For fatally shooting his friend on a day he called the worst day of his life, Gary Butler will spend the next 30 years of his life in prison.
Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp handed down the sentence Wednesday afternoon, a month after a jury convicted Butler of second degree murder in the Jan. 20, 2011 shooting death of 22-year-old Tabitha Hamilton in the driveway of her Riviera Beach home. Prosecutor Andy Slater had argued that Butler should be sentenced to life in prison, but Rapp opted for a sentence closer to the 25-year minimum mandatory sentence his attorney Tom Weiss had asked for.
Before he was sentenced, the 29-year-old Butler described Hamilton as a friend who helped him through tough times. That friendship, however, unraveled after the two got into a fight fueled by both of their drinking and drug use. Hamilton died after Butler shot her several times.
“I lost my freedom and I lost my friend,” Butler told Rapp of the shooting, before adding of Hamilton: “She was truly loved by everyone, including me.”
Though Butler described his friendship with Hamilton as loving, Slater painted a very different picture of Butler’s side of their interaction. Butler said Hamilton never judged him, but Slater said the evidence at trial showed that he constantly belittled and degraded Hamilton throughout their friendship about her sexual orientation. Hamilton was gay.
On the night she was killed, Slater said, Butler and Hamilton got into a fight – a fight Hamilton won – after Butler repeatedly grabbed at her crotch and tried to grope her breasts.
Hamilton’s father, Joseph, made no recommendation for the judge, saying he believed Rapp would “do his job.”
“Out in the streets we know, if you commit the crime you gotta be willing to do the time,” Joseph Hamilton said.
