Murder or overdose? Court documents give preview of trial in metro-east cold case
Madison County prosecutors have submitted a list of nearly 60 possible witnesses in the upcoming trial of a 57-year-old man accused of beating and strangling a woman whose skeletal remains were found in a wooded area last year, nearly a decade after she was reported missing.
People who could be called to testify include family members of the defendant, Roger D. Sutton Jr., and the deceased woman, Patrenia “Trina” Butler-Turner, as well as police, FBI agents, forensic scientists, prison officials and men who have been incarcerated with Sutton.
Court documents also give clues to what Sutton’s defense might be. In a handwritten, three-page letter to Judge Tim Berkley in May, he blamed Butler-Turner’s death on a drug overdose.
“I didn’t murder anyone,” wrote Sutton, who formerly lived in Alton and Pontoon Beach. “No cause of death, no physical evidence, no DNA, only an accusation from a admitted herion (sic) addict 10 years after.”
Sutton, whose trial is set to begin Monday, Oct. 21, in Edwardsville, declined comment when contacted by a BND reporter earlier this month. He’s being represented by the office of Public Defender Mary Copeland.
Sutton was serving time for a drug conviction at Centralia Correctional Center on Feb. 2, 2023, when State’s Attorney Tom Haine’s office charged him with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of concealment of a homicidal death involving Butler-Turner.
“His parole date was less than two weeks from today,” Haine said at the time. “But due to these charges, he now has a $3 million bond, and he will be transferred to the Madison County jail.”
A grand jury later indicted Sutton on the three counts.
Prosecutors also charged Sutton’s nephew, Nathan J. Beyer, now 34, of Alton, with concealment of a homicidal death for allegedly helping him dispose of Butler-Turner’s body. Beyer is No. 1 on the prosecution’s witness list for Sutton’s trial.
The Madison County coroner’s office examined Butler-Turner’s remains. Officials couldn’t determine the cause or manner of death, according to an office representative.
Never returned from store
Butler-Turner, 40, was living in Orlando, Florida, and working as a housekeeper in 2013, when she returned to her hometown of East St. Louis to help with her first grandchild, daughter Candace Burnett told the BND on the day Sutton and Beyer were charged.
Burnett said Butler-Turner left early on Jan. 17, 2013, to go to the store and get milk, but she never returned. She missed her other daughter’s high-school graduation and her flight back to Florida.
Butler-Turner was a mother of three children. Her family reported her disappearance to police, distributed flyers and searched the area.
Burnett couldn’t be reached for comment for this story. Last year, she described her mother as “a good person, happy, sweet and smart” and someone who would “give anybody anything.”
Pontoon Beach Police Chief Chris Modrusic told reporters at a news conference on Feb. 2, 2023, that police responded to a report in early December 2022 of skeletal remains in a wooded area along Illinois 111. They later identified the victim as Butler-Turner.
Haine and Modrusic declined to give details on how Sutton became a suspect, what may have been his motive or whether he knew Butler-Turner.
“It’s still too early in this investigation,” Modrusic said at the time. “Like I said, the investigation started Dec. 5, and we moved pretty quickly on this, knowing that he was getting ready to get out of prison, because we wanted to keep him incarcerated.
“So we’ve still got a lot of legwork ahead of us. We’re still waiting on evidence to come back from the crime lab.”
The court record on Sutton’s case now contains more than 230 pages of documents. A recent BND examination revealed several pieces of new public information since his arrest:
Nephew’s role
Beyer’s role in the Sutton case is described in a letter written by Assistant Public Defender Jack Daugherty in March, when he was requesting that two FBI agents testify at the trial.
The letter refers to Beyer as an “accomplice” who contacted officials 10 years after Butler-Turner’s disappearance.
“(Beyer) appeared at the Pontoon Beach, Illinois police department and volunteered information that Mr. Sutton murdered Ms. Butler and that Mr. Beyer helped Mr. Sutton dispose of the body,” Daugherty wrote.
Sutton’s letter to Judge Berkley in May didn’t name Beyer but referred to a man who had told police that Sutton killed Butler-Turner. Sutton described him as a heroin addict who once overdosed at his residence.
“He took possesion (sic) of my property when I went to prison, and sold my property while I was doing my 1 year sentence in prison then when I was due to be released he came forward with this fabrication,” Sutton wrote, referring to the murder allegation.
DNA evidence
At the February 2023 news conference, Chief Modrusic confirmed that investigators had used DNA testing to identify Butler-Turner’s remains but declined to say if DNA evidence linked Sutton to the crime.
Since that time, prosecutors have provided discovery (evidence) lists to the defense that refer to Illinois State Police, FBI and other laboratory reports and DNA swabs on Sutton and Beyer.
Daugherty also addressed the subject in his March letter.
“Scraps of Ms. Butler’s clothing and a carpet and tarp in which Ms. Butler’s body was rolled up along with DNA samples of Nathan Beyer and Roger Sutton were provided to the FBI Crime Lab,” he wrote. “The Lab report indicates that DNA from neither Beyer nor Sutton was found.”
