Woman’s account disputed by some
Co-worker says suspect dismissed question about where child was
Just after 10 a.m. on Sept. 28, a school administrator said she asked Mariah Butler why her boyfriend’s 4-year-old son wasn’t in his class at Elite Preparatory Academy.
The school administrator said Butler, who was working in the office of the private Orlando school, told her Logan Starling was “around here somewhere.”
But Logan was actually in the back of a hot SUV in the parking lot. It wasn’t until more than four hours later, when another school employee asked about Logan, that Butler ran out and found him unconscious in the vehicle estimated to be 128 degrees inside. He was
later pronounced dead. Butler is now facing charges of aggravated manslaughter of a child and child neglect.
Lajoyce Miller, the school administrator, told investigators from the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office during a February interview that she was going from classroom to classroom taking a lunch count. When she got to Logan’s class shortly after 10 a.m., Logan’s teacher noted he was not there and told Miller to ask Butler where he was.
Miller went to Butler, who was making student IDs in the office, to ask about Logan.
“She basically kind of blew me off and said, ‘He’s around here somewhere,’” Miller said. “… Something didn’t feel right, but I didn’t push the issue.”
The revelation was among about a dozen interviews and more than 150 pages of reports recently released by the State Attorney’s Office. Other disclosures included some people alleging Butler treated Logan badly because he was not her child, as well as Butler’s interview with Orange County sheriff’s detectives after Logan’s death.
Butler, 27, told detectives she remembered Miller asking her about Logan. She couldn’t remember the time but said it was before noon.
“I said he should be in class [be]cause you know no one’s home with him,” she told detectives. “… I don’t know what was said to her if she [heard] Logan wasn’t at school. But from my understanding Logan was in class.”
Butler was emotional at the beginning of the interview, which took place at Orlando Regional Medical Center about three hours after she found Logan. She was taken there because she wasn’t feeling well.
“I talked to your mom … and I explained to her, nobody here thinks you’re a bad person,” said OCSO Det. Brian Savelli. “Nobody thinks you did anything intentionally. It’s very important you know that.”
She responded she didn’t feel that way.
“[T]hat’s how we know you’re a good person,” Savelli said. “Because you feel horrible.”
“I loved him so much,” Butler said, weeping.
She went on to describe the day to detectives, saying she arrived at the school just before 8:30 a.m. with Logan, his sister and Butler’s three children. She said she met her mother, who also had a child in the school, in the parking lot and told the kids to wait in the SUV so she could get an Amazon package from her mother.
Butler said she went back to her vehicle and let the kids out. She said she saw Logan, who was in the far back, get out. She then led them inside the school, where the kids went to breakfast and she went to the office.
She said Logan may have gotten out of the SUV and then sneaked back in, but surveillance video showed Butler walking into the school with just four children.
She said she had a lot on her plate, taking care of five kids between the ages of 4 months and 8 years.
“It’s really stressful,” she said.
Detective Fabian Ramirez, who also was at the interview, told Butler that mothers like her have “amazing super powers” for their patience and handling stress.
But not everyone was convinced Butler was treating Logan well.
In an unaddressed letter dated a year before the boy’s death, his maternal grandmother wrote that Logan’s father had raised issues to her about Butler’s treatment of the boy. His father, Andrew Starling, told the grandmother he wasn’t sure if he was able to take care of the kids financially and asked if she and her husband could take custody of Logan and his sister, the letter said.
“He also was concerned that he was not getting along with his girlfriend Mariah Butler,” wrote Tracey Squires. “He had concerns with Mariah not treating the children [Logan’s sister] and Logan the same as her two children.”
It’s not clear how detectives obtained the letter or if they interviewed Squires. Interviews with Andrew Starling were not included in the evidence released.
Katherine Dodge, who babysat for Logan, his sister and Butler’s three kids, told State Attorney’s Office investigators Butler was “terrible” to him.
“She was mean for no reason,” she said. “She treated him different from all the other kids.”
Dodge, 23, said she saw Butler “smack” Logan, although there were no permanent injuries.
Neyvelisse Gonzalez, who teaches at the school and has a daughter who was good friends with Logan, told investigators she saw Butler hit him in the head in her classroom, leaving a mark.
Gonzalez, 28, also said Butler treated Logan as if he was the family’s black sheep. She said Butler would pay for activities for her kids, but not Logan, and expressed her dismay at having to care for him.
“She was like ‘I can’t deal with him. I don’t even want him,’” Gonzalez said.
Butler, who is out of jail on bond, is slated to go to trial in September. She could not be reached for comment.