Man Pleads Guilty in Florida Woman’s Unsolved 1991 Slaying

Man Pleads Guilty in Florida Woman’s Unsolved 1991 Slaying
Michael Townson in an undated photo. (Florida Department of Corrections via AP)
The Associated Press
12/21/2022
Updated:
12/21/2022
0:00

DELAND, Fla.—A man already imprisoned in Florida for another killing pleaded guilty Tuesday to the long-unsolved 1991 slaying of a woman he met at a bar.

Michael Townson, 53, was sentenced by a judge to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years, state prosecutors said in a news release.

Townson admitted striking and fatally choking Linda Lois Little after meeting her at a Daytona Beach nightspot in October 1991. Little’s body was never found.

Prosecutors said Townson told them he drove north on Interstate 95 and left Little’s body near a dumpster in rural Camden County, Georgia. Checks of unidentified bodies in that county turned up no match for Little.

Townson was already serving a life prison sentence for beating Sherri Carmanto to death with a steel pipe in 2007 at her home in Titusville, Florida.

“This defendant is a confessed serial killer. It is gratifying to solve a cold case such as this,” State Attorney R.J. Larizza said in the news release.