Norfolk DA Drops Murder Charge in 1981 Braintree Case

BRAINTREE, MA — A man who was accused of murdering his neighbor over 30 years ago will have his case dropped.

The Norfolk Country District Attorney's Office announced Tuesday that they have filed a nolle prosequi in the case of the Commonwealth v. Keith Butler. The move withdraws a 1981 murder charge against the Florida man.

Butler was charged with the murder of Francis Hussey in 1981 and was tried twice, with both trials taking place in 1983 and ending in mistrials. He was again charged in 2015.

District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey had sought an indictment after physical evidence from the 34-year old crime was re-examined using modern forensic testing and DNA analysis. That analysis linked blood samples taken from the defendant’s shoes and parka and the victim’s DNA profile as generated by Cellmark Forensics, the DA's office said.

On April 5, 2017, Judge Gregg Pasquale ruled that the state could not sufficiently establish that the blood which had been tested by Cellmark Forensics was taken from the Hussey during his 1981 autopsy. The report of the autopsy, conducted at a Braintree funeral home prior to the establishment in Massachusetts of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, does not note whether or not blood was taken during the procedure; all of the medical personnel attending the autopsy have since died. The sole remaining attendee, a now-retired State Police detective, could not testify to a specific memory of seeing blood taken at this autopsy.

"As forensic science advances, we continually look back at old cases to see if new science can give us the evidence we need to prosecute,” Morrissey said in a statement. “We know that there are great challenges and difficulties in successfully prosecuting very old cases, but that does not mean we are going to stop looking at them and trying to solve them.”

The withdrawn charge does not prevent prosecutors from bringing the case forward again.

Below is the full decision: