Teresa Butler's disappearance to receive national attention via television

The Dale and Teresa Butler residence at Risco in rural New Madrid County. Teresa Butler disappeared from the home Jan. 24. The stereo was stolen from this Jeep at the time of her disappearance, police said. [Click to enlarge]

RISCO, Mo. -- Teresa Butler's disappearance from her rural home here is slated to receive national attention soon, The Daily Dunklin Democrat learned Friday.

Butler, the 35-year-old wife and mother of two young boys vanished without a trace between 11 p.m. Jan. 24 and 10 a.m. Jan. 25, police said.

She is listed as a missing person and investigators suspect foul play, police said.

Teresa Butler

Teresa Butler's story will unfold in coming weeks on the nationally-broadcasted Montel Williams Show, New Madrid County Sheriff Terry Stevens said recently.

Her husband, Gary Dale Butler, 31, of the rural home told The DDD Friday that he plans to travel to New York City early next week to participate in the program.

"Terry [Stevens] came by the house and asked me if I'd be willing to do it," Dale Butler said. "I told him I would.

"I'll do anything to keep her name and face out there," Butler added. "This national exposure might stir up some new leads."

Butler said he'll jet to New York Tuesday, and the program will be taped for national audiences the following day.

"The show is about missing persons," Butler said. "I know it will be filmed on Wednesday.

"It will be shown later on," he added. "But I don't know when."

Teresa Butler's disappearance has frustrated her family and left seasoned police veterans baffled.

Stevens, with some 30 years' police experience, said investigators "are no closer to finding out what happened to Teresa now" than they were at the beginning of the ordeal.

Investigators checked out personal accounts; bones; reports of people seeing the missing woman in a number of Bootheel cities; convenience store surveillance tapes; and other leads, all to no avail, police said.

Her family was offered information by well-known Little Rock, Ark., psychic Carol Pate, a family member said.

Gary Dale Butler worked the night-shift at Maverick Tube of Blytheville, Ark., at the time of his wife's disappearance.

"I tried to call Teresa from work that night at about 11 p.m.," Dale Butler told The DDD in a previous interview. "But I couldn't reach her.

Sometimes it's hard to dial out of Maverick because of all the metal in the building," Butler added. "I tried over and over, but she never answered the phone."

Butler said he completed his duties at work on the morning of his wife's disappearance, ran a couple of errands and had breakfast with his mother before he returned to his and Teresa's home at 1469 New Madrid County Road 241. He said the residence, which faces the New Madrid County No. 8 ditch, was locked.

Butler unlocked the front door and stepped inside the home, where he found two of his sons out of their beds, he said.

Teresa and Dale's eldest son, Gavin, 4, huddled under the covers of his parents' bed, Butler said. The couple's younger boy, Garrett, 2, was awake and laying on a loveseat at the foot of the bed, Dale Butler said.

Teresa Butler was nowhere to be found, he added.

No one thinks Teresa would have simply walked away from her family, sources said.

"The first thing I did was panic," a distraught Butler told The DDD at the time. "I started dialing the phone."

Sources close to the investigation said officers first were summoned to the Butler home by Teresa's sister-in-law, Sarah Buchanan. Investigators found no indication of forced entry into the home and no blood inside or out, Dale Butler said.

Sarah Buchanan, who is married to Teresa's younger brother, Donald Eugene Buchanan, 32, of Risco, said she was the last person to speak to Teresa prior to her disappearance.

Dale Butler said a review of his wife's cell phone account subsequent to her disapppearance indicated at least one outgoing call being placed after she vanished, and many incoming calls, most of them placed by concerned friends and worried family members.

Sarah Buchanan said the family reviewed the statement, and noted one call was placed from Teresa's phone to a 448 exchange at 3:16 a.m. on Jan. 25.

"We called the number," Sarah Buchanan said. "The man who answered said his telephone didn't ring, but he saw later that the call had come in.

"He doesn't know Teresa," she continued. "Or any of the family. And we don't know him."

A call also was placed from the missing woman's phone to a Clarkton number, Stevens said.

"The lady said she answered the phone and said 'Hello' a couple times," the sheriff explained. "There was nothing on the other end that she could ever hear, so she hung up.

"She has no idea who the Butler or Buchanan families are," Stevens continued. "So we don't know what to make of that."

Although Dale Butler and investigators found the family's Jeep parked in the front yard on the morning Teresa vanished, the vehicle's radio was missing, Butler said.

