A year without Teresa Butler

RISCO, Mo. -- What happened to Teresa Butler?

That's a question the 400 residents of this rural New Madrid County town want answered. Fliers for the missing woman hang from the windows of the lone convenience store along Highway 62. Every Sunday, the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Risco says a prayer for her. Along with Butler's family, they pray for answers.

New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens thinks she met with foul play. So does her husband, Dale Butler. Her parents, Don and Linda Buchanan, say they think Dale knows more about her disappearance than he's telling.

Dale Butler says he last told his wife "I love you" at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2006, before leaving for his night shift at Maverick Tube in Blytheville, Ark. When he returned home at 9:30 the next morning, he found the couple's 5-year-old son Gavin huddled under a blanket on their bed and 3-year-old Garhett asleep on a love seat in the bedroom. His wife, 35 at the time, was nowhere to be found.

A year and a week later, no sign of Teresa Butler has been found.

"I know she's out there somewhere," Dale Butler said last week from the couple's home. "I know God is watching over her. I can guarantee that."

Teresa's parents live about a mile down the road from the Butlers' house on County Road 241. It's been a difficult year for the Buchanans.

"I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone," Linda Buchanan said.

About 4 p.m. the day before Teresa was reported missing, Linda Buchanan walked along the road, picking up aluminum cans. She says when she walked in front of her daughter's house, although she saw nothing unusual, she could sense something was wrong.

"I knew that something was going to happen that night, I just didn't know what. I felt a pull from that house, but I didn't go in there," she said. "I will go to my grave wondering what would have happened if I went in there that afternoon."

The disappearance has baffled the sheriff, who has been with the department for 23 years. "We're not much further along in the investigation than we were a year ago," Stevens said.

The sheriff's department, the Southeast Missouri Major Case Squad and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have interviewed dozens of people and investigated more than 100 leads. "We've come up with nothing," Stevens said.

As each day passes, the leads get fewer and fewer. The last credible lead the department received was at the end of December. Investigators searched an area in Tallapoosa, Mo., a small town about five miles south of Teresa Butler's home.

"There were rumors circulating that she was buried in the area, so we felt it was worth our time to check it out," Stevens said. "Either we would find her or dispel the rumor."

Investigators found nothing during the two-day search. Other rumors about what happened to Teresa continue to circulate through Risco. The Buchanans and their other four children have strong suspicions that her husband knows what happened to her.

"If I was sure Dale Butler had killed Teresa Butler, he wouldn't be here now," Don Buchanan said. "I assure you he knows what happened to her, though."

However, the Buchanans still speak to their son-in-law and baby-sit the couple's children, Gavin and Garhett.

Dale Butler is aware that his in-laws think he knows what happened to Teresa and is aware of the rumors about the case. Dale and two other people were given polygraph tests and passed them.

"Some of the rumors are disappointing," he said. "I love Teresa. She's a good person and the best person I've ever met. We've been together for nine years, and I love that woman."

Dale Butler said he doesn't know what happened to his wife that January night. But like others in Risco, he's thought about what may have occurred.

"I think someone was stealing something from the house that night, and they did something to Teresa," he said.

After he returned home from work the morning Teresa was reported missing, a PlayStation 2, several games, a digital camera and a stereo from the couple's Jeep were gone, he said.

A therapist who interviewed the children reported that they were sleeping when Teresa must have left the house.

Lewis Scott, pastor of First Baptist Church of Risco, has known the Butler family for several years. The couple and their sons are members of the church.

"Things like this aren't supposed to happen here," Scott said. "Maybe in a big city you forget about things like this after a while, but here in Risco we don't ever forget."

Scott, who has lived in Risco most of his life, has heard the rumors about the case but dismisses most of them, including the one about Dale Butler's involvement with his wife's disappearance.

"There's no doubt in my mind. He had nothing to do with it," Scott said. "A man who has tears in his eyes a year later every time he talks about his wife couldn't have done anything to her."

Stevens, the sheriff, can't say for certain whether Teresa Butler was abducted or if she left of her own free will. But he has an intuition.

"I feel like she was abducted. It has been over a year, and there's no trace, sign or any evidence that she walked off on her own," Stevens said. "It's hard for me to believe, as a parent and husband, that this lady threw up her hands and said 'I'm leaving' without telling anyone."

In either case, reports of missing adults can be difficult to investigate, area sheriff's departments say.

"An adult can walk off anytime he or she wants," said Leo McElrath, chief deputy sheriff in Bollinger County. "As an adult, you have the right to not come home. It may be out of character, but you haven't done anything wrong."

Lt. David James of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department said the department receives a few reports of missing adults during a year, but most leave on their own and turn up several days later.

"Sometimes the missing person cases turn out to be foul play, but then you've got the cases like the runaway bride," James said, referring to the 2005 case where a Georgia woman disappeared to avoid her wedding.

The Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department only has one unsolved case of a missing adult. Linda Crites of Jackson was reported missing in 1983. "After 23 years, we believe she was a victim of foul play," James said.

Stevens can't prove it yet, but he believes Teresa Butler was a victim of foul play, too.

"Someone knows what happened to her," Stevens said. "We just have to find that person."

Anyone with information about Teresa Butler's disappearance is asked to call Stevens at (573) 748-2516.

jfreeze@semissourian.com

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