Updated March 12, 2026, 3:29 p.m. ET
Detroit — Jarvis Butts looked down at his feet whereas women and girls he harmed sat on the witness stand in entrance of him and sobbed.
Butts, 43, was in Wayne County Circuit Court Thursday to be sentenced for the homicide and sexual assault of Na’Ziyah Harris and the sexual assaults of 5 younger women ranging in age from 4 to 13. Judge Nicholas Hathaway sentenced him to the previously agreed upon 35 to 60 years that got here with his guilty plea to second-degree homicide.
Na’Ziyah’s grandmother and aunt, Butts’ sister and three women he sexually assaulted gave sufferer impression statements Thursday. He glanced briefly at his sister and one of the ladies as they approached the witness stand, however regarded again down at his ft nearly instantly.
One of the ladies who spoke stated Na’Ziyah was her finest pal.
“I no longer look at you as a father figure, no longer as a hero. I look at you as a monster who caused me trauma and made me look at men different,” one of the ladies stated. “You did very hurtful things to me. I live with the trouble you caused me.”
After her final assertion, the lady buried her face in her palms and started to sob. She struggled to stroll out of the courtroom because of the power of her tears.
Butts was sentenced to 10 to fifteen years in jail for every of his 5 sexual assault circumstances, to be served on the identical time as his homicide sentence for killing Na’Ziyah. He pleaded responsible to 4 counts of second-degree felony sexual conduct and one depend of third-degree felony sexual conduct for his abuse of the 5 women.
Prosecutors contended that Butts allegedly acquired Na’Ziyah pregnant after sexually assaulting her, after which killed her. Her 9-year-old cousin testified during a preliminary exam in January 2025 that she noticed Butts assault Na’Ziyah at his auto store, and that Butts tried to have intercourse with the cousin, however she stated no. Butts was relationship Na’Ziyah’s aunt on the time he began sexually assaulting her niece.
The courtroom was full of household and associates of Na’Ziyah and the opposite victims. Several individuals have been instructed to go away the courtroom for making feedback throughout sufferer impression statements, together with telling Na’Ziyah’s grandmother to “shut up” whereas she was speaking about how her handle and telephone quantity had been placed on social media and that she didn’t really feel protected in her house.
“Every day I wake up without her I wake up feeling depressed,” stated Na’Ziyah’s grandmother, Annette Harris. “I love her and I miss her dearly. I can’t tell her that because her life was taken from her.”
Harris cried all through her total assertion and started sobbing so arduous she couldn’t converse towards the top. Assistant Prosecutor Matthew Makepeace took over studying for her and Harris left the courtroom.
Marketta Harris, Na’Ziyah’s aunt, requested that Hathaway give Butts the electrical chair, “a life for a life.”
“You are a serial habitual predator,” Marketta Harris stated. “I’ll never be able to get to hold her again, I’ll never be able to listen to her, see her smile. … I’ll never get to be able to have that chance, ever again, because of you. It hurts.”
Butts’ sister, Tijuana Butts, testified at her brother’s preliminary examination that she noticed Na’Ziyah get out of her brother’s truck on the auto store between 4:30 and 6 p.m. Jan. 9, 2024, the final day she was seen alive.
“For the last two years, I have had to go back to that day when I saw a little girl I did not know, that I had never seen,” Butts stated Thursday. “I wish that there was a sign, but she looked OK and I believed she was someone else’s niece. I had no reason not to believe what my brother said to me.
“That day will without end hang-out me.”
Tijuana Butts said Na’Ziyah’s story brought a lot of other victims out. She said she hopes her brother will have a heart and tell Na’Ziyah’s family where her body is.
“There are many Na’Ziyahs and plenty of different victims which might be sadly being harmed proper now at this second and individuals are turning a blind eye to it and never paying consideration,” Tijuana Butts said. “We must do higher as a household in defending our youngsters from monsters.”
One of the girls that Butts sexually assaulted had her sister read her victim impact statement as the girl sat up in the witness stand with her, wearing sparkly black shoes.
“When I used to be simply 4 years previous, Mr. Jarvis Butts took away my childhood and shattered my sense of security,” the girl’s sister read. “Though I’m nonetheless younger I’ve confronted years of ache and trauma attributable to his actions.”
She said she believes Butts will continue to abuse children, even once he is old and released from prison.
“Let his penalties be so no different little one faces what I had,” the girl wrote.
Another girl echoed her sentiments, adding: “Mr. Butts was already a convicted intercourse offender when he abused me in 2014.”
“Despite figuring out the hurt and having each alternative to cease, he continued to abuse youngsters,” she said.
Butts’ sentencing caps off a long ordeal for Na’Ziyah’s family, who pleaded with local enforcement and the public to help find the young girl after she didn’t return home from school on Jan. 9, 2024.
Some relatives said they’d called Child Protective Services multiple times on a man they suspected of having inappropriate behavior with children, including Na’Ziyah, but nothing was done. State officials said they couldn’t disclose the existence of an investigation.
“So many programs failed Na’Ziyah,” Jernell Smith-Holland, Na’Ziyah’s great-aunt, said in May 2024. “This entire factor is simply unsuitable on so many ranges.”
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