WINFIELD, W.Va. — Charges have been dismissed in a decade-old Putnam County murder case.
The Putnam County Prosecutor’s Office said Friday charges were recently dismissed against David Matthew Little of Nitro in the 2001 death of Montgomery resident Yvonne Thomas.
“Their chief witness, and primary witness that could prove the actual crime was unreliable in that he had changed his story certain times,” said Little’s attorney Timothy Lafon.
Little, 35, was scheduled to go on trial next Monday. The prosecutor’s office said the charges were dismissed without prejudice meaning they could be filed again in the future. Prosecutors said they hope to do if they get more evidence against Little.
Lafon said dismissing the charges was the right thing to do because the prosecutor’s case was weak.
Little was indicted in 2011 while he was in jail on other charges.
In April 2002, Thomas’ body was found along Island Creek Road near Tornado. State Police said at the time her body apparently had been carried or dragged across a field to the edge of a wooded area where it was left in the creek bed. She died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Lafon said Little has claimed his innocence since the beginning.
“He certainly denies any involvement with this crime or any knowledge that any crime even took place,” he said.
Thomas, 41, left her father’s Cedar Grove residence in July 2001 and walked across the street to have a drink at the End Zone Bar. Hours later she was seen leaving Shrewsbury’s Twin Hills restaurant with a man.
That was as far as her family and friends could track her until State Troopers confirmed through DNA tests that the body in the creek was Thomas.