Someone other than LE removed the lock and took to LE? Where was that reported? I heard that LE stated that a key was broken off in a lock but they would not reveal which door or lock. Do you have source for that info?
MO MO - Teresa Butler, 35, Risco, 25 Jan 2006 *GUILTY*
- Thread starter fourboys
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LE has removed flooring and other items from a home in a nearby town for DNA testing.
Heartland Unsolved update: Crews search home for evidence connected to 2006 disappearance of Teresa Butler
Heartland Unsolved update: Crews search home for evidence connected to 2006 disappearance of Teresa Butler
It's been a while since we've received any updates. Testing is going to take some time so it may be late summer or fall before we hear results. Hopefully this will be the big break.
Well, while doing a Google search today, I found out that Teresa's husband died a year and a half ago. He was only 43.
Faith Funeral Service ›
Faith Funeral Service ›
wonder what he died from?
43 would likely be car accident, cancer or suicide.
those poor kids.
ChuckMaureen
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He passed away at his home... cause was not reported.
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Just discovered this case tonight after reading just about everything available.
Meth is a serious problem all across south Missouri. Here is where I digress to a personal anecdote to explain my theory. Back about the time Teresa Butler went missing, a lot of soccer moms were using meth to keep up with all of the things that soccer moms feel like they have to keep up with. Around that time I worked with a 27 year old devoted mother of two, her marriage wasn't great, but he was a good guy. We worked at a Walmart, ironically enough, in the same department and were pretty good friends. She was approached to go into the management training program, she finished the program and was assigned as the overnight assistant manager in the store one town over. We talked pretty regular for the first couple of weeks after her transfer before she started acting cagey. Maybe another week went by when I figured I'd been ghosted and went along with my life. A month or so later, she turned up at the store I worked at and it was pretty obvious that she was a tweaker. Another co-worker was her next door neighbor and we pieced together that she started using meth at the same time she ghosted the neighbor/co-worker and myself. The husband eventually confided to the neighbor that she would disappear for days and weeks on end.
The point of this story is that it doesn't take long to go from devoted mother to tweaker. It's the purse that really makes me think she followed the same path as my former friend/co-worker. Robbers would have taken the cash and left the purse behind. You don't grab your phone and purse when being kidnapped. She left the house voluntarily, probably to meet her dealer and never went back, it probably was her at the gas station. She hasn't turned up in thirteen years so it's a pretty safe bet that she died some time after the gas station sighting. LE wouldn't think to match a Jane Doe to her since meth would wreck her body and teeth in pretty short order. I used to volunteer in a womens shelter, too many of the women I worked with had abandoned a kid for meth and were struggling to get and stay clean to get their lives back.
Meth is a serious problem all across south Missouri. Here is where I digress to a personal anecdote to explain my theory. Back about the time Teresa Butler went missing, a lot of soccer moms were using meth to keep up with all of the things that soccer moms feel like they have to keep up with. Around that time I worked with a 27 year old devoted mother of two, her marriage wasn't great, but he was a good guy. We worked at a Walmart, ironically enough, in the same department and were pretty good friends. She was approached to go into the management training program, she finished the program and was assigned as the overnight assistant manager in the store one town over. We talked pretty regular for the first couple of weeks after her transfer before she started acting cagey. Maybe another week went by when I figured I'd been ghosted and went along with my life. A month or so later, she turned up at the store I worked at and it was pretty obvious that she was a tweaker. Another co-worker was her next door neighbor and we pieced together that she started using meth at the same time she ghosted the neighbor/co-worker and myself. The husband eventually confided to the neighbor that she would disappear for days and weeks on end.
The point of this story is that it doesn't take long to go from devoted mother to tweaker. It's the purse that really makes me think she followed the same path as my former friend/co-worker. Robbers would have taken the cash and left the purse behind. You don't grab your phone and purse when being kidnapped. She left the house voluntarily, probably to meet her dealer and never went back, it probably was her at the gas station. She hasn't turned up in thirteen years so it's a pretty safe bet that she died some time after the gas station sighting. LE wouldn't think to match a Jane Doe to her since meth would wreck her body and teeth in pretty short order. I used to volunteer in a womens shelter, too many of the women I worked with had abandoned a kid for meth and were struggling to get and stay clean to get their lives back.
There has been an arrest made in the case: Man charged in connection to Teresa Butler cold case
It ties together the search at the house in Tallapoosa and the search on the ditchbank south of there.
