Execution Report: William Little

William Hamilton Little, 38, was executed by lethal injection on 1 June 1999 in Huntsville, Texas for the rape and murder of a woman in her home.

On Saturday, 3 December 1983, two men arrived at the home of Marilyn Peter, 28, in Cleveland, about 30 miles northeast of Houston, to install a clothes dryer. The men noticed blood on a door jamb and heard a child crying inside. They entered and found a 2-year-old boy on the kitchen counter. The room was covered in blood. They then saw Peter's nude body lying on the living room floor.

The medical examiner determined that Peter was raped, stabbed 19 times until she was dead, then raped again. She was still wearing her jewelry. About two pounds of marijuana were found in her home, and nearly $500 in cash was on her dresser. The child was not injured.

A witness identified Little, then 23, as a man spotted in the doorway of Peter's home the night of the killing.

Little was arrested at his home on 6 December. Police found blood-stained jeans and towels at his home. A bloody handprint taken from the inside of Peter's front door was matched to him. In his confession, he told authorities he knew the victim because she had sold him marijuana. He admitted killing her, but said that the sex was consensual.

A second man also confessed to the killing, and both he and Little were indicted. Charges against the second man were dropped after he was determined to be mentally incompetent. A subsequent DNA test confirmed that Little was the killer and excluded the other man as a suspect.

Witnesses remembered Little drinking and smoking marijuana the night before the murder, pulling a knife and trying to start fights, and bragging about scalping and dismembering people.

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