/insult here).  Who knows, if they’re able to finally pin other cold cases from other states on him maybe they’ll just heap on more time.

I guess it just goes to show how weird life can be sometimes.  How random acts may not be so random after all.