Murder defendant accuses other man

June 17, 2005

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - A Wasilla-area man charged with stabbing his mother to death two years ago testified in his own defense Thursday during his Palmer Superior Court trial.

Aaron Butler, now 29, testified Thursday that he took the fall for the March 26, 2003 death of 54-year-old Grace Butler and lied to Alaska State Troopers out of fear that the real killer, whom he saw in the act, would harm him. He was immediately arrested the night of the killing, and was charged with first- and second-degree murder.

Grace Butler was stabbed 88 times with a steak knife, all over her upper body, arms, and face. Her autopsy revealed wounds consistent with her trying to fight back against her assailant. She told an emergency medical technician who arrived afterward that her son was the person who stabbed her.

Last week, on the first day of the trial, the defense announced it would not use mental incompetence in support of Butler's innocence. Butler was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. The case turned, instead, into a whodunit when Palmer Assistant Public Defender George Davenport, in his opening statement, told the jury that Butler's drug dealer was the real killer. At that time, Davenport did not name the man.

In an examination that was not admitted as evidence but was discussed outside the jury's presence, Butler apparently told a psychiatrist hired by the state in March that Jody Plummer, an alleged sometime drug dealer and friend of Grace Butler who frequented the house, was the real killer.

Jody Plummer, now 40, has not been charged with any crimes related to this case, either violent or drug-related.

Plummer was not his friend, Butler said several times during his testimony. Plummer associated with his cousin and was friends with Grace Butler. Butler testified that Plummer also sold and gave crystal methamphetamine to him.

"You must consider him a friend if you're mooching methamphetamine from him," District Attorney Roman Kalytiak said in his cross-examination.

Butler did not visibly or audibly express emotion during the trial, but answered questions in an even voice. Some he answered easily. Many he answered "I don't know." Sometimes he said what he thought he likely did, instead of what he actually recalled doing. He remembered cooking up some salmon on the night his mother died, but wasn't sure if he or his mother ate any of it.

Butler's account

Butler testified Thursday that he and his mother were watching "Law and Order" on TV after dinner. Plummer came over to smoke marijuana and chat with Grace Butler.

Grace had learned from Butler's cousin that Plummer was giving Aaron drugs, Butler testified. She confronted Plummer, at first in a low-key way, asking why. But the argument flared up into a "spat," Butler said. She was sitting on the loveseat where she always sat.

After the argument escalated, Plummer took a knife out of his jeans pocket and began stabbing Grace "in the belly area," Butler testified.

Meanwhile, Aaron was sitting quietly on the couch.

"You know what to do," Plummer, as he stabbed Grace Butler, told her son, according to Butler's testimony.

Butler knew, he said, that he was supposed to take the fall for his mother's death.

After the first five stabs, afraid that Plummer would kill him too, he locked himself in the bathroom, Butler testified. He emerged when things were quiet and helped his mother back onto the loveseat. Then he heard footsteps and, fearing Plummer's return, retreated into the bathroom.

Once things were quiet, he emerged a few minutes later to find his mother bloody and lying on the ground. He lugged her onto the couch with some difficulty. Her blood got on his clothes.

During this time, she said nothing to him, he testified.

Then he heard footsteps. Although, he established for Kalytiak later, he hadn't heard Plummer's big truck, he was still frightened. He hid in the bathroom again.

"How long were you in there?" Davenport asked.

"Long enough to wash my hands," Butler testified.

When he realized whoever was outside wasn't Plummer, he opened the door to find Hillarie Sweeden, his cousin, on the telephone. She didn't seem interested in talking to him, he said.

He didn't call 911, he said, because he assumed Sweeden had already done so.

Cross-examination

After lying to troopers the night of the murder, Butler said, he decided to change his story on the advice of two friendly inmates who assured him that Plummer wouldn't hurt him. When Kalytiak asked why he believed them, Butler only said that they were "very important people" in the jail.

Some dates became unclear as Kalytiak continued questioning - when, exactly, had Plummer come over before? Was he there that day? When was the last time he bought meth with him? Butler said, in contradiction to his trooper interview, that he had not used meth the day before the killing.

The extent to which methamphetamine affected him during that time was also unclear. Butler told the jury he had not taken meth that day. Then he testified Thursday that he was high on meth during the interview with troopers. But shortly after that he said he wasn't high exactly, but his mind was affected from the week of drug use.

"Hearing voices, hallucinating," he said. "Stuff that's not normal for a human being."

Later in the cross-examination, however, he said neither his memory nor his powers of observation were affected that day.

Kalytiak asked why his mother, speaking to an emergency medical technician caring for her, named him as the killer.

"I don't know," he said. "She was pretty out of it."

Kalytiak ended his cross examination with a series of questions about why Butler didn't call 911 or help his mother more.

"You were just thinking about yourself and not your mother, is that right," Kalytiak said.

"Yeah, I knew of the possibility that I might get hurt, too," Butler answered.

Referring to the interview in which he said he lied to troopers, Butler testified, "It's really hard to be in that situation when you're lying. I was trying to come up with anything I could to avoid revealing the actual assailant."

Later, Kalytiak asked him: "How is this jury supposed to know when you're lying or telling the truth?"

"That's a tough question," he answered.

After Kalytiak's detailed cross-examination of the events, Davenport again addressed his client, but kept it short.

He established, for one, that Butler considered himself weaker than Plummer. That Butler had never tried to attack anyone with a knife before. That he was not proud of being unemployed. And that the reason Butler did not cry in front of anyone was because he does not believe men should cry - but that since then, he has cried over his mother. The defense rested.

What kind of bloodstains?

Kalytiak spent much of the full morning's cross-examination extracting details. Where exactly was Butler standing? How did Plummer hold the knife? Which pocket did it come from? Why weren't there any dishes left from dinner?

The district attorney presented a white T-shirt wrapped in plastic. Butler admitted he'd worn it the day his mother died. The front was covered in bloodstains.

Butler established, through Kalytiak's questions, that the only time he got blood on himself was when he dragged his mother back onto the couch after she'd been stabbed. In the short time he was in the room while she was being stabbed, he said, he was too far away for blood to get on him.

Yet Kalytiak, showing the bloodstained shirt to the defendant, pointed out blood spatter in addition to smudges. Did he see those spots?

Butler didn't agree that the spots were blood spatter.

Trooper Sgt. Craig Allen, a man trained in bloodstain interpretation for crime-scene investigations, said he thought the stains were consistent with blood spurting, gushing or spraying directly onto the shirt. But the defense objected that Allen is not an expert in interpreting such evidence.

The court gave the state a few days to bring a rebuttal witness - a bloodstain expert, possibly from the Lower 48 - to trial next week.

Kalytiak said he did not think it was likely that Plummer would want to testify to drug deliveries in court, and that he may not want to bring him as a rebuttal witness.

Trial continues at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, before Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler.

Contact Kate Golden at 352-2284.