Judge sentences man for killing East St. Louis woman, concealing body for 10 years
A Madison County judge has sentenced a metro-east man to 35 years in prison for beating and strangling a former East St. Louis woman and dumping her body in woods, where the remains stayed for nearly a decade before police got a tip on their whereabouts two years ago.
Roger D. Sutton Jr., 57, maintained innocence on the murder charge but withdrew his motion for a new trial at his sentencing hearing Thursday before Judge Tim Berkley at the Madison County Criminal Justice Center in Edwardsville.
In a brief statement, Sutton apologized for concealing the body of Patrenia Butler-Turner, who was 40 at the time of her death. In letters to the judge, he had written that she died of a drug overdose.
“(Sutton’s remorse) comes too late, way late,” Berkley said.
Prosecutors with State’s Attorney Tom Haine’s office asked the judge to give Sutton a 50-year sentence for murder and concealment of a homicidal death. A jury had found him guilty on both counts in October.
Lead prosecutor Lauren Maricle called the murder “truly horrific” and pondered how difficult it was for her family to go through 10 years of birthdays and holidays without knowing what had happened to her.
“I can’t think of a worse situation for a family to be in,” Maricle said.
After the hearing, Butler-Turner’s daughter, Carmillya Butler, one of her three children, and Butler’s father, James Gibson, told reporters they didn’t think 35 years was enough.
“I feel like (the sentence) should have been like 100 years ‘cause it’s my mother,” Butler said.
Butler-Turner 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, her other daughter, Candace Burnett, told the BND when Sutton was charged last year.
Burnett said Butler-Turner left early on Jan. 17, 2013, to go to the store and get milk, but she never returned. She missed a high-school graduation and her flight back to Florida.
Butler-Turner’s family reported her disappearance to police, distributed flyers and searched the area.
Burnett described her mother as “a good person, happy, sweet and smart” and someone who would “give anybody anything.” Butler-Turner’s last words were, “Mama loves you,” Haine said after Sutton’s trial.
Sutton formerly lived in Alton and Pontoon Beach.
Public Defender Mary Copeland’s office represented him in the murder case. In November, she filed a motion requesting a new trial, arguing that Judge Berkley had erred when he barred certain defense witnesses from testifying at the trial in October.
Sutton also filed a separate handwritten motion asking for a new trial, alleging in part that his attorneys hadn’t properly represented him and that prosecutors knowingly relied on false testimony to get a conviction.
On Thursday, Berkley denied Copeland’s motion, and Sutton withdrew his motion. He didn’t give a reason.
The cold case of Patrenia Butler-Turner returned to public attention on Feb. 2, 2023, when Pontoon Beach Police Chief Chris Modrusic told reporters at a news conference that police had responded to a report in early December 2022 of skeletal remains in a wooded area along Illinois 111.
Sutton’s nephew, Nathan J. Beyer, had led police to the site. At the trial, Beyer told a jury that he helped his uncle dump Butler-Turner’s body after Sutton killed and robbed her.
Jurors apparently believed Beyer because they handed down a guilty verdict after three hours of deliberation, despite the fact prosecutors had no coroner’s ruling on Butler-Turner’s cause or manner of death and no DNA evidence linking Sutton to her disappearance in 2013.
Sutton was serving time for a drug conviction at Centralia Correctional Center on Feb. 2, 2023, when Haine’s office filed the murder charges. That kept him from being paroled 12 days later.
Sutton was transferred to the Madison County jail, held on a $3 million bond and later indicted by a grand jury. Haine’s office also charged Beyer, of Alton, with concealment of a homicidal death.
Sutton had been serving time at Centralia after being convicted in 2022 for possessing less than five grams of methamphetamine. He originally was scheduled for release on Feb. 14, 2023.
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.
This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 4:27 PM.
