Grisly details emerge as suspect in Prattville kidnappings held with no bond under Aniah's Law

PRATTVILLE — Two 17-year-old Prattville girls were abducted the night on Nov. 3 by gunpoint from a local store’s parking lot, driven to Montgomery and then Lowndes counties where they were raped, also at gunpoint, and had their lives threatened several times, according to evidence detailed in an Aniah’s Law hearing Monday in Prattville.

Michael Jerome Butler, 35, of Greenville, faces eight charges in the case: two counts of kidnapping, two counts of rape, two counts of sodomy and one count each of sexual torture and robbery. He allegedly abducted the victims from the parking lot of the Prattville Walgreens at the corner of East Main Street and Memorial Drive.

Butler was arrested about 48 hours later following a nationwide search. He faces charges in a home invasion in Atlanta and the killing of a woman near Birmingham.

The victims attended the hearing, sitting in the gallery. They could be seen wiping tears from their eyes several times through the hour-long proceeding. Butler sat in the jury box, with a spit guard tied over his head. He kept his head bowed during the proceeding and appeared to show no emotion.

There was an elevated law enforcement presence in the courtroom, including five Prattville Police Department SWAT officers who remained close to Butler.

District Judge Joy Booth ruled Butler be held without bond pending his trials in Autauga County.

Scott Baxley, the Prattville Police Department investigator in the case, was the only witness the prosecution called. He told Booth that Butler was allegedly armed with a revolver when he abducted the teens, forcing them into a Nissan car that was registered to his mother.

Butler allegedly drove the teens from Prattville first to Montgomery, then to Lowndes County where the sexual assaults occurred. He used the revolver as a foreign object in the sexual torture of one victim, Baxley said.

He continually threatened the girls’ lives, one time telling a victim he would shoot her in the head “and lick her brains off the window,” District Attorney C.J. Robinson told Booth. Before the sexual assaults Butler allegedly pointed the gun at the victims’ heads and asked if they wanted to perform sexual acts or die, Baxley said.

“This is every parent’s nightmare, everyone’s nightmare,” Robinson said. “It was a random act, we can find no connection between Butler and the victims. These two girls are here by the grace of God and their own fortitude in getting through this together.”

Butler drove the teens back to Prattville where he released them, Baxley said he first spoke with them at the Prattville Baptist Hospital emergency room that night.

An all out investigation began and the first break came with surveillance footage from a Montgomery gas station where the victims said Butler drove them. His image was captured on a recording inside the gas station, and Prattville investigators released the image on a state-wide lookout seeking information.

Authorities with the Greenville Police Department and the Butler County Sheriff’s Office identified the suspect as Butler. He has five felony convictions in Butler County, all theft related, dating back to 2006, Robinson told Booth.

Once they had his name and vehicle, investigators began tracking him by cellphone data and other means. He traveled to the Atlanta area, where he is a suspect in an armed home invasion, shooting, robbery and other crimes, Baxley told Booth. Butler was also tracked to St. Clair County where he allegedly kidnapped and shot a woman there. He is charged with murder in St. Clair County in connection to that fatal shooting, court records show. St. Clair law enforcement agencies arrested Butler after a short vehicle chase in Leeds.

Before the hearing, Booth appointed Richard Lively to represent Butler.

Lively questioned the constitutionality of Aniah’s Law.

“First of all, judge, it’s a brand new law,” he told Booth. “The law violates the defendant’s right against excessive bond as guaranteed in the Eighth Amendment. He can receive bond, even a high bond, but to hold him with no bond, I feel, is unconstitutional.”

Booth said she was handing down the no bond due to Butler being a threat to the public, and given the charges he is facing with such stiff penalties that he should be considered a flight risk.

Robinson told the court his office will seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole under the Habitual Felons Act if Butler is convicted of the Autauga County charges.

“What he faces in Georgia and St. Clair County is frankly not my concern,” Robinson told Booth. “My concern is these victims and delivering justice for them.”

Aniah’s Law was passed by voters in the general election in November. It makes it easier for judges to deny bail for suspects charged with violent felonies. Before then no bond could be handed down for people facing capital murder charges or who had been deemed a flight risk.

It is named for Aniah Blanchard, an Auburn college student who went missing in October of 2019. Her body was found about a month later in a wooded area of Macon County.

Ibraheem Yazeed was charged with murder in Blanchard's death. At the time Blanchard was abducted, Yazeed was free on bonds totaling $295,000 on charges of attempted murder, kidnapping, robbery and assault in an unrelated case.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Suspect in abduction, assault of Prattville teens held with no bond under Aniya's Law