Son accused of fatally shooting mother’s boyfriend in Kent back in jail

Dondre Butler, awaiting a second-degree murder trial for allegedly shooting his mother’s boyfriend in 2022 in Kent, is back in jail after his third violation in the last 13 months of electronic home detention conditions.

When a King County electronic home detention caseworker most recently tracked down Butler after he left his court-approved residence in Puyallup Oct. 20 with no prior authorization, Butler’s GPS showed that he was in the Puyallup City Jail, according to an Oct. 20 notice of violation court document.

Puyallup Police arrested Butler for investigation of fourth-degree assault 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 Carlos Middleton, 45, his mother’s boyfriend, eight to 1o times before fleeing their Kent house and several days later turning himself in to Kent Police. A judge set Butler’s initial bail at $1 million.

On June 20, 2023 a judge approved electronic home detention for Butler, according to court documents. On Sept. 18, 2023, Butler was removed from electronic home detention for violation of curfew conditions. On Oct. 10, 2023 he was reinstated to home monitoring. On March 12, 2024, Butler was removed from electronic home detention because of deviation from his approved pass, according to court documents. He was reinstated to home monitoring on July 15.

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

Defense attorney Evgeniya Mordekhova on Oct. 30 filed a motion for Butler to be held in King County rather than Puyallup to give her better access to her client, according to court documents. She said she was assigned to Butler’s case in January after his counsel of record withdrew.

Butler is expected to be transferred to King County from Puyallup, according to an Oct. 31 email from a King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office spokesperson. Butler has a pre-trial hearing Nov. 21 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent.

The case

According to charging documents, Butler reportedly shot Middleton Oct. 29, 2022 at a Kent house they lived in in the 14300 block of SE 282nd Street. Butler’s mother, the girlfriend of Middleton, also lived at the home.

“According to the victim’s friends, (Middleton) had safety concerns about the defendant (Butler) and had alerted his friends that the defendant had pulled a gun on him before,” wrote Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney William Doyle in charging documents. “(Middleton) told a friend that if anything happened to him, ‘her (the defendant’s mother) and her son did it.’”

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

Butler has no known criminal conviction history. He had a fourth-degree assault as a juvenile, a diversion referral in Kent from an incident in July 2020 when he allegedly kicked his mother’s then-boyfriend (not Middleton) down a flight of stairs, according to court documents.

Officers responded at about 10:12 p.m. Oct. 29, 2022 to 911 calls about a shooting at the East Hill home, according to court documents. One 911 caller was the son’s mother who said her boyfriend had been shot. The other was a neighbor who reported hearing about six gunshots from the residence and a vehicle fleeing.

The mother told police that she and Middleton had been drinking alone at the residence. She said she was in bed when Middleton decided to leave the bedroom and took 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 once she opened the door of the house, Middleton pushed her from behind and she fell to the floor. She said immediately afterwards her son shot Middleton multiple times and then fled the residence.

The mother never said that Middleton was armed or appeared to have been armed, according to police. She also never said that Middleton tried to attack her on the floor or had been standing over her on the floor.

She claimed not to know where her son was and would not provide information as to the vehicle he was driving or his phone number.

A few days after the shooting, Butler turned himself in Nov. 1, 2022 at the Kent Police Station. He brought attorney James Curtis, of The Curtis Firm in Tukwila, with him. Curtis organized the man’s surrender with a detective. Detectives had been looking for Butler but had not tracked him down. Butler did not talk 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. Detectives also found Butler’s Social Security card in the room. They found multiple fired cartridge cases in the home.

A friend of Middleton’s told detectives that Middleton told him about six months prior to the shooting that Butler had pulled a gun on Middleton, according charging documents. Another friend told detectives that a friend of Butler’s pulled a gun on Middleton at a party thrown by a friend of Butler’s mother.

Middleton apparently left the party terrified and later told his friend that if anything happens to him, to look at his girlfriend and her son.

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

A trial date of Dec. 30 has been set, but Mordekhova indicated a request for continuance to February 2025, at which point the defense expects the case to go to trial.