Gone in a Blink
There are an estimated 8 billion people in the world. In the US, approximately 2,300 people go missing every day. While some of those cases may be of their own accord, others are because of something far more sinister. Gone in a Blink is a true crime podcast that dives head first into the most mysterious and terrifying missing person cases in existence. Hosts Heather and Danielle take a deep look into some of the most horrific missing person cases that will leave you on the edge of your seat and absolutely terrified at just how fast a person can be Gone in a Blink.
Gone in a Blink
A Family Evening Turns Tragic: What Really Happened to Teresa Butler
On a chilling January evening in 2006, Teresa Butler, a devoted mother and beloved community member, vanished without a trace while putting her children to bed. After a regular family gathering, her husband left for work, unaware that this would lead to a heartbreaking investigation into her disappearance. In this gripping episode, we dive deep into the details of her last known moments, revealing a puzzling array of clues that highlight the complexities of family life intertwined with unexpected tragedy.
As authorities piece together the timeline following Teresa's disappearance, unsettling revelations emerge regarding her connections to individuals seemingly unconnected to her life. We explore the fallout of her case, introducing Melvin Ray Hufford, a man whose confession adds layers to the mystery yet raises further questions about Teresa’s character and circumstances leading to that fateful night.
Through this episode, we not only seek answers to the numerous questions left in the wake of Teresa's disappearance but also reflect on the broader implications of safety, trust, and the fragility of family units. Join us for an in-depth examination of love, betrayal, and the ongoing quest for closure for Teresa and her children. We urge you to share your thoughts and join the conversation about this heart-wrenching case as we continue to seek justice for Teresa Butler. Remember to subscribe and share this episode to help keep her story alive in hopes of uncovering more truths.
Sources:
https://charleyproject.org/case/teresa-lynn-butler
https://www.trace-evidence.com/teresa-butler
https://www.kfvs12.com/story/34639197/2017/03/Wednesday/heartland-unsolved-in-the-dark/
https://www.kfvs12.com/2019/11/21/arrest-made-teresa-butler-case/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/awarenessformissingmopersons/posts/552172495493670/
https://faithfuneralservice.net/obituary/442
Music Credit:
Crime Trap by Muza Production
Sinister Skies by Alana Jordan
Deep Thoughts by Crab Audio
What a Pity by Alban Gogh
Gone in a Blink is created by Heather Hicks and Danielle E.
Written and produced by Heather Hicks and hosted by Danielle E. and Heather Hicks.
Gone in a Blink theme: Crime Trap created and produced by Muzaproduction
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Thanks for joining us on the airwaves. And remember......Be Safe, Be Smart, and Try Not to Blink.
A quiet evening spent with family on a cold January day. Small children playing and laughing. Their mother close by, engaged in casual conversation with her sister-in-law. The children's father is working the night shift at his job not far from where the family resides. As it starts to get late, the children's mother decides she needs to head home, get them into the bath and then put them to bed for the night. She too is ready to call it a night. A devoted mother, she heads home to tend to her small children, four-year-old Gavin and two-year-old Garrett. What seemed like such a typical day with family would soon turn into a nightmare for everyone who knew and loved this young mother of two. This is the case of Teresa Butler. And this is Gone in a Blink. Hey, true crime fans, I'm your host, heather, and I'm Danielle. Welcome to episode 34 of Gone in a.
Speaker 1:Blink. I hope everyone is staying warm out there. Wherever you may be listening from, we have been dealing with some extreme temperatures here in the Midwest. Schools seem like they're closed more than they're open at this point, and I'm really just ready for springtime. To be honest, my children are going out of their minds with boredom, and being stuck in the house is driving everyone pretty much crazy and I'll be pretty honest, I'm ready for them to go back as well. How's everything been going at your house with this cold.
Speaker 2:Well, I, you know, hadn't left the house for a couple of days and then yesterday I finally had to go into work but it was too cold for my dog to be outside, so I had to leave him inside and thankfully he didn't do any mess on the floor or anything like that. But I could definitely tell, like, just like with a little kid, that boredom when I got home, of course super excited to see me but wouldn't leave me alone and nothing was making him, you know, happy, just like a little kid, bored, just had been in the house too long.
Speaker 1:That's actually how my nine year old son has been. He can't understand why we got all this snow and the temperatures are in the upper negatives, so it's way too cold for him to be playing outside in it and it's just driving him absolutely crazy. But the weather's kind of chilling out now. So I'm ready for spring, though Really ready for spring. So today's case is one out of Risco, missouri. Today we are talking about the case of missing mom Teresa Butler. So if you're ready, let's jump right in.
Speaker 1:Teresa Lynn Butler was described by those who knew and loved her as having a huge heart and one who would always go the extra mile to help anyone in need. She was married to the love of her life, gary Dale Butler, and together they shared two beautiful children, gavin, age four, and Garrett, just two years old. They lived in a small but cute little home in the rural part of Risco, missouri, on County Road 241, which is also known as Eight Ditch Road, just off of Highway 62. And just a little bit about Risco. It is located approximately 123 miles or 198 kilometers north of Memphis, tennessee, and is located in the southeast part of Missouri. Its population in 2006 was around 356, and I believe it was last updated in 2020 with a population of only 286. So it is a very small, mostly rural community.
Speaker 1:On Tuesday, january 24th 2006, just before 5 pm, dale Butler got ready for his overnight shift and gave his wife, teresa, a hug goodbye. After telling her that he loved her, he headed to work. Teresa then took the boys over to her brother, donald Buchanan, and her sister-in-law, sarah Buchanan's home. Teresa's husband, dale, was working the overnight shift and wouldn't be home until the next morning. Around 9.30 pm, teresa decided that she better get the boys home so she could give them a bath and get them to bed, and as she headed back to her home, her sister-in-law, sarah, followed her home so that she could borrow Teresa's computer in order to copy some things for work. Little did Sarah know at the time this would be the last time her or anyone else would ever see Teresa Butler. According to Sarah Buchanan, the two women and the little boys arrived at the Butler home around 10 pm on the night of January 24th. Sarah stayed for a short while before heading home. When Sarah was leaving the Butler home, teresa was getting the boys ready to take their baths. She told Sarah that she was going to bed after she got the boys to bed. So Sarah mentions that. She specifically remembers that when she walked out the front door of the Butler home, the porch light was on, and this will later become a very crucial part of this case.
Speaker 1:So around this same time Dale told police that he tried to call Sarah on his lunch break. However, it would just go straight to voicemail. He later told reporters that it was like the call wasn't even going through. He figured that maybe Teresa had just fallen asleep and so he really wasn't worried about it at that point.
Speaker 1:The next morning Dale returned home from work around 10 am and he recalled walking into the house and not seeing anyone in the front area of the house. He thought that was kind of strange and then, along with the fact that he tried to call Teresa the night before and she wasn't answering, he decided to walk through the house in search for his wife. So he walked to the back bedroom and there he saw four-year-old Gavin laying in the couple's bed curled up in a blanket. Two-year-old Garrett was sitting in a chair with an empty bottle and a soaked diaper. There was no sign of Teresa anywhere. Dale walked throughout the house calling Teresa's name, and when he still couldn't locate her, panic really began to set in. He grabbed his phone and began calling friends and family, and basically anyone and everyone he could think of that may have some idea of where his wife could be. All kinds of thoughts were running through Del's mind at this point and he thought well, maybe she just had to run to the store really quick, or maybe she had to run here, maybe she had to run there. But in reality he knew that Teresa would not have left her kids all alone. Teresa had been working in the photo department at the local Walmart in Dexter, missouri, and was scheduled to work the noon shift on the day of her disappearance. She never showed up.
Speaker 1:The police were called and arrived within minutes to assess the scene. They discovered a list of items were missing from the home, including the family's video camera, a Nintendo GameCube with games, a PlayStation along with games, a large flashlight along with games, a large flashlight, a digital camera and a car stereo. Teresa's purse and cell phone were also missing. Police, though, did find Teresa's wedding rings lying on the floor partially underneath the couch. Dale told officers that it was not uncommon for Teresa to take them off if they started to irritate her skin or if she was sleeping Teresa, to take them off if they started to irritate her skin or if she was sleeping.
Speaker 1:Teresa's green Jeep Wrangler was also still left in the driveway. Authorities found no signs of a struggle and no signs of forced entry, making the fact that Teresa was missing even more suspicious. That foul play was involved. Two things that really grabbed the attention of police was the fact that a key was found broken off inside a lock at the home and the light bulb to the front porch light had been unscrewed. So this right there is probably the biggest red flag for me anyway, because whatever was about to go down at that house that night could not have happened with the porch light on, and because they unscrewed the light versus turning the light off tells me that they were about to do something before they actually had access to the house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that seems like a really red flag, really big red flag, that they would go to the trouble of unscrewing the light bulb. I guess what went through my mind is just once they're in the house it could have been easily turned off, but they were really trying to catch somebody by surprise.
Speaker 1:Well, exactly, and I'm not sure if they were planning to break in or maybe they knocked on the door and then unscrewed the light so that when Teresa tried to look outside to see who it was, she wouldn't be able to see. And that's my thinking right there, because you're standing outside on the porch, you don't have access at this point to the inside of the home. It's what after 10 o'clock at night, so it's very dark. This is a rural area. So my thinking is they probably unscrewed the light so that when she, or when they knocked and she tried to look out to see who it was, she couldn't see. Teresa's sister-in-law reported that the porch light was on when she left the Butler home that night, and that could explain why there was no forced entry, because I mean just thinking about someone unscrewing the light bulb and knocking and she tried to look to see who it was and couldn't see, and so she just maybe she thought it was her sister-in-law coming back for something, and so she opened the door and was totally caught off guard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where my mind goes as well is that I think you had said that her sister-in-law left about 10 o'clock that night and somebody was watching the house. So I would guess that sister-in-law left and maybe shortly thereafter someone knocks at the door and Teresa thinks that oh, maybe her sister-in-law forgot something and probably, honestly, probably didn't even look outside, because it could have been that quickly if somebody was watching the house waiting for the sister-in-law to leave.
Speaker 1:So it caught her off guard and almost seems like an ambush that's what seems to make the most sense seems to make the most sense, and then unscrewing the light bulb not only would serve that purpose of her not being able to look out and see who it was, but also anyone driving by would not be able to see what may or may not be taking place right there. So cell phone records later confirmed that on the night Teresa went missing, a call was placed from Teresa's phone to a residence in Gideon, missouri, at 3 16 am, and Gideon is approximately 16 miles, or just over 25 kilometers, southwest of Risco. The person living at the residence did not answer the phone that night and they told investigators that they didn't even know Teresa or anyone else in her family. Then, after Teresa's disappearance, another call was placed, using her cell phone this time, to a residence in Clarkton, missouri, and once again the homeowners claimed that they didn't know who Teresa was. They did say that they answered the phone that day but heard nothing on the other end.
Speaker 1:Investigators were perplexed as to what could have happened to Teresa. Authorities asked Dale if his wife had any enemies or was having any issues before she went missing. He claimed that his wife wasn't having any problems that were concerning before she disappeared. However, teresa's co-workers from the Walmart store where she worked painted a very different picture. They claimed that Dale's ex-wife was calling her at work and even began making threats to Teresa and I actually saw that someone posted a comment on Web Sleuths that Teresa had met her husband while they were both working together at a factory and, according to the commenter going by the name K-Mac, teresa and her husband allegedly began seeing each other while they were both still married to other people. They eventually divorced their spouses and got married to each other, and her co workers did in fact, back up the story that Teresa was receiving threatening phone calls, so there was definitely some hostility. However, was it enough to murder Teresa? That I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that does seem kind of odd that the husband would paint the picture that everything was fine, but then talking to co workers of Teresa, they paint a different picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know exactly how far everything went. I mean far enough that she was making threatening phone calls to her work. I think that's taken it a bit far, but according to her husband, they had resolved everything. So, like I said, it went so far that the ex-wife was calling her at her job and making threats what kind of threats, I have no clue, but they were threats all the same and then she disappears. So that is something that you know I wouldn't ignore.
