HOUSTON – A family is desperate for answers after a teenager, missing for days, was found dead about 20 miles from home.
Trevion Butler, 19, lived with his family in Sugar Land and never came home from work last Wednesday, his family told KPRC 2. A volunteer with a drone found his body in a wooded area near the South Loop and Buffalo Speedway on Sunday afternoon.
“Everything is fishy. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I just want to find out what happened to my child,” his mother, Andrea Butler, said.
Houston Police say his body was found about 50 yards from the road with a gunshot wound, in the wooded area off of Grand Fountains Drive near Buffalo Speedway. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences has not ruled on a manner of death, but his family said self-harm is out of the question.
“He never been in jail, he don’t have no record, A-student. Why? Why?,” his grandmother Adrienne Butler said. “I need some answers. I need some closure.”
According to his family, his friend and colleague usually took him to and brought him home from work.
But last Wednesday, Andrea Butler said he didn’t come home from his job at his friend’s dropship company.
In the middle of the night, she said Sugar Land police showed up at the family’s home looking for her son, because they claimed the friend had reported he stole his gun.
Then Thursday, when her son still hadn’t returned home, she filed a missing persons report with the Sugar Land Police Department.
A spokesperson for the department said their investigation didn’t find any signs of foul play, but referred any questions to the Houston Police Department on Monday.
After reporting him missing, the family started searching places they thought he might be and speaking with neighbors. Andrea Butler recovered surveillance video from one neighbor that she says showed her son at the townhomes off Grand Fountains Drive, near where his body was later found.
She shared that video with community activist Albert Flores, who volunteered to help join the search on Sunday. He also recovered surveillance video and spoke with neighbors.
“I sent the drone down there and I seen something that caught my eye,” Flores said.
He spotted a body, which the family has identified as Trevion Butler’s, across the street from the townhomes in a wooded area. He immediately called 911.
The family said they had asked police to check known addresses at the townhomes during the search for him, but claims that didn’t happen.
“I feel like my grandson would have been still here if they would have done that well(ness) check,” Adrienne Butler said.
Based on what the family has been told about the condition of Trevion Butler’s body when discovered, it didn’t appear he had been dead for all of the days he was missing.
Now as Thanksgiving, his favorite holiday, gets closer, the family is missing a piece of what made it complete.
“I wish you could just see more of the world. You do not deserve what happened to you,” Andrea Butler said.
The family has created a GoFundMe account to help with funeral expenses.
Houston Police are asking anyone with information about the case to call the Homicide Division at 713-308-3600 or speak anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.