David Butler was forty-two years old and worked as an editor at the Stars and Stripes, a military newspaper. He lived alone in the Colonial Village neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, and was described by neighbors as a quiet man who tended to keep to himself.
At about one-thirty a.m. on the morning of Saturday, July 15th, 2000, David got off the train after work, disembarking at his usual Court House Metro stop, and then started walking the few blocks to his apartment. Somewhere along the way, though, he was accosted by a person or persons unknown.
Shortly before two a.m., someone phoned the police and reported hearing loud voices on Wilson Boulevard. When officers responded, they found David Butler lying in the parking lot of a car dealership. He had been beaten to death.
The motive for the crime was unclear, as an investigation into David’s background yielded no enemies and thus no potential suspects. Because the area where he was attacked was not highly trafficked or well-lit, detectives surmised that he had perhaps been the victim of a robbery of opportunity. The finding of his wallet a few months later, only blocks away from where he was killed, appeared to bolster this hypothesis; but strangely, his credit cards were still inside.
Authorities are convinced the case is solvable and have been appealing to the local community for information, especially to possible customers of an all-night convenience store David would likely have passed by that night. So far, though, no solid leads have turned up, and the murder of David Butler remains unresolved.
Crime Immemorial 