Son is accused of fatally shooting his mother's boyfriend in Kent prison

Dondre Butler, awaiting a second-degree murder trial for allegedly shooting his mother's boyfriend in Kent in 2022, is back in prison after his third violation of electronic confinement conditions in the past 13 months.

When a King County electronic home arrest agent last located Butler after he left his court-approved residence in Puyallup without prior authorization on Oct. 20, Butler's GPS indicated he was in the state, according to an Oct. 20 release Puyallup City Jail found violation in court document.

Puyallup police arrested Butler on investigation of fourth-degree domestic violence and booked him into jail.

King County prosecutors charged Butler, then 20, with second-degree murder in November 2022 after he reportedly shot his mother's boyfriend, Carlos Middleton, 45, eight to 10 times before leaving her Kent home fled and handed himself in to Kent police a few days later. A judge set Butler's initial bond at $1 million.

On June 20, 2023, a judge approved electronic home detention for Butler, according to court documents. On September 18, 2023, Butler was released from the electronic detention center for violating curfew. He was returned to home monitoring on October 10, 2023. According to court documents, Butler was released from the Electronic Detention Center on March 12, 2024 due to a deviation from his approved passport. He was returned to home monitoring on July 15.

Butler missed an Oct. 29 bond hearing because he was in Puyallup Jail. Because he missed the hearing, a judge issued a $100,000 warrant for his arrest.

According to court documents, defense attorney Evgeniya Mordekhova filed a motion Oct. 30 to have Butler held in King County rather than Puyallup to allow her greater access to her client. She said she was assigned to Butler's case in January after his attorney withdrew.

According to an Oct. 31 email from a spokesperson for the King County Prosecutor's Office, Butler is expected to be transferred from Puyallup to King County. Butler has a preliminary hearing on Nov. 21 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.

The case

According to charging documents, Butler allegedly shot Middleton on October 29, 2022, at a Kent home where they lived in the 14300 block of SE 282nd Street. Butler's mother, Middleton's girlfriend, also lived in the house.

“According to the victim's friends, (Middleton) had safety concerns about the defendant (Butler) and had alerted his friends that the defendant had previously pointed a gun at him,” Assistant District Attorney William Doyle wrote in charging documents. “(Middleton) told a friend that if something had happened to him, 'she (defendant's mother) and her son would have done it.'

In addition to the eight to 10 shots to his torso and leg that killed Middleton, he suffered blunt force injuries to the face and forehead and a cut lip, according to the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

Butler has no known criminal convictions. As a juvenile, he suffered fourth-degree assault, a diversionary offense in Kent from a July 2020 incident in which he allegedly kicked his mother's then-boyfriend (not Middleton) down a flight of stairs, according to court documents.

According to court documents, on October 29, 2022, at approximately 10:12 p.m., officers responded to 911 calls about a shooting at the East Hill home. One 911 caller was the son's mother, who said her friend had been shot. The other was a neighbor who reported hearing six shots coming from the apartment and a vehicle fleeing.

The mother told police that she and Middleton had been drinking alone in the apartment. She said she was in bed when Middleton decided to leave the bedroom and grabbed a set of keys. She said she followed Middleton out of the house and was able to grab the keys from his hand, according to court documents.

The woman said she then ran back to the house and could hear Middleton chasing her. She said when she opened the front door, Middleton pushed her from behind and she fell to the ground. She said her son shot Middleton several times immediately afterward and then fled the apartment.

According to police, the mother never said Middleton was armed or appeared to be armed. She also never said that Middleton tried to attack her on the floor or that he stood over her on the floor.

She said she did not know where her son was, nor did she provide information about the vehicle he was driving or his phone number.

A few days after the shooting, Butler turned himself in at Kent Police Station on November 1, 2022. He brought with him attorney James Curtis of The Curtis Firm in Tukwila. Curtis, together with a detective, organized the man's handover. Investigators had searched for Butler but had not located him. Butler did not speak to detectives. Curtis has since withdrawn from the case.

Police executed a search warrant at the home and recovered a firearm in one of the bedrooms that reportedly belonged to Butler. Investigators also found Butler's Social Security card in the room. They found several fired shell casings in the house.

A friend of Middleton told investigators that about six months before the shooting, Middleton told him that Butler had pointed a gun at Middleton, according to charging documents. Another friend told investigators that a friend of Butler's pointed a gun at Middleton at a party hosted by a friend of Butler's mother.

Middleton apparently left the party frightened and later told his friend to take care of his girlfriend and her son if anything happened to him.

Mordekhova, Butler's current attorney, wrote in court documents filed to return her client from Puyallup to the King County Jail that Butler “was barely 20 years old when he was accused of shooting his mother's boyfriend.” “, and that “self-defense” and “defense of others” are his defenses in court.

The trial date has been set for December 30, but Mordekova has indicated a request for a continuance until February 2025, with the defense expecting the case to go to trial.