Shantay Butts, 42, female, Black/African American, was shot to death late on July 11, 2025, inside a residential trailer off the 100 block of State Road 715 in Belle Glade, Florida. Deputies arrived around 11:47 p.m. after a 911 call from a juvenile who reported that his stepfather had broken a window and forced his way into the home; inside, they found Butts unresponsive on a bed and a man wounded by a gunshot to the chest. The wounded man—identified as her boyfriend—was rushed to St.
Mary’s Medical Center and survived, while Butts was pronounced dead minutes before midnight.
According to investigators and witness statements summarized in arrest records, the intruder was Little Mack Williams, an ex-boyfriend and the father of some of Butts’s children. One child told deputies he saw Williams straddling Butts and heard her gasping for air; a niece told detectives Williams had threatened to kill her before. Outside the home, deputies encountered a man matching the suspect description; Williams surrendered in the street without incident. Inside, detectives recovered a handgun magazine and multiple shell casings as six children and two additional adults were found elsewhere in the residence.
Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office records and contemporaneous news reports detail a history of domestic incidents tied to Williams, including a prior arrest and an active felony warrant the week before the killing. He had also been suspected of stealing a gun from Butts’s vehicle earlier in July, and he is barred from possessing firearms due to prior felony convictions. After his detention, Williams denied firing the shots, claiming a struggle with the other man, but investigators said evidence at the scene and eyewitness accounts pointed to him as the shooter.
Williams was arrested on July 12, 2025, near the scene. He was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of Butts, attempted first-degree murder for the shooting of her boyfriend, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Separate outlets corroborated that deputies located him running just blocks away before he surrendered, and that his criminal record stretches back years.
Public memorial pages and violence-tracking sites published soon after the shooting echoed the basic timeline and identified Butts by name, age, and city, marking her as a victim of gun violence on the night of July 11 in Belle Glade.
