A 74-year-old defendant who was convicted of murdering three women in the late 1980s was sentenced on Sept. 25 to three consecutive terms of life without the possibility of parole, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has announced.

The defendant, Samuel Little, 74, was given the maximum sentence by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli, immediately after several family members of the victims addressed the court.

A jury found Little guilty on Sept. 2 of the first-degree murders of Carol Alford, 41, on or around July 13, 1987; Audrey Nelson, 35, on or around Aug. 14, 1989; and Guadalupe Apodaca, 46, on or around Sept. 3, 1989. The jury also found Little guilty on the special circumstance of multiple murders.

“During the trial, I was there for the coroner’s presentation about my sister and those images will be etched in my mind forever,” said Sherri Nelson, sister of victim Audrey Nelson. “I loved my sister dearly, and she did not deserve to have her life taken like this.”

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division, which investigated the case, was notified in April 2012 that a DNA match was obtained identifying Little as a suspect in Nelson’s murder. DNA matches also came back on the other two victims tying Little to their murders. All three victims were strangled to death. Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman, with the Major Crimes Division, prosecuted the case.