A Detroit pedophile who admitted to murdering a 13-year-old girl he had groomed for years and impregnated has killed himself in federal prison — just weeks into serving his decades-long sentence.
Jarvis Butts, 43, was found dead inside his cell at the Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson on Thursday morning, the Michigan Department of Corrections told CBS News.
Officials said guards attempted to provide “life-saving measures” to the convicted killer, but were “unsuccessful.”
Michigan State Police are investigating his death as an apparent suicide.
Butts was sentenced to 35 to 60 years on March 12 after pleading guilty in February to the 2024 murder of 13-year-old Na’Ziyah Harris.
Harris was last seen alive getting off a bus on Detroit’s east side on the morning of Jan. 9, 2024.
Text messages later revealed she had planned to meet Butts that same day, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said during his sentencing, according to CBS News.
Prosecutors revealed Butts had impregnated the teen before he carried out the heinous crime. He had been searching online for ways to terminate the pregnancy weeks before the murder.
“His phone records show that he searches online about abortions, abortion pills and drinking red anti-freeze,” Worthy said.
In September 2023, Harris allegedly texted Butts to tell him she had missed her period. By November, “the evidence shows Butts knows that she is pregnant.”
Butts had already fathered children with Harris’s own aunt before allegedly turning his predatory attention to the 13-year-old. Prosecutors said he began grooming the teen as early as 2022, CBS News reported.
“He was a classic and expert groomer and pedophile,” Worthy said when he was charged.
Police tracked Butts to the Rouge River in Detroit the day after Harris disappeared, later recovering the clothes she was last seen wearing from the same area.
Despite entering a guilty plea, Harris’ body has never been recovered — though as a condition of his deal, Butts was required to tell prosecutors where her remains were located.
The 13-year-old’s adult cousin, Roxy Harris, told CBS News the family was painstakingly waiting to recover her remains following the murder conviction.
“Me, as well as other family members and members of the public, have been waiting for two years now to know where Na’Ziyah is,” Roxy said.
Even with Butts dead, the Detroit Police Department reaffirmed its commitment to finding the teen’s remains.
Beyond the murder conviction, Butts was handed an additional 10- to 15-year sentence for sexually assaulting two other girls under the age of 13, CBS News reported.
Worthy said the abuse stretched across years — one victim between 2012 and 2015, and a second who said Butts abused her between 2015 and 2017.
Butts had also previously been convicted of sexually assaulting two young girls in 2005.
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