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A trial date was set last week for a man charged with impregnating and murdering a 13-year-old girl who vanished last year and was never found.
WJBK reported that Jarvis Butts’ trial is scheduled for October 6. He is charged with raping Na’Ziyah Harris, who vanished from a bus stop in Detroit in January 2024.
Butts allegedly started groomed Harris in June 2022 — and officials believe he killed her after impregating her in September 2023. Butts, the father of one of Harris’ cousins, has a 2005 conviction for third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a child. He spent seven years in prison in that case.
WXYZ reported that Butts was named in at least five reports made to Child Protective Services since 2015. A report from 2022 accused Butts of inappropriately touching Harris. None of the reports made to CPS about molestation and sexual abuse were substantiated.
In addition to killing and raping Harris, Butts is charged sexually abusing two other girls. Prosecutors said he assaulted an 8-year-old family member and transmitted chlamydia to his girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter.
Prosecutors believe Butts killed Harris because he did not want Harris having his child while he was in custody for an unrelated gun case. Butts was expected to turn himself in the same day Harris vanished, but the date was pushed back to February 2024.
Harris allegedly informed Butts in September 2023 that she missed her menstrual cycle even though a pregnancy test came back negative. Prosecutors claimed they uncovered text messages in which Harris expressed concern about her pregnancy being discovered.
“I don’t what your problem but I need you to bring me what I need tonight it’s hard doing all this gym s**t with this baby and if I don’t do em I’m gonna get a F,” Harris reportedly wrote to Butts in November 2024.
Before Harris’ presumed slaying, Butts allegedly searched online about abortions, abortion pills, and drinking anti-freeze. Text messages suggested Butts told Harris he would pick her up from school on January 9, 2024, the last day she was seen alive.
Butts was traced to the Rouge River in Detroit a day after Harris’ disappearance. A single shoe belonging to Harris was found at the river.
Detroit Police Department Sgt. Melanie O’Rourke said Harris’ school identification card was found in the area where Butts’ phone was traced between January 10 and 11, 2024. Harris’ clothes were also discovered in the vicinity — with U.S. Border Patrol agent Wyatt Barnes alleging that a black hoodie had both Harris and Butts’ blood on it.
Before his trial, Butts has a final conference scheduled for June 20.
[Feature Photo: Wayne County Prosecutor/Michigan Department of Corrections]]
