Buffalo Bills cornerback Mario Butler reveals father murdered, chopped up when he was 10

A Buffalo Bills cornerback has revealed the tragic details of the day he learned his father had been killed, cut to pieces and stuffed into the refrigerator in his family home when he was 10 years old.

Mario Butler, an undrafted pro on his third team in five years, told the Buffalo News that his faith was tested 15 years ago when his family delivered the horrifying news about the death of his father, Jeffery Butler.

The married 26 year old from Jacksonville, Florida, said he had just come inside after playing a game of pick-up basketball on January 21, 2000, when he was informed that his father had been murdered.

After receiving the news, Butler went numb, cried and stayed awake for three days.

The terrifying discovery was made by Mario’s uncle when he visited the Jacksonville home after no one had heard from him. Butler said at the funeral, his father had a locked casket.

What remains of the case today is a three-page Jacksonville Sheriff’s report which lists the time of the incident as 2.15pm, states that the 37-year-old victim was stabbed and says ‘unknown’ for whether the incident was alcohol or drug related, The Buffalo News reported.

Police did not provide any information or leads, and did not ever find the killer. His father’s death was one of 32 cold cases in Jacksonville that year.

‘To this day, no one said “this happened” or “that happened”, ‘ said Jeff Butler Jr., Mario’s older brother.

‘It was just another person found dead. I think that’s how they looked at it.’

His father, who was married to his mother Lisa Lockwood before they later divorced, sold and heavily used drugs, according to The Buffalo News. Butler said people said his father’s death was drug-related.

Following his father’s funeral, the NFL player said that was the time he chose to take a different path in life while many of his peers faded into drug-dealing.

Butler, who was one of six children and was raised by his mother and grandmother, Norma Kelly, starred on his Florida high school’s football team and later started three seasons at the university, Georgia Tech.

Speaking of the pain and anger, Butler, who has two children aged two and seven, said: ‘For a while, I hung onto it.’

‘But I didn’t want to use it as an excuse that not having a dad made me do X, Y and Z instead. I used it as a positive in a different light.’

With his Mario Butler Foundation through which he speaks to youth groups, Butler said he is at peace with his father’s death.

‘I’m at peace with everything,’ Butler told The Buffalo News. ‘I forgave whoever killed him.

‘As I get older, I see there are only so many things that we can control. So that’s something I couldn’t control whether I was there or not.’

Source: The DailyMail