Tuesday, July 18, 2000

By Chuck Vinch
and Sandra Jontz
Washington bureau

WASHINGTON — David L. Butler, an editor at Stars and Stripes, was found dead over the weekend in a used car lot in Arlington, Va., just a few blocks from his apartment.

Butler’s bloodied body was found behind a car around 2 a.m. Saturday by a patrol officer investigating a report of loud voices near the dealership.

Arlington County police found no official identification on Butler, but they did discover one of his business cards, which led them to Stars and Stripes’ headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., where he had worked for the past two years.

Butler’s death stunned co-workers.

"We’re devastated," said Deborah Absher, managing editor of the newspaper’s Pacific edition and Butler’s supervisor. "We’ve lost a friend, a colleague and a top-notch journalist. Dave loved this newspaper, and it’s better because of him."

Though an autopsy was done Monday, officials still were unsure of the cause of death, police spokesman Cpl. Justin McNaull said Tuesday. He confirmed, however, that Butler had been badly beaten.

"They still have to measure and take photos and what have you," McNaull said. "It can take days and sometimes can take weeks for a medical examiner to get the full diagnosis done."

Police have no clear motive for Butler’s killing and declined to say if investigators suspect that his wallet had been stolen during the slaying.

Butler, 42, an assistant managing editor for the newspaper’s Pacific edition, worked a late shift. He usually would take the subway home in the early morning hours and then walk the few blocks to his condominium.

Butler lived in a complex that McNaull described as "fairly affluent," with a low crime rate.

"The neighborhood where he lived is garden-style apartments, two- and three-story brick buildings built pre-World War II," McNaull said. "There are professionals living there, no drug dealers or stuff like that."

The sidewalk on Wilson Boulevard, where the killing took place, detours through the parking lot of EEE Auto Sales because of large raised-brick planters that block the walkway, McNaull said. There are no lights on the detoured section.

Butler, who was single and had no children, came to Stars and Stripes almost five years ago and spent his first three years with the paper as a copy editor at the European edition’s headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany.

"David was completely dedicated to Star and Stripes and its readers," said Bill Walker, editor of the paper’s European edition, who originally hired Butler. "He spent countless nights preparing news pages that showed the U.S. military doing its job all over the world. Our loss is tremendous, our sorrow deep and lasting."

At the Pentagon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Kenneth H. Bacon opened Tuesday's press briefing by expressing "my condolences and the condolences of the [Department of Defense] to the family and friends of David Butler."

A San Antonio native, Butler joined the staff of the Washington newsroom about two years ago when the two overseas editions were consolidated in the United States. Colleagues at Stars and Stripes remembered him Tuesday as an intelligent, hard-working professional completely dedicated to his job.

"Dave was the epitome of a newspaper copy editor," said Thomas Kelsch, publisher of Stars and Stripes and former editor of the European edition.

"Nobody worked harder and longer," Kelsch said. "It was almost routine for me to call out, as I was leaving after a long day, ‘Butler, go home,’ at which he would smile and not budge from his work station. There is no chance we will find an adequate replacement for him."

Butler’s mother, Jodie Gunckel, said her son’s interest in journalism — and in Stars and Stripes — took root early, when her husband, who was in the Air Force, was assigned to Torrejon, Spain, in the late 1960s.

"Dave delivered Stars and Stripes door to door," Gunckel, a resident of the San Antonio area, said. "That’s when he first started getting interested in journalism. He was my only son, but even if I had a hundred children, Dave would have stood out. No matter where he was or what he was doing, he always did it well."

Butler later had a bicycle route for the San Antonio Light and worked on the staff of his high school newspaper. After graduating from Rice University, he held various reporting and editing jobs for several regional newspapers and magazines in his native Texas, including the Houston Post.

Gunckel described her son as precocious from an early age but not a show-off, a low-key man with a dry wit and a very deep sense of integrity.

"When he was young, that sometimes got him in trouble with other kids, because he always stuck so strongly to doing the right thing," she said.

"He loved the news business," Gunckel said. "His job always came first. He was just a very special person."

The family is making funeral arrangements in San Antonio. Plans also are being made for a memorial service in Washington.