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By HENRY FREDERICK / Headline Surfer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A new Volusia County Grand Jury was chosen today and heard its first case, which was that of defendant Michael Townson, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, who now stands accused of murdering a woman in Daytona 31 years ago that has remained a colds case.
Until now, apparently.
The defendant is already serving a life sentence after a Brevard County Jury found him guilty of First-Degree Murder in 2008. In that case, Townson beat Sherri Carmanto to death with a steel pipe inside her Titusville home.
If Townson murdered Linda Little, what he did in taking her life was not released, even as State Attorney RJ Larizza was engaged in a bit of self-promotion.
“It is extremely gratifying to solve a 31-year-old murder,” State Attorney R.J. Larizza said in a prepared statement in a press release. “I hope it brings some measure of peace to the victim’s family.”
Neither a copy of the indictment nor an arrest or incident report was released by the State Attorney's Office.
Assistant State Attorney Heather Trigones is the State prosecutor for the case against Townson, according to the SAO press release.
Little, then 43, was last seen on Oct. 11, 1991, at approximately 2 am at the 7-11 convenience store after leaving Mateys Brig Bar located on Broadway in Daytona Beach. She was riding a blue and rust-colored Murray beach cruiser bicycle and was believed to be going home.
Little, originally from North Carolina, had lived in Central Florida for two years prior to 1991.
Little was last seen leaving a 7-11 convenience store near the beachfront in Daytona Beach, Florida after 2:00 a.m. on October 11, 1991. She was riding blue and rust-colored Murray beach cruiser bicycle. She is believed to have been on her way to her beachside apartment at the time. She has never been heard from again.
Little worked as a waitress at the Chart House on South Beach Street (now International Speedway Boulevard) when she went missing. After her shift on the day of her disappearance, she went to Matey's Brig, a bar, with friends and told them she planned to visit various places in Florida with her boyfriend that weekend. She had a map and showed her friends the locations where she planned to go.
Little stayed at the bar until 2:00 a.m., then went to the 7-11 near her home, bought a donut and some chocolate milk, and disappeared afterwards. She was reported missing after she didn't show up for work the next day and didn't call her employer, which is uncharacteristic of her behavior.
Little normally carried makeup and a change of clothes everywhere she went. Her apartment was found undisturbed after her disappearance with all her belongings inside.
Investigators subsequently learned that Little and her boyfriend were not, in fact, going on a weekend trip. They had planned the vacation for their first anniversary, but the boyfriend canceled on the afternoon of her disappearance because he had decided to go fishing instead. It's unclear why Little told her friends the trip was still on.
After her disappearance, her family discovered her boyfriend was married. They don't believe Little knew about this, as they don't think she would have knowingly dated a married man. The boyfriend hasn't been named as a suspect or person of interest in her disappearance.
n 1995, a man called one of Little's relatives and said he met Little in North Carolina and she'd told him to call her at that number. He hung up after refusing to give his name, and never called back.
One possible suspect in the case is Oba Chandler. A photo of him is posted with this case summary. In 1994, he was convicted of the 1989 murders of a woman and her two teenage daughters, tourists from Ohio, in Tampa, Florida.
Little went missing on Chandler's birthday, and one of Little's sisters believes she saw them Chandler at Little's apartment complex a few days before she disappeared. When the police attempted to interview him about her case, he refused to cooperate. Chandler was executed by lethal injection in 2011; until his death, he maintained that he had never killed anyone.
Little is originally from North Carolina. She had lived in Central Florida for two years prior to 1991. She left behind an adult son.
About the Byline Writer: Henry Frederick is a member of the working press and publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7 internet news outlet launched in 2008 along the I-4 tourism corridor in greater Daytona Beach to Orlando from Lake Mary, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed 115 award-winning bylines in print & online. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism from Full Sail University in 2019. He was a breaking news reporter (metro cops & courts beat) for the Daytona Beach News-Journal for nearly a decade. And Before that worked the same beat for The Journal-News/Gannett Suburban Newspapers in Rockland/Westchester counties, NY, dating back to 1989. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and covering other high-profile cases such as the George Zimmerman murder trial, Frederick has appeared on national crime shows on Discovery ID, Reelz, and the Oxygen Network series "Snapped" for his analysis.