Autopsies have determined that a man with a 20-year history of abusing his wife shot her to death earlier this month before turning the gun on himself.
Officials with the Pitt County Sheriff’s Office say the bodies of William Small, 62, and his wife Heather Davenport Small, 44, were found with gunshot wounds at their home on Lexington Downs Drive in Greenville on February 4.
The autopsy showed that Heather Small was shot four times and the shots were fired from too great a distance for her to have fired them.
William Small’s wounds, however, were fired at close range, indicating suicide.
Investigators say William Small had a long history of arrests for domestic violence crimes against his wife stretching back over two decades.
Both are former police officers; William was a Greenville police officer from 1994 to 2000, while Heather was an officer at the now-disbanded Pitt County Memorial Hospital Police Department from 1998 to 2006.
