Yvonne Pless, who was around 20 years old when she was killed, had been reported missing and her relatives did not know she was dead until authorities confirmed the identity of "Macon Jane Doe."
The remains of a Georgia woman found 46 years ago have finally been identified. Thanks to forensic genetic genealogy, the body once dubbed “Macon Jane Doe” was identified as a match for Yvonne Pless, who was around 20 years old when she became the victim of serial killer Samuel Little, authorities said.
Pless is now believe to the first of 93 people Little confessed to killing before his death in 2020.
“We hope that these answers have brought healing to the families of these victims,” said a spokesperson with the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, which teamed up with the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office to solve the decades’ old case.
Little had been in and out of jail and for decades denied killing anyone until 2018, when an interview with authorities about a different murder led him to admit to a string of murders, CBS News reported.
By the time he died in 2020, when he was 80 years old, Little confessed to killing 93 people across the country, authorities said, including nine women in Georgia, two of whom he killed in Macon.
When Captain Shermaine Jones of the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office learned the details of his confession, he travelled to Texas, where Little was being held, to question him about the murders in his jurisdiction.
There had been two cold case murders which matched Little’s confession, authorities said.
While they were able to deliver the news to the family of Fredonia Smith, who was murdered in 1982, they were never able to inform the family of Little’s other victim, whose body was not identified until last year.
Pless had long been reported missing, which is what family members believed until they were told of the match.
“When Captain Jones and Ms. Hutsell notified us that Yvonne had been identified, we were unaware she was deceased,” relatives told WSBTV.com. “We are mourning the loss of our loved one.”
The FBI has confirmed Little’s involvement in at least 60 of the murders he confessed to.