Speaker 2:Well, sure, yeah that, especially after she disappears, and then there's an account of that. But you can't rule out that. Okay, maybe he was trying not to mention that they had issues. At this point you have to look at him at least a little bit as a suspect.
Speaker 1:Well, and also I think it's the fact that it was his ex, so he was probably could have been. If she was on the other foot and it was her ex, then maybe she would have made light of the situation too. I think it was just the fact that it was his ex and he knows his ex and so he was probably like, oh, you know, she's just that's how she is, just kind of making light of the situation. I think, no matter whose exit would have been in a lot of cases would have just kind of brushed it off and been like we're working this out, so everything's good.
Speaker 2:I think more of that. He has a lot on his mind right now, of whatever capacity. His wife is missing, whether he had anything to do with it or not. He has two small children, so I could see guy or girl, that being more on the forefront of his mind versus if Teresa and his ex were fighting.
Speaker 1:Well and apparently officers did not really explore this too far. I don't think. Or if they did, they cut it off pretty quick because there's not a lot of mention in articles that I've read from valuable sources. It's more along the lines of web sleuths Not that web sleuths can't be valuable sources because they have solved many crimes. However, it's from Reddit and it's from web sleuths and it's people giving their opinion in speculation based, if that makes sense. So it's not. It's not coming from authorities or anything like that.
Speaker 1:But on March 6, 2007, a female witness came forward with some information that they believe could help officers investigating Teresa's case. They explained that in the 24 hours after Teresa went missing, a video camera had been exchanged for drugs. Missouri Highway Patrol investigator Sergeant JS Stolting interviewed the witness, who claimed that a man by the name of Melvin Ray Hewford Jr had stopped by her house and talked with her husband. Hewford claimed that he had beaten a guy up over a drug debt and that he had a video camera and an easy shot camera. However, the witness claimed that she never actually saw the equipment. The witness thought that it sounded suspicious given the time frame and after hearing about what was missing from the Butler home after Teresa's disappearance. She was kind of tying two and two together. So on August 2nd 2007 the female witness was brought back into the police station, but this time with her husband, and the two were each interviewed separately.
Speaker 1:The husband told investigators, stolting, that Melvin Hewford had stopped by their house within 24 hours after Teresa Butler had gone missing. He claimed at that time he didn't know anything about Teresa's disappearance. He told investigators that he had traded Hewford a gram of meth in exchange for a digital camera and a camcorder. Once the witness viewed the contents of the video camera, he realized it had belonged to Teresa Butler. He then claimed to have confronted Huford about who it belonged to.
Speaker 1:However, huford denied any knowledge of who it belonged to or the circumstances surrounding it. The man then told officers that after he realized who the items belonged to, he gave them to his wife and told her to get rid of them. She then pulled the tape out of the video camera and threw the camera in a ditch, and then the husband burned the videotape in a barrel behind a family member's home. The couple told investigators where they could find the video camera. However, once authorities located the video camera and pulled it from the ditch. It had been drenched in water and was missing the serial number, making it impossible to prove that the camera had in fact belonged to Teresa.
Speaker 2:So there's so much there. Okay, my first question March 6, 2007,. This is when it was reported, and then they didn't bring them into the police station till August 2? That seems like so many months had gone by Two, I don't know. I mean, there's all different kind of beliefs out there. I tend to believe that when we have a guilty conscience, we bring up things like oh, I so happen to have came across this camcorder. I mean things like that to kind of try to clear our conscience. And, yes, blame it on somebody else, or maybe this couple, if they're not involved with the disappearance. Blaming it on someone else. They're, of course, saying I don't know where we got it, but yet they're trying to get rid of evidence instead of just bringing it to the police. There just seems to be so many red flags here that either this couple was directly involved or that the person that they're claiming that they got the items from.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I definitely think that there was a large gap between the time that the female witness came forward and it sounds like she told investigators part of the story. Then what was? It was five months until they brought the husband in and the woman back in. However, they did not have really anything to go on, except what this woman said she didn't even know for sure if it was Teresa Butler's. I don't think, because I don't think. At that first interview she said she didn't say that they got rid of the tape and did all that. At least that's not what was reported. So she said that she was assuming that it was Teresa Butler's because Teresa Butler was missing. Teresa Butler was missing.