It ties together the search at the house in Tallapoosa and the search on the ditchbank south of there.
Outstanding!!!! An arrest! Finally!
Of course, after reading the document it is obvious that LE will never find her remains as this guy returned 2 years later to remove the remains and then burned them, crushed what was left and threw that in a ditch. He says it was an accidental OD, but I wonder if LE has found the other person in the house at the time and interviewed them.
Another article on the arrest. LE knew about this guy within 48 hours, but didn't have the evidence.
After over 13 years, arrest made in Teresa Butler case
After over 13 years, arrest made in Teresa Butler case
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I can't get this link to go thru - can you give a 10% synopsis on this article, please?
TIA!
And by the way I found this thread - thanks for the heads up from the case!Here is the text of the article....I can't get this link to go thru - can you give a 10% synopsis on this article, please?
TIA!
After over 13 years, arrest made in Teresa Butler case
Friday, November 22, 2019
By David Jenkins/Standard Democrat
NEW MADRID, Mo. — Over 13 years after Teresa Butler went missing from her Risco, Mo., home that left many questions for family, friends and law enforcement, an arrest has been made.
On Thursday, Melvin Ray Hufford Jr., 42, of Tallapoosa, Mo., was charged through New Madrid County with first degree involuntary manslaughter and tampering with physical evidence in a felony prosecution for his role in the Butler disappearance.
New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens said he has mixed emotions with the arrest.
“It is satisfying to file charges in the case but our initial goal was to bring Teresa home safely,” Stevens said. “But that isn’t going to happen so we can at least know that we have someone charged and there is some accountability for her death.”
Stevens said Hufford had been a person of interest in the case early on.
“He was a person of interest within the first 48 hours but we couldn’t develop enough evidence to charge him,” Stevens said. “But we kept close tabs on him.”
Hufford has been incarcerated in the Pemiscot County Jail on an unrelated charge for the last three years and Stevens said he developed a relationship with an investigator there.
“He finally started unburdening himself and eventually confessed,” Stevens said.
According to a probable cause statement by Missouri Highway Patrol investigator Sgt. J.S. Stoelting, Hufford, also known as Cricket, was interviewed on April 8, 2019, at the Pemiscot County Jail.
Hufford told Stoelting that the night Butler died, he and another male were getting high on meth with Butler. Hufford said he injected himself and Butler with meth and as he was enjoying his high, Butler said her chest was hurting.
Hufford then said he went into the kitchen to get something to drink and when he came back out he saw Butler was passed out. After checking for a pulse and not feeling anything, Hufford said he and the other male “freak out.”
Stevens said while Hufford mentioned a second person in his confession, there are no other arrests pending.
“We contacted the second person he named and we don’t believe he is involved,” Stevens said. “We aren’t sure why (Hufford) is naming him but we don’t feel that person has any involvement with this case.”
According to the probably cause statement, Hufford then confessed to wrapping Butler’s body in a tarp and taking her to a ditch bank and laying her out. He also said they stole some things from the house to make it look like a “(expletive) robbery.”
The probable cause statement said Hufford admitted to taking Butler’s body to his dad’s old abandoned house where he hid her body under a kitchen sink cabinet for a couple of years while he was in prison. After he got out of prison, Hufford said he took her body to a burn pile and burnt her remains.
Hufford then told Stoelting he crushed up her remaining bones, put them in a bucket and dumped them in a ditch south of Tallapoosa.
Hufford said while in prison he wrote his dad a letter and told him to go to a certain house and look under the sink. He told his dad there was an anhydrous tank under the sink but it was the body of Teresa Butler. Hufford’s father later verified to Stoelting that he did see a body under the kitchen sink in the house but did not touch or move the body.
Butler was reported missing from her home on Jan. 25, 2006, when her husband, Gary Dale Butler, returned home from work to find their two small children home alone. After checking with family members and her place of work, she wasn’t located and Gary Butler told law enforcement he noticed a Playstation, Nintendo Game Cube, digital camera, video camera and video games missing as well as a CD player was missing from a vehicle parked in the front yard. The light bulb on the front porch was also unscrewed.
According to the probable cause statement, the last person to see Teresa Butler was her sister in-law, Sara Buchanan, who had followed her home on Jan. 24 so she could use her scanner to copy some work items. Buchanan said they arrived at the Butler house at about 10 p.m. and she stayed for a short while before going home. Buchanan said when she left Teresa Butler said she was going to give her kids a bath and then go to bed. Buchanan specifically remembered the porch light being on when she left.
