Man Recently Acquitted Of Rape Charged With Sexually Assaulting A Child
Samuel Heber Butler, who has been accused of sexual assault eight times and was recently acquitted of rape, has been charged with sexually assaulting a 6-year-old child
A Utah man who was acquitted of rape three weeks ago, was charged on February 18 with five felony counts for sexual assault against a child. Samuel Heber Butler, 24, has been accused of sexual assault a total of eight times and charged by prosecutors twice. This most recent stems from a February 13 arrest, where he was accused of sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl and then offering her mother money to keep her from calling the police. He was charged with rape of a child, sodomy of a child, aggravated sexual abuse of a child, sexual abuse of a child and tampering with a witness.
According to the mother, she met Butler on Facebook a few weeks earlier and invited him over to her Provo, Utah home on Wednesday, February 12. She says that Butler and her daughter fell asleep on the couch and she went into her bedroom to sleep.
“During the night…Defendant disrobed, and removed Victim’s pants and underwear,” police wrote. Butler then exposed himself and fondled and digitally raped the child — before apologizing then telling her he wanted to “marry her” and promising it wouldn’t happen again.
The little girl then went into her mother’s bedroom, and asked her if she could sleep in her bed because Butler kept touching her. The mother then confronted Butler, and he allegedly begged her to not call the police, offering her money for her silence.
According to the report, the mother dialed 911 and “when it became apparent that Victim’s mother had called police, [Butler] retrieved a knife from the kitchen, went outside and began cutting his wrists. Defendant left the area in his van, however, before officers arrived.” He was arrested the next day when he surrendered to police.
On January 30, two weeks earlier, he professed his innocence while standing trial for the 2017 rape of a Dixie State University student he met on Tinder. The next day, a jury acquitted him.
At the time of his first arrest, Dixie State Police Chief Don Reid established there was a pattern.
“This department learned that the suspect has been listed as a rape suspect in other cases where the suspect forces himself upon the victims,” the police statement said.
In a 2017 telephone interview with the Salt Lake Tribune, he explained that Butler aroused his suspicion that he wasn’t a first time offender during their first meeting, telling him “several things about his dating preferences and previous experiences in meeting women via the internet.” The discussion led the chief to believe “this had happened before,” he explained. He then confirmed his hunch after an investigation.
As for the latest charges against Butler, no court date has been set.
“This case exemplifies every failure in the Utah criminal justice system,” one of his other accusers, Madeline MacDonald, told The Daily Beast this week.
