News

California man returned to face charges of killing daughter

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 15, 2009 - 7:57 am

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A man whose badly decomposed daughter was found in the freezer of his impounded motor home has been returned from Las Vegas to Orange County to face murder charges.

Clarence Butterfield is expected to be arraigned Thursday in a Santa Ana courtroom on one felony count of murder with the special circumstance of torture and two felony counts of assault with a firearm, making him eligible for the death penalty.

He had been jailed in Las Vegas on unrelated charges and returned Tuesday.

District attorney spokeswoman Farrah Emami says the 55-year-old Butterfield is suspected of shooting and suffocating Rebekah Butterfield in San Clemente in 2006, then wrapping the body in plastic bags and stuffing it in his 5-foot freezer.

Two impound yard employees found the body in October.

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