Speaker 1:Also a video camera from the home and within 24 hours, voila, here's Melvin Hubert trying to trade this video camera for drugs. The drug part is my second point, because it sounds like they are so heavy involved with drugs they probably want to stay pretty clear of the police. So you saying that their conscience was eating at them, I'm sure it was and I'm sure that they knew that this was Teresa Butler's because they viewed the tape and they made a comment to investigators the second time they were brought in that they viewed the tape. Teresa Butler and her family were on this tape and they got rid of the evidence. Why they would get rid of the evidence is beyond me and then go into the police station with all this information and if police didn't have a serial number, they have to be able to prove that that was Teresa Butler's.
Speaker 2:Well, exactly, and we've covered cases before of a disappearance and then all of a sudden, you know, people show up the next day just driving around houses, things like that. It's to me it's kind of like their conscience eating at them a bit. And whatever the case is, if they found this tape, wouldn't that have made more sense to somehow get that tape to Teresa's family so they would have had something to remember her by? I mean, who knows if it was like a Thanksgiving get together or something that would have been so valuable to the family, but no, they just destroyed it.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, I think they were just looking out for themselves and trying to save their own asses so that they didn't get in trouble for whatever they're mixed up with, and it's unfortunate. And, yes, I would have loved for them to have been honest and took this tape and all of this stuff that they had to the police immediately, but that's not what they chose to do. And while they did come forward and I mean I guess you got to give them a little bit of credit for that they tampered with the evidence. I mean, I haven't seen anything saying that they were charged, but they were tampering with evidence, so that should have got him something. But in january 2018, the same female witness was once again interviewed by investigators and she told them they also had a nintendo gameube, a controller and some games that Melvin Huford had traded to her husband for drugs. The night, teresa Butler went missing, so police confiscated these items and were much closer to making an arrest in Teresa's case.
Speaker 2:How convenient that she ended up having these things. It kind of seems like the police are using a strategy of so the second time and first time 2007, and then we waited all the way till 2018. I can kind of see that strategy there. I don't know, if you do, heather, where, the more time that they wait, that the woman that first reported that they are remembering more things, maybe because they feel like the statute of limitation. Now, with all of this, I really feel like that they would have enough evidence at this point to say that somehow this woman and her husband were involved.
Speaker 1:Well, and there's no statute of limitations on murder. So I think cops knew that they had time. I think they probably weren't expecting, unfortunately, to find Teresa alive. I think that they pretty much figured early on that she didn't just walk away from her home and leave her boys and family had been very adamant that that was not Teresa just to leave a two-year-old and a four-year-old by themselves and walk off. And they had no evidence that she did walk off. So I think they had their sights set on a particular person of interest from very early on. Teresa's husband, gary Dale Butler, had been. He'd been cleared as a suspect early on in the investigation after providing an airtight alibi and agreeing to a polygraph in which he passed. Investigators had their sights on someone else, someone who had been on their radar as a person of interest pretty soon after Teresa went missing.
Speaker 1:In November 2019, 42-year-old Melvin Ray Hewford of Tallapoosa, missouri, was charged in New Madrid County with first-degree involuntary manslaughter and tampering with physical evidence. He confessed to being the one who had caused Teresa's death. According to Hewford, he had been at the Butler home doing meth with Teresa and another man. Okay, this is according to him. He claims that he had injected Teresa with meth before injecting himself. He stated that soon after injecting Teresa, she began complaining of chest pain. He went into the kitchen to get her some water and when he returned she had no pulse. He says that he panicked so he wrapped Teresa's body in a tarp and dumped her in a ditch. Then he says he returned to her home to take some items in order to make her disappearance look like a robbery.
Speaker 1:So okay, I'm sorry, but his story sounds like the biggest crock of BS I have ever heard. There seems to be a lot of holes in his story. First of all, then there's the fact that there is no mention of Teresa's children, who were there in the home with her. Then you have the question, and one that seems to be talked about quite frequently on Reddit Do we even know if Teresa was a meth user? According to people on Reddit, her family and other locals in the community who knew her adamantly claim that Teresa was not a drug user.
