Remains found in Ohio ID’d as Frank Little, guitarist of The O’Jays

[The Bobster]

Remains found in Ohio ID’d as Frank Little, guitarist of The O’Jays

The partial remains — first discovered in February 1982 in a garbage bag behind a now-shuttered business in Twinsburg, Ohio — were identified as Little’s using DNA.

nypost.com

Remains found in Ohio ID’d as Frank Little, guitarist of The O’Jays​

By
Joshua Rhett Miller


December 15, 2021 9:38am
Updated

American R&B group the O'Jays during a recording session in New York City. Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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Human remains found in a trash bag nearly 40 years ago have been identified as those of Frank “Frankie” Little Jr., a guitarist and songwriter for the R&B group The O’Jays, police said.
The partial remains — first discovered in February 1982 in a garbage bag behind a now-shuttered business in Twinsburg, Ohio — were identified as Little’s using DNA provided by a close relative, police said in a statement Tuesday.
“In October 2021, the DNA Doe Project provided the names of potential living relatives, who were able to provide Frank’s name,” Twinsburg police said, adding that Little’s identity was later confirmed by a medical examiner who ruled his death a homicide.
“Not much is known about his disappearance and death,” police said. “Our sympathies to the family during this difficult time.”
Little, born in 1943 and raised in Cleveland, was a guitarist and songwriter for The O’Jays in the mid-1960s. Eddie Levert, the lead singer for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band, told WEWS-TV Little moved with the group to California that decade, but didn’t stay on the West Coast.
Frank Little’s bones and body were “cut up” prior to being placed in bags, according to an original coroner’s report.Twinsburg Police Department
“He could have been a great entity in the music business, but he was in love and love drove him back to Cleveland,” said Levert, who lost track of his one-time bandmate in the ensuing years.
“I never would have that this would happen to him,” Levert said. “I don’t know why anyone would do him like that.”
Little was last known to be alive in the mid-1970s and was in Cleveland at the time. He had also served in the US Army for two years, including a Vietnam War deployment. He had a daughter who died in 2012 and his son has not yet been located or identified, police said.
Little was only with the band for a short time, The O’Jays said in a statement to Rolling Stone. He worked with Levert on a handful of songs, including 1964’s “Do the Jerk” and 1966’s “Pretty Words.”
“He came out with us when we first ventured out of Cleveland and traveled to Los Angeles, but was also in love with a woman in Cleveland that he missed so much that he soon returned back to Cleveland after a short amount of time,” the band said.
“That was in mid-1960s and we had not heard from him after then,” the statement continued. “Although this sounds like a tragic ending, we wish his family and friends closure to what appears to be a very sad story.”
Frank Little was last seen alive in Cleveland in 1970s before joining the army in and being shipped it Vietnam.Twinsburg Police Department
Little’s partial remains were found in a garbage bag after a worker discovered a skull in snowfall behind the business, WEWS reported. The bones and body were “cut up” prior to being placed in bags, according to an original coroner’s report obtained by the station.
“It’s definitely nice that we can give some answers to the family and hopefully they have some sense of closure,” Twinsburg police Det. Eric Hendershott told WEWS. “He had a life, and ultimately he ended up here in Twinsburg, with his life taken by another.”
Margaret O’Sullivan, one of Little’s cousins who was contacted by authorities, said the family never knew what happened to him.
“We always wondered what happened, so we don’t know what happened to Frankie at all,” O’Sullivan told WEWS. “Now we have closure.”
The person who killed Little, however, remains a mystery.
“That’s what we don’t know,” Hendershott said.