MEMPHIS, Tenn. — More families are reaching out to police about the picture serial killer Samuel Little drew of a woman he said he strangled to death in Memphis.
One of those families is Tammy Green’s. The last time Green saw her aunt, Zena Maria Jones, was 30 years ago.
Jones’ sister, Vickie Weddington, may have been the last person to talk to her.
“She told me she was fixing to hitchhike to Chicago. I said, ‘No, don’t do that.’ I sent her a ticket at the Greyhound and never heard from her since,” said Weddington.
The family filed a missing persons report in 1990, but the case went unsolved.
“I just dreamed about this day coming,” said Green.
Green is hopeful after seeing a sketch serial killer Samuel Little drew of one of his unidentified victims.
Little claims sometime between the early to mid-’90s, he met the woman in Memphis, strangled her and then dumped her into the Mississippi River on the Arkansas side.
“It brought tears to my eyes. I’m like, ‘Oh my God! This looks like my auntie!” she said.
Green believes the woman in the sketch is Jones.
“The hair and how he got her neck,” she said. “Then look at the sketch. It looks the same to me.”
We put Memphis police in contact with Green and her family.
Sources tell WREG it’s one of several families they’ve talked to, including Anthony Jones.
Jones’ mother looks strikingly similar to the sketch as well. She was strangled, stabbed and found on Mud Island’s shore in 1997.
At this point, police haven’t made a match. They continue to follow every lead.
“My heart goes out to all the other families. I hope this man burn and rot in hell,” said Weddington.
Little, now 78 years old, recently admitted to killing 90 women across the country between 1970 and 2005.
Authorities confirmed around 40 of the cases. Many of the victims were prostitutes or drug addicts.
Green said her aunt fits that description.
“If he did do this to her and this is her, I hope he can tell us where she is at,” she said.
Memphis police and a special prosecutor spoke with Little at a Texas prison last fall.
That’s when he gave them the portrait of his Memphis victim.
If you have information on the identity of the woman in this drawing, investigators with the Memphis Police Department Homicide Bureau are asking for your help. Please contact:
Sgt. Joe Stark, (901) 636-3300, joe.stark@memphistn.gov
Sgt. J.K. Smith, (901) 636-3300, jamesk.smith@memphistn.gov
