Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis announced that a woman has been positively identified after detectives searched for information regarding the woman. The woman has been identified as Leola Etta Bryant. Bryant was 51 at the time of her death.
On October 4, 1977, human remains were found by a worker clearing brush on Sawgrass Avenue in Goose Creek. At that time, the Berkeley County Coroner collected the scattered remains and sent them to the Medical University of South Carolina for examination. The gender of the remains could not be determined.
The remains were returned to the sheriff's office in June 2020. They were transferred to the University of North Texas for Human Identification Forensic Anthropology for a further analysis, where they were able to determine the victim was likely a Black female of medium build between the ages of 30 and 60, with a height of 5” 4’ to 5” 6’. Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office’s Cold Case investigators then sent the remains to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office, where a facial reconstruction was created.
During the investigation, it was determined the victim was murdered by serial killer Sam Little. Prior to his death in 2020, convicted murderer Little was interviewed extensively and confessed to a killing he committed in the Charleston area in the 1970s. Detectives reviewed the audio and video recordings from Little’s confessions and began to investigate further. Little told detectives he murdered an unidentified female by strangulation after meeting her at a nightclub in North Charleston. Little provided an additional detailed description of the geographic location where he drove the victim and where the homicide occurred.
Earlier this year, BCSO Cold Case detectives John Plitsch and Darrell Lewis were provided with additional information from the FBI Investigative Genetic Genealogy Team of someone with potential family ties to the victim. Detectives interviewed the person and were able to close the gap on missing information from the case and able to positively identify the victim. During the interview, it was revealed the victim went missing in March 1974. She was last seen at the Midway Bar on Reynold’s Avenue, the same location Little stated he met the victim prior to killing her. It was discovered that the victim was reported missing then to the North Charleston Police Department.
Republished courtesy of Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office