On a summer day in Frederick, Colorado, a welfare check led to a grim discovery. On July 5, 2019, police were dispatched to a home on Shavano Circle where they found 36-year-old Emily Butler deceased. The circumstances of her death immediately pointed towards a homicide, launching an investigation into the life she had built. Emily, a female nurse at Boulder Community Health, was known in her community, and the news of her violent death sent ripples of concern through the quiet neighborhood.
As investigators began to piece together the events leading to Emily's death, their attention quickly focused on her husband, 50-year-old Kevin Butler. He was not present at the scene when his wife's body was discovered, and he was officially named a person of interest in her murder. The search for Kevin, however, came to a swift and tragic end. Later that same night, authorities received a call about a car crash near Mud Lake. Responding officers found Kevin Butler's body inside the vehicle.
The initial investigation into Kevin Butler's death suggested he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a detail that cast a dark shadow over the entire case. The Weld County Coroner's Office pursued the investigation into Emily Butler's death as a homicide, while the Boulder County Coroner's Office was tasked with determining the final cause of Kevin Butler's death. The emerging narrative suggested a tragic sequence of events, a domestic tragedy that culminated in two deaths and left a community in mourning. Neighbors reported that the couple's relationship had begun as an affair and that they had married shortly after Kevin's divorce was finalized earlier that year.
