True Crime with Kendall Rae - He Called 911 on Himself and Then Disappeared! Have You Seen Butch Knight?

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

One day in January 2015, Butch Knight called 911 to tell authorities that he had strangled his wife Sara to death, and then disappeared. Knight was known for being verbally abusive to not only Sara, but to her young daughters as well. He also refused to hold down a job, instead choosing to control every aspect of Sara’s life without contributing anything to it. If you have any information on the whereabouts of Butch Knight, call the US Marshals: [phone]. Donate to NCMEC through my campaign!  https://give.missingkids.org/campaign/kendall-rae/c438796 Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

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Kroger, fresh for everyone! Hey guys and welcome back to my channel. I wanted to tell you guys about a case that is really interesting to me. It really bothers me that there are so many people out there who have killed their loved ones or killed someone just in general and have gotten away with it and still live free. But every time I hear these stories, it just really does blow my mind

that these people are able to avoid being captured. The person I'm gonna be telling you about today is still on the run. It's actually one of Detroit's most wanted fugitives. So this case takes place in Alligen County, Michigan. And this man that I have been telling you about is named Harold or Butch Knight. Now Butch just looks like your average dude.

And Butch was married to this woman named Sarah Porter. Sarah was actually a respiratory therapist and she met Butch because his mom was one of her clients and Butch seemed really nice to her He seemed like a family man. He had two kids of his own. Sarah had been married and divorced and she had two kids of her own So she was looking for someone that had that family mentality So when they met they hit it off and this was back in 1995 So people that knew Butch and Sarah said that they were a great couple

that they seemed super happy together and that Sarah was really into Butch and vice versa. According to most of the people in their life, Sarah seemed pretty happy in their relationship. One of their favorite things to do together was go to these old lighthouses near where they lived and have picnic lunches. So they were super romantic like that.

They were even known to write each other a ton of different love notes, like really emotional, meaningful love notes. Apparently Sarah loved Valentine's Day and butch knew this so he would always get her a really big Valentine's Day card just go all out. Like he would literally buy her these huge oversized cards. He called her honey bunny

and she would say that every day felt like Valentine's Day when she was with Butch. Butch loved the outdoors and so did Sarah. He really kind of got her more into it so they spent a ton of time hiking and camping and kayaking. Overall they seemed like a really healthy happy couple. However, some people in Sarah's life said that she was starting to express that Butch wasn't always this really kind guy that he kinda had two sides to him, if you will. But not everyone felt this way about their relationship. A couple of different friends of Sarah said that

she started to express that she was really concerned. He had the tendency to snap at her and be pretty verbally abusive. Apparently Sarah said that butch had like different sides to him that sometimes he was really kind to her, but he could also completely flip on her. And not only were some of her friends concerned, but her children were as well.

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See boost.com for details. New customers only at Wemperline, edition of Restricted Supply, see who's boobled up comedy details. Like I said, Sarah had two daughters from a previous marriage, and they said that Butch didn't treat them very kindly. One of her daughters said that Butch took her out on a fishing trip one time, and they were out just fishing and hanging out, and Butch just said, you know, you're not the smartest, so you better come up with

some way of supporting yourself because I am not going to be paying for you forever. Now maybe this is something that you would say to someone that's like 18 or 19 or even 20, but she was 14 at the time. And if I were 14 and my stepdad said that to me, I'd be pretty pissed off and upset about it. And she definitely was. She said that she always had this weird relationship with Butch where he kind of acted like the kids were an inconvenience to him. And Sarah's oldest daughter also said that Butch seemed to have two personalities.

I wanna clarify that doesn't mean he has actual DID. I think she's just using it more of a figure of speech like he can act in different ways at different times Depending on what he needs and how he wants to manipulate someone She said that sometimes he would act like the perfect man and then sometimes he would just be plain evil She said that he would taunt them pick on them both of the girls And it seemed like he wanted to get angered them and would purposely pick fights with them. She also said that it was really weird that Buch didn't seem to have any friends or any social life outside of his relationship with Sarah. So like I said, they met in 1995,

they got married eventually and then they ended up moving to Maine in 2007. Sarah was the one who wanted to move but Buch said that was fine and went with her. Maine is obviously a beautiful place. They really had loved taking weekend trips there every once in a while, so they decided to be a good place for them to move permanently. So when they move there, Sarah ended up getting a job at a hospital. She worked as a teacher in a hospital, training other medical professionals, and Butch actually got hired there too, driving delivery trucks with medical supplies to the hospitals So it was all good butch hadn't really carried a job before this so she was happy that he was working Butch honestly wasn't that into it. He wasn't very committed

He ended up doing it for a little bit and overall butch didn't really do a whole lot for their relationship Sarah was definitely the main breadwinner She also cooked and cleaned and kept the house nice. And that was something that was really upsetting Sarah. She felt like she worked really hard and she did. She actually worked three different jobs at three different hospitals to try to better their lives and butch didn't really help at all. Eventually he stopped even doing that delivery job. And like I said, he was doing like nothing around the house. And at one point Sarah even called one of her daughters and said, I don't wanna be a maid anymore.

