Mississippi woman identified 44 years after her murder, likely victim of serial killer

Clara Birdlong said she was leaving Mississippi with a man to go to Florida in 1977, a friend told investigators with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department last August. Her family never heard from her again, FOX 10 in Mobile, Alabama reported.

Birdlong was identified this month, nearly 44 years after her murder, likely at the hands of Samuel Little, a prolific serial killer who confessed two years ago to killing 93 women, including one in 1977 who investigators believe was Birdlong. He was convicted to life in prison in 2014 for three other murders and died last year. 

"Luckily we were able to find a lady up there (Leflore County) who remembered Clara from her younger days and was able to provide us some information that she remembered from when Clara left town, went missing and they never heard from her again," investigator Matt Hoggatt told WLOX-TV in Biloxi. "If you study the time frame of when that happened it lines up really close to the travels of Sam Little and where we know he was committing murders in the mid to late ‘70s."