Law enforcement processed the Butler residence for evidence on Jan. 25, 2006, and found Teresa Butler’s rings under the edge of the couch. Her purse, cell phone or wallet were not found and they discovered her digital camera was missing.
On March 6, 2007, a female was interviewed by Stoelting who said Hufford stopped by her house and spoke with her husband. She said Hufford was telling how he robbed a guy in Parma and beat him up over a drug debt. The female also remembered Hufford saying he had a camcorder and an “EZ shot” camera but she didn’t see them. The female said given the time frame on Teresa Butler’s disappearance, she felt Hufford was talking about her, but she was just assuming.
On Aug. 2, 2007, Stoelting again interviewed the female and her husband, independent of each other. The husband told Stoelting that Hufford did come by his house the night before he heard Teresa Butler was missing. Hufford traded the husband a digital camera and camcorder for a gram of meth.
The husband said he looked at the video tape that was in the camcorder and described a white female with two small children on the tape. They were wearing shorts and were in a cave or around some large rocks. He told Stoelting he showed the tape to his wife and they both thought it may be Theresa Butler.
The husband said he confronted Hufford about having something to do with Teresa Butler’s disappearance but Hufford denied any knowledge. The man gave the camera and camcorder to his wife and she threw them into a ditch. The husband said he burned the videotape in a barrel behind his brother’s house.
After the wife showed law enforcement where she threw the camera and camcorder, the Missouri State Water Patrol conducted a dive operation and located a camcorder that was found to be the same make and model missing from the Butler residence.
In January of 2018, the wife was interviewed again and she told Stoelting that her son still had a gaming station that Hufford traded to her husband the night Teresa Butler went missing. Stoelting said they went to the wife’s residence and seized a Nintendo Game Cube, a controller and four video games that Hufford stole from the Butler residence and traded for drugs.
Stoelting said in the probable cause statement that from 2007 to 2019 several leads were followed up on, and investigators conducted searches of properties and excavations looking for Teresa Butler’s remains, but never found anything of value.
“We have searched diligently and have not been able to locate them,” Stevens said. “I don’t believe we’ll ever find anything.”
Hufford has an extensive history of felony crimes and has been sentenced to prison six different times since 1997. He has several charges for drug possession and distribution as well as prior weapons offenses, armed criminal action, second degree assault and tampering with a witness in a federal case. He is currently jailed in Pemiscot County where he is awaiting trial on charges out of New Madrid County.
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Monday, November 25th:
Arraignment Hearing (@ am CT) – Teresa Lynn Butler (35) (missing between 10pm Jan. 24 & early morning of Jan. 26, 2006, Risco, not found) - *Melvin Ray “Cricket” Hufford, Jr. (42/29 @ time of crime) arrested & charged (11/21/19) with 1st degree involuntary manslaughter & tampering with evidence.
Hufford was a person of interest within the first 48 hours but LE couldn’t develop enough evidence to charge him, But kept close tabs on him. In Pemiscot County jail (for the last 3 years) awaiting trial on unrelated charges out of New Madrid County.
11/25/19: Arraignment hearing.
Arraignment Hearing (@ am CT) – Teresa Lynn Butler (35) (missing between 10pm Jan. 24 & early morning of Jan. 26, 2006, Risco, not found) - *Melvin Ray “Cricket” Hufford, Jr. (42/29 @ time of crime) arrested & charged (11/21/19) with 1st degree involuntary manslaughter & tampering with evidence.
Hufford was a person of interest within the first 48 hours but LE couldn’t develop enough evidence to charge him, But kept close tabs on him. In Pemiscot County jail (for the last 3 years) awaiting trial on unrelated charges out of New Madrid County.
11/25/19: Arraignment hearing.
I wonder about that 2nd person who was there when Teresa supposedly had an OD. Since the body has not been found - and based on what Hufford said will not be found - there will be no autopsy to confirm his 'confession'. Of course, there is NO evidence of something more intentional such as rape and murder so they can't charge him with anything beyond involuntary manslaughter. And her husband died before LE could make an arrest.
I couldn't find anything. I tried to see if the county courts had a website where I could check court cases and couldn't find one. Nothing in the media updating the case either.Bumping up @JnRyan - any updates on this case? TIA!
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