Over the next nine years two more men were named as possibly being involved in Little's lynching. At the time of the 1918 Industrial Workers of the World conspiracy trial in Chicago, the union's lawyers questioned why Ed Morrissey, who had been Butte's chief of detectives at the time of the murder, had taken a twenty-day leave of absence on the day following the killing. It was alleged at the trial that Morrissey had scratches on his face. The autopsy of Little's body had found that he had tried to fight off his assailants and that he had someone's skin under his fingernails. In 1926, William F. Dunne identified Peter Prlja as one of the 'death squad'. Prlja was at the time a motorcycle officer in the Butte police department and like Oates had worked as a security-guard for Anaconda.