So things were beginning to be a little rocky, a little dysfunction on their relationships. So fast forward seven years later. They were still living in Maine at this time, but the relationship had not improved at all. In fact, it had gotten a lot worse over time. And Sarah actually started having some medical problems. So she decided she wanted to be back with her family

in Michigan, but she didn't want to take butch with her this time. She started looking for jobs in Michigan and went back on her own, and she went and stayed with her oldest daughter. And her daughter said that Sarah never really explained why, but she didn't go with her or why their relationship was rocky or what was going on at all. She just never gave her an

explanation and didn't want to talk about it. But at some point while she was living with her, her daughter ended up finding a letter that was from Butch that Sarah had kept in one of the pages of her Bible. And it was Butch basically saying that he was gonna do better that he was going to get his shit together pretty much and be the man that she deserves. So it became clear that their relationship was kind of on hold at the moment that Sarah was testing him to see if he could you know become more of an equal partner if he would be less mean to her. I mean it sounds like he was being verbally abusive to her. So it seemed like she was kind of testing him

and she said, you know, for the meantime, I'm gonna go to Michigan. And if you can prove yourself, you can come and join me. And in the letter, he said that he was working on this and he was going to prove to her that he was worth her time and moved to Michigan. So eventually he did. And in summer of 2014, much moved to Michigan. The two of them bought in summer of 2014, butch moved to Michigan.

The two of them bought a house together. They were really looking forward to spending the rest of their lives together, but it wasn't long until Butch just did not hold up his end of the deal, refused to get a job, refused to work, and wasn't paying for anything, and they slid back into the old patterns of Sarah just doing everything for Bunch and completely taking care of him. She was still working a shit ton, and not only that, she was still doing the housework, the cleaning, the cooking, everything, and Bunch was not lifting a finger. Bunch controlled, like, everyone that Sarah hung out with, what she did with her spare time, like, he seemed to be very controlling for a guy that did absolutely nothing for her.

But they continued living together, and a few months went by and then living in their new house, and Christmas was coming up. Sarah's daughters were trying to coordinate a time that they could all get together for Christmas. They had a phone call with Sarah, and during the call, she said that Butch had been acting weirdly, and that she thought maybe it was because their anniversary was coming up and he was going to like surprise her somehow. Now, sadly, this is the last time that Sarah would talk to her daughters. On January 13, 2015, around 8am, Dispatch received a call from Butch. What was it now?

I like it coming from something big for you. Okay. Um, kind of, I should try and go for her. Here's the address. Here's the land on me and I'm delivering room for you need to get on force and alter to do whatever they do with the bodies. And what's your name, please? I met that important.

I'm getting ready to leave the country. When I first heard it, I blew my mind. He's just so calculated just wants to get them the information and get off of the phone. Obviously he sounds like he's very planned out, very calculated and methodical in his approach to all of this. He didn't even say who he was. He didn't even say who Sarah was.

He just said there is a body. I strangled her. Here's the address pretty much. The only reason that they ended up figuring out that it was butch who called is because his son ended up identifying that that was his father's voice. Police went ahead and went to that address and when they got there, no one was there except for Sarah and they found her body lifeless under a sheet and they think that she was there for at least two days before the police

were even called. Butch had it all set up for them when they got there too. He even left keys to the house on the porch so they could just get inside. And he also had this folder next to her body with a bunch of family names and numbers so that the police could contact someone. He had also left out multiple sticky notes, like with little things jotted down on them and a scrapbook. Another thing that was really weird is much took everything in that house

that remotely had anything to do with him. All of his stuff, all this clothes, all this belongings, even pictures on the wall, anything that had him, he took it right off the wall and there's left a hook. It was almost like he was trying to make it seem like he had never even lived there in the first place. So police figured out that he had killed her on January 11th by strangulation.

And once they looked at their bank statements, they realized that Butch also had pretty much drained Sarah's bank account on January 10th the day before he killed her. They even had video of him at the bank with drawing the money. Investigators think that Butch basically killed Sarah on January 11th, stayed in the house with her body for at least 24 hours, and then went out on the run. They traced the 911 call to Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is about an hour and a half from their house. And this is only a few hours from the Canadian border, so they thought that maybe he was going

to flee to Canada. But at first there were no leads, no information, they had no idea where he had gone and by that point, you know, when he had already left the scene for at least 24 hours, he could be anywhere. So then the next week rolls around and Sarah's family got a package in the mail from Butch. It was postmarked from Maine but didn't have a specific residential address. And in the package, he sent about $2,000 and he also sent a note that said that he wanted Sarah to be cremated with that money because that's what she wanted. How kind of him to leave a little bit of her money to cremate her? $2000,000, RAP, and newspaper.

But also in this note, he said that basically he was selling drugs, was secretly a drug dealer, and that he had to kill Sarah because she was becoming a liability, she knew too much, and that was his excuse for murdering their family member. But investigators looked more into this and they do not think that he was a drug dealer. They think this was completely made up as an excuse because he didn't want to just admit that he is an evil person. They said that there's like no evidence of him being a drug dealer. And he just doesn't fit that persona at all. So investigators looked more into Butch's life and everything that he was doing leading up to this day.

On January 12th, Butch was seen going into a gun store and buying a special type of gun with ammunition that could go right through body armor. So clearly, he was thinking that he might have some type of encounter with the police. Not only that, but he had done a bunch of really creepy internet searches, including like how to hurt someone and details for different ways of murdering people. They also found out that he went to the shooting range and practiced just in case. But after they got that call, weeks went by without any sign of butch. But then on January 31st, they did pick butch up on a camera at a Walmart. Specifically he was at a Walmart in Farmington, Maine and he was there

so he could get some black hair dies so that he could dye his hair and mustache black. The cameras also show him abandoning his car in the parking lot and then getting into someone else's car. He got a ride from that Walmart in Farmington to this really rural area known as Rangly Main. I hope I'm saying that right, but he was dropped off at a motel there called Town in Lake Motel. And while he was there, he paid in cash. Apparently, he was chatting it up with the owner being super friendly, and he used some other random cover name. One thing that's really interesting though is investigators think it's possible that butch may not be by himself. They think that the reason he's been able to stay undercover for so long is that maybe someone is helping him

and he also was having some health issues. He had diabetes and Sarah actually really took care of him. She kept him healthy. She gave him his medications. So please wonder if it's even possible for him to fully take care of himself because he was so dependent on Sarah So maybe he has somebody with him But after that siding on January 31st there has been nothing since the only activity that we've seen from butch since is Four months after he killed Sarah He logged on to her Facebook account and liked one of the family's pictures

Of course, they don't know that it was for sure a bunch that logged in, but the whole family thinks that it was. They said that he would be the type to go creep on her Facebook after all this. I think he's watching everybody's Facebook. I think he's

paying attention to what we're writing on there. She said she is tried reaching out tonight, hoping to guilt him into surrendering. I've left him messages on Facebook. Some not so nice like I'm my mom's birthday. I left a message to him and how she missed out on her birthday. And they don't know anyone else who have known her like log in info. Sarah's family believes that the reason that butch killed her was because she was trying to leave him.

Obviously the relationship had been going well for a while and Sarah had, you know, threatened to leave. She had actually left at one point, you know, they had that separation period and maybe she was starting to talk about doing that again and they think that he is that type that would rather kill her than let her leave him again. Obviously Sarah's whole family, especially her daughters, really want justice for Sarah, and they're just hoping that one day, but she's found. But as of now, he is still on the run. Detectives say they work with federal marshals to get a search warrant for Facebook. They're waiting for results.

US marshals and main state police have helped chase down a handful of tips. Until they hear more, they will continue to focus on Maine. He could be living next to someone living in a small town living out in the woods or cabin and could evade a rest until somebody identifies him. Which was six, six. About 250 to 300 pounds, you're all adding. You could not miss it, but yet the police didn't miss it. Investigators actually think it's possible that he could be hiding out

in an Amish community. Oh, deputies wonder if he's found a way to hide among the Amish. Apparently those communities will let in new people who have found God or found that way of life and want to join them. We spoke to an

elder from the Amish community near Bloomingdale who says it's not unheard of for the Amos community to welcome him in and outside. That would not be any problem if somebody, because of the love of Christ, would want to join a plain Christian community, we would not have any problem. The doors are as wide open here as they are in heaven. You stay pretty off the radar as an homage person. If you don't know, Amish people don't use technology.

They don't use social media. They really keep off the record and away from the government as much as possible. That's kind of the perfect place to go and hide. And Butch was known for being like into Amish culture. He had Amish books. His friends and family said he had talked about the armaged several times. So right now he'd be like 70

and a lot of people think he's just chilling with the armaged somewhere. Butch said that police will never be able to find him and to this day he has been right. Now like I said, butch is one of Detroit's most wanted fugitives to this day. And there is a cash reward for anyone who has information that can lead to butch being found. So if you have any information, please call the US

Marshalls anytime at 313-234-5656. Be on the lookout for Mr. Butch. I absolutely hate seeing people get away with murder like this. I mean who doesn't? But it's really just upsetting thinking that this family has to deal with him just being out there free. That society has him living among us, and that Sarah has gotten no justice. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode, and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out.

If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, first Franklin financial makes loans for living, offering fixed rates and flexible terms on loans up to $15,000. The next time you're looking for some extra cash to help make ends meet, come see the friendly Franklin folks, or visit us at 1ffc.com to learn more. All loan terms and APRs depend on meeting or underwriting an income criteria and may require

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