Speaker 1:None of the articles I've researched are touching on this very important detail, so I sincerely question this myself. It was reported, though, that Teresa had no history of being unstable and that she had never left without telling anyone. She also had no history of leaving her children. Was Teresa a meth user and if so, did she know Melvin Hubert? Had they ever met? Did she have any connection to him at all? Did Teresa's husband even know him? There are so many unanswered questions. However, I am having a lot of trouble believing the story to be true. Why do we think he was a person of interest so early into the investigation? Was it because of the fact he had Teresa's belongings, or was there something else that led them to Hubert?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's just a lot of holes there. There's no evidence, as you said, of Teresa being a drug user at all, but there is evidence that Melvin Ray Hubert is, and then those two people that he had sold the or, I guess, traded the drugs for those are at least drug users, users maybe not all of them doing meth. So there's so so many holes. But I also think the police had no other suspects.
Speaker 1:It sounds like it was reported that they followed several leads. They didn't specify what those leads were. But I guess what's so crazy to me is that they are buying this story. They're buying it. They obviously have something. Even now they have information that they're not putting out there. And I don't. Obviously we don't know Teresa, so we don't know what she did or didn't do, behind closed doors even. But her family is saying she was not a drug user. Her husband was saying not a drug user. Could she have been hiding it? Yeah, I mean she could have, but it's just such a far-fetched story. And if he did come over to do meth with her, why unscrew the light bulb? That, to me, is like the biggest red flag in this whole entire case. If you are coming over because you know Teresa and you guys are going to do meth, why are you unscrewing?
Speaker 2:the light bulb, exactly. I mean, it doesn't seem to make sense. It doesn't sound like that there's, even with co workers that has said, any connection with Teresa and this man. Somebody would have seen something if they had gotten together more than just a few times what it sounds like to me, which is a little more logical that the three of them so the husband and wife and this guy Melvin they had been watching the house and I can make all kinds of assumptions somewhere that Teresa was somehow targeted and they were waiting for the sister-in-law to leave and then they, they came and ambushed her, robbed her, her, I mean, and Teresa didn't even see it coming.
Speaker 1:I think that's a very good possibility. And going right back to the light bulb situation again, I still believe it was unscrewed before he ever accessed the house. Because, even if you wanted to argue, okay, well, he unscrewed it because he had already killed her and he was trying to get the body out of the house. Well, in that case, wouldn't you just turn the light off instead of unscrewing the light bulb? So it's all about, for me anyway, the fact that they unscrewed the, or he unscrewed the bulb. I don't even think he really knew her. I don't think that it had anything to do with coming over and doing meth. I think that he's full of crap and there's no body. So you can't say, oh well, did she have meth in her system or anything like that. So I don't think that police really had much of a choice but to believe this ridiculous story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what it seems like. I mean, what it's sounding like as well. Is that, like I was saying, on my belief that they all three were involved the husband and wife, their conscience, or whatever they, like you had said earlier, at that point you're looking out for yourself, and so they reported it pretty early and I don't know why they waited so long to question Melvin, but they were all kind of involved and he's just trying to figure out something that maybe they would believe you also have to look at. He didn't get rid of the body by himself. So in this story he's making it seem like that, oh, he got scared and got rid of the body by himself. So in this story he's making it seem like that, oh, he got scared and got rid of the body. Did he ever tell them where the body was? At what ditch did he threw her?
Speaker 1:in. I am going to get to that here in just a second. There was, though supposedly he claimed there was another man there that night that was doing meth with them. However, police don't think that that man had anything to do with what happened to Teresa, so they weren't pursuing him, and now it's too late because, according to posts on Reddit, he passed away. So New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens believes that the fact they found Teresa's wedding ring under the couch could have been a more deliberate move to hide her rings because she wasn't totally comfortable with the people who she was interacting with that night, and maybe that was her way of securing them. I don't think so, because you weren't comfortable enough to have them around your valuables. But you know, I mean, I guess that is a possibility, but I just can't get past the fact that something far more valuable was in the home and that was her children. So would she have let people who she wasn't comfortable interacting with into her home and around her children? But she's hiding her wedding ring under the couch? I don't know, this just doesn't sound right.