In a subsequent motion to postpone the trial, Daugherty asked for time to get a stipulation related to an FBI report, which concluded that materials tested by its crime lab didn’t contain Sutton’s DNA.
Informant testimony
Assistant State’s Attorney Lauren Maricle filed notices in December 2023 stating that prosecutors planned to introduce “informant testimony” by Norman Derrickson, Derek Burton and Ray English at Sutton’s trial.
Derrickson, 63, and Burton, 56, were incarcerated with Sutton in an Illinois Department of Corrections facility, and English was incarcerated with him in the Madison County jail, according to the notices.
An IDOC inmate search shows that Derrickson and Burton still are incarcerated at Centralia Correctional Center. Madison County Sheriff’s Office reports that English, 54, is no longer being held at the jail.
In August, Ben Thompson, another jail inmate, sent a handwritten letter to Judge Berkley about people trying to “jump in (Sutton’s) case.”
“I just want the truth to be known and that is that Roger Sutton doesn’t ever talk to anyone about his case although he has confided in me on legal issues pertainning (sic) to his case and during that time he has never said anything except a woman overdossed (sic) in his house,” Thompson wrote.
“It would be a miscarriage of justice to allow any of these guys to envolve (sic) themselves in this case.”
Past convictions
Prosecutors filed another notice in December 2023, indicating that they planned to introduce information on Sutton’s conviction for possession of methamphetamine in 2022 at his trial.
“The probative value of admitting the prior conviction outweighs the danger of unfair prejudice,” the notice stated.
Sutton pleaded guilty in that Calhoun County case, leading to his incarceration at Centralia Correctional Center. He was scheduled for release on Feb. 14, 2023, before Haine’s office charged him with murder on Feb. 2.
The notice regarding the drug conviction didn’t address the rest of Sutton’s police record.
Sutton was convicted in 1994 for burglary in Madison, 1999 for unlawful restraint in Granite City, 2000 for cannabis possession in South Roxana, 2007 for burglary in Pontoon Beach and 2015 for battery in Pontoon Beach. He also served time in a Tennessee prison for aggravated burglary, theft and robbery.
In September, Public Defender Copeland asked the judge to prohibit state witnesses, particularly two women on the witness list, from mentioning prior bad acts allegedly committed by Sutton, including domestic-violence allegations or orders of protection.
Original suspect
In March, Daugherty filed a motion asking for more discovery related to an East St. Louis police interview of a female suspect following Butler-Turner’s disappearance in 2013.
“In that video recording (the woman) states that she had previously been arrested, detained, and interviewed as (a) possible suspect in the disappearance and possible killing of the victim in this matter, Patrenia Butler-Turner,” he wrote. “Specifically, (the woman) was the subject of a ‘72 hour hold for homicide.’”
Daugherty stated in his other March motion, the one asking for a continuance, that the defense needed more time to review “all materials related to (the woman’s) detention and interrogation.”
Other evidence
Other discovery listed by prosecutors include records of phone calls Sutton made in prison, Beyer’s tickets from a Granite City pawn shop and Butler-Tyler’s medical records.
On Oct. 15, Maricle asked the judge to prohibit the defense from referring to “any statements purportedly made by the defendant to his cellmates or other inmates ... as to alternative theories or cause of death of the victim.”
Maricle characterized this as “inadmissible hearsay.”
On Oct. 16, Public Defender Copeland filed a motion asking the judge to prohibit testimony about “any so-called medical disorder of the alleged victim without corroborating medical documents.” She referred to a police interview with Burnett, Butler-Turner’s daughter.
“(Burnett) claims that the alleged victim ‘suffered from a disorder that prevented her from being able to move when a man jumps on her ...’” the motion stated. “Ms. Burnett is not qualified to render or describe any disease, diagnosis or symptom of any disease or diagnosis.”
Attorney troubles
Sutton criticized his attorneys in his May letter to Judge Berkley, maintaining that they “haven’t investigated anything” and that they told him, “Were (sic) too busy to come over and play story time with Roger,” when he asked to see discovery.
Daugherty formally withdrew from the case “per the defendant’s request” in October 2023 but later returned.
Sutton’s letter, as well as a handwritten motion for dismissal that he filed in October 2023, also criticized the court system for allegedly violating his right to a speedy trial, although some continuances have been requested by his attorneys to aid his defense.
Sutton stated that his sister had died of cancer while he was incarcerated and both of his parents were in poor health.
“This county has smeared my name all over the TV for 2 days calling me a murderer, and 30 days later all over front of newspaper again calling me a cold case murderer and I have never hurt anyone,” Sutton wrote.
“This case has destroyed my life, my family and job and everyone I know has seen this. ... I have essentially been kidnapped and held on a 3 million dollar bond accused of murder without any proof of anything except an accusation from a junkie who admitted stealing and selling the victims property for herion (sic).”