"She had to have left with somebody," Dale Butler said. "The Jeep was left here, and I was driving our Impala."

Dale Butler later was involved in an automobile accident in which he sustained serious injuries and totaled the car, sources said. Those who saw the vehicle added that Butler was "lucky to be alive."

A comprehensive search of the couple's home at the time of Teresa's disappearance resulted in Butler discovering a number of items gone from the house, including some camera equipment.

"Teresa loves to take pictures," Butler said. "Her digital camera is gone.

"But I think she kept that in her purse," he added. "It's gone, too. A video camera is gone. A PlayStation and games are gone. A Game Cube and games are gone. A big Mag-Lite flashlight we kept on top of the hutch is gone. Her cell phone is gone. The police took some things with them when they left here, too."

Those items included Teresa Butler's wedding rings, which Dale Butler said his wife removed every night before bed, and a few furniture covers.

Officers also were furnished with a lock from the home, a family member said. The tip of a key was broken off in the lock, the family member noted.

In addition to police investigators combing the area by land and by air, Jim Duck of Outback Riders, a non-profit search and rescue organization of Vanduser, searched more than a dozen times for Teresa, or for signs of the missing woman.

"After a couple of times of going out, officers involved with the case felt like the leads we all hoped for weren't turning up," Duck explained. "Teresa's parents asked us to keep searching whenever we could.

"So that's what we've done," he added. "As for actually finding evidence, no. No stolen articles. No clothes. No nothing. As for right now, we're shut down."

When no clues to Teresa's whereabouts were located, the missing woman's family turned to Pate for answers.

The psychic said from Little Rock Friday that she and some of Teresa's family members shared a 30-minute session a few months ago.

"I work with photographs of the victims and personal items," Pate told The DDD in an earlier interview. "I tell the family not to tell me what's transpired.

"That way when I tell them information, they can confirm it," the psychic continued. "The only thing I ask is how long ago something happened."

The psychic said she held a photo of Teresa and closed her eyes.

"I have to literally tune in to the signature energy, like tuning a radio," Pate said. "Then, I get the information I need.

"It runs like a movie in my head," she added. "I feel what the victim feels. I think what they think."

Once Pate becomes one with the victim, she then touches a photo of alleged perpetrators, or items that belong to them, she said.

"I use that energy to find out what happened to the victim," Pate said. "The victim wouldn't know.

"It's very logical," she added. "I see what they see."

Pate said she offered Teresa's family all the information she could.

"I was very up front with them," the psychic said.

She added that she never heard requests from law enforcement agents regarding the session.

"It's that way about 50 percent of the time," Pate said. "Feedback after I work a case is minimal.

"I've worked 800 or 900 cases since Teresa's," she added. "A lot of times I never know the outcome."

Dale Butler said his own mother received a mysterious letter, the contents of which he preferred to keep confidential. He added that he'd heard some bizarre stories about the situation.

"Two friends came here to stay with me to help me take care of the boys after Teresa disappeared," he said. "I heard I'd moved in a girlfriend.

"I'm not dating," he added tearfully. "I'm not interested. I'm only interested in providing my kids with a stable environment and home life and finding Teresa. I don't believe she's dead. We love her and miss her. We love her and miss her very, very much."

Butler said investigators did find foreign DNA relative to Teresa's case.

"But I don't know if it's hair, saliva, blood or what," he said. "They swabbed me and Teresa's brother Ricky.

"But she was always cutting people's hair here and that kind of thing," Butler added. "It's all very frustrating."

Teresa's lifelong friend Amy Lacey established an Internet website dedicated to bringing Teresa home. Those who wish may access the site at http://find-teresa-butler.tripod.com. Rewards and a multitude of information about Teresa are included on the site./

Information about Pate may be accessed at http://www.carolpatepsychiccenter.com.

Outback Riders and Jim Duck may be reached at 5229 Missouri Z, Sikeston, Mo. All tax-deductible contributions toward this non-profit organization are used to purchase equipment and to finance search and rescue operations like Teresa's, Duck said.

"I'm real happy about this," Butler said Friday. "Fox Broadcasting had said they were interested in helping us back in February or March.

"But we never heard anything," Butler added. "And we haven't heard anything new about Teresa in a long time. Maybe this will help. I pray it does."

Those with information about Teresa's disappearance are asked to call Stevens at (573) 748-2516.