Speaker 1:Before being arrested in Teresa's disappearance, hubert told authorities that while he was serving time in prison for unrelated crimes, he contacted his father and told him that he hid Teresa's body under the sink of an abandoned house that his father owned at the time. Hubert's father told investigators that he had seen the body but never touched it. After Hubert was released from prison, he returned to the abandoned house and burned Teresa's remains. He then claimed to have crushed the remaining bones before dumping them in a ditch. So, according to Hubert, teresa's body was dumped in a ditch south of Tallapoosa near County Road 253. Police have since searched this exact ditch for any sign of Teresa. However, their search efforts turned up nothing.
Speaker 1:Melvin Hewford pled guilty on January 10th 2020 and was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter, in which he confessed to injecting Teresa with a fatal dose of meth, which imposes a Class C felony, and he was also charged with tampering with evidence, which is classified as a Class D felony. In all, he will spend 10 years in prison and be out in a few years. It looks like. So that is just crazy to me, and I kind of feel like maybe this whole story was so that he could get a manslaughter charge instead of a murder charge. Because if you're saying, hey, we were doing meth and we were, you know, I shot her up, but I didn't mean to kill her. Well, how genius to come up with such a BS story just to save your own ass, so that if you do get convicted of anything, it's not going to be what probably actually did take place in my own opinion, which was cold-blooded murder. He has had a pretty extensive criminal record prior to Teresa's disappearance, a record that included drug offenses, and he had already served six prison sentences since 1997 alone.
Speaker 1:Police have announced that they don't think the second man, like I mentioned earlier, was implicated in the disappearance, or who was implicated in the disappearance actually who was implicated in the disappearance actually had anything to do with the case. I did see reports that the other man has died, and that's what I mentioned earlier too. So they've got something. They had something, but I don't know how they decided that that man was there. But that man had nothing to do with it, even moving the body, because you know damn well, if he there and she died and Hubert panicked, even if that story was legit, he helped move the body, I guess, maybe because they didn't have proof, maybe they just didn't have proof, but he didn't just stand there and watch as as Hubert drugged the body out all by himself. I don't know this whole story. It just sounds like she's not getting the justice that she deserves in this case.
Speaker 2:It absolutely does not seem like she's getting the justice and it just, I don't know, just floors me, that one that we waited so long, but two, you know, you mentioned earlier that Melvin saying that he told his dad where the body was and the dad saw the body but didn't do anything. That seems kind of messed up as well, that I mean that just prolonged finding the body, or for the family as well, and that's just sad.
Speaker 1:Well, I thought the same thing, and it just goes to show this was not a family with high morals. The son's in prison. He makes the comment oh hey, by the way, there's a dead body under the sink in your house and the father doesn't notify authorities or freak out. I mean, my God, I would lose it if I was told something like that. So just kind of gives a little background of how this family really operates. But while Teresa's case has been closed, her body has never been found. Her family is still searching for some sort of closure in the hopes of bringing Teresa home and giving her a proper burial. Family and friends of Teresa Butler believe there is more to this story than what Melvin Cuford is telling authorities. They believe that Teresa was not involved in drug use and that she never would have voluntarily left her two children home alone. Sheriff Terry Stevens has taken Teresa's case to heart. He kept a picture of her in his office as a reminder that Teresa disappeared from his hometown and on his watch. That is something he struggles with every day. Teresa's husband, gary Dale Butler Jr, passed away on January 24th 2018 at his home, almost to the day that his wife and the love of his life went missing 12 years earlier.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to another episode of Gone in a Blink. If you have any information on the whereabouts of Teresa Butler, please contact the New Madrid County Sheriff's Office at area code 573-748-2516. We want to thank you for listening and we really hope that Teresa's family, and especially her two boys, find the closure they are so desperately searching for. If you like our show, please consider giving us a five-star review on Apple Podcast or on Spotify and to get all the latest updates on the cases we cover, follow us on any of our social media sites and I will link those in our show notes. And if you have a case that you'd like us to cover, drop us an email at goneinablinkpod at gmailcom. And last but certainly not least, please remember be safe, be smart and try not to blink.
