Family devastated by D.C.’s last homicide of 2016
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Version 0 of 1. On a frigid Sunday afternoon, Antonias Butler’s mother and two sisters stood near the bus stop on East Capitol Street where he was found early Dec. 31 — stabbed, bleeding from the chest and fighting to breathe. The shivering family pleaded for another witness to step up or an assailant to come forward. A day later, Jan. 9, the women stood together again, this time at a funeral home in Northeast Washington before the services for Butler, 25, whose death on New Year’s Eve was the last homicide reported in the District in 2016. “Mommy ain’t going to quit. I’m going to find out,” Helen Butler said as she rocked and swayed before her only son’s casket. “You didn’t deserve none of this. I didn’t raise you to be taken from me like this.” [Homicides remain steady in Washington region in 2016] Loss and anger have come in waves for this Southeast Washington family, who knew Butler affectionately as “Man.” For two decades, Butler was the only male member in a household with two sisters. Butler, who had been stabbed once, was found just after midnight Dec. 31, police have said. Investigators said that they think he had a confrontation with a man on a Metrobus and that the dispute apparently continued off the bus. He was found in the 4600 block of East Capitol Street, on the Southeast side, across the street from the Shrimp Boat restaurant in Northeast and near the well-traveled intersection with Benning Road. [Police video of person of interest ] The family said police told them that a bus passenger saw Butler staggering near the intersection before he collapsed near the bus stop and that the passenger got off the bus and flagged down a D.C. police officer in a cruiser, who began emergency medical aid. Emergency responders took Butler to Prince George’s Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead. “They didn’t take anything. It had to be personal. There has to be something more to the story . . . something he didn’t expect to happen,” his older sister, Antoinette Butler, said in an interview. Butler grew up on Third Street SE, in the Washington Highlands area, the middle child — between Antoinette, 26, and LaShawn Butler, 23 — in a close-knit trio of siblings. Antoinette said the sisters miss the outgoing and easygoing young man, who worked hard and put his mother, sisters and two nephews first. He had no children, the family said, but loved spending time with his 5-year-old and 8-month-old nephews, Carlos and Rahul, and he especially liked playing basketball and video games with Carlos. “There was an uncle-and-nephew bond. It was almost a father-and-son-like thing,” Antoinette said. “My brother just went with the flow. It was all good memories, which we want to have of my brother.” Butler dropped out of Ballou High School in 11th grade, and the family said he had teenage run-ins with the law but quickly left street life behind. Butler worked several kitchen jobs, including most recently at Beefsteak near Dupont Circle, and he had enrolled in night school in an effort to complete a GED, the family said. “My brother was a homebody. My brother would be content staying in the house on PlayStation,” Antoinette said. “It’s just crazy he died in the street, because he was not in the street.” The night of Dec. 30 was the first anniversary of Butler’s dating his live-in girlfriend, but the couple argued at their apartment, a few blocks from where he was later found. Butler’s family said his girlfriend told them that Butler walked out of the apartment, headed to his mother’s home, about 11:30 p.m. The family speculates that Butler needed a ride, because his last text message was to a friend of his mother’s and included the address of his apartment. But the cryptic message simply adds to the mystery surrounding his final minutes as his family tries to piece together the last hours of his life and to find out why he was attacked. On Jan. 6, D.C. police released a video of a person of interest in the case. The footage shows a black man on a bus just after midnight. He wore a Yale sweatshirt and a ball cap and had a beard and mustache. As of late Sunday, police have not announced any arrests in the case. At the family’s vigil at the bus stop, LaShawn and his mother pleaded for cooperation with police. “Whoever did it, turn yourself in. Whoever knew something, turn yourself in,” his mother said. “Let them know what you know.” At the funeral, Butler’s sisters stood before more than 100 mourners and read poems of remembrance and farewell. The anger subsided for a moment, leaving just the grief. “You showed me a lot of things, I learned a lot I didn’t know,” LaShawn read from a poem she wrote. “But you forgot to teach me one last thing — how to let you go.” |