(WWJ) The Detroit man convicted of killing missing 13-year-old Na'Ziyah Harris is dead.
The Michigan Department of Corrections confirmed to WWJ Newsradio 950 that 43-year-old Jarvis Butts was found dead in his prison cell Thursday morning.
Michigan State Police investigators are now at the facility where he was being held; that's the Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson, Michigan.
Officials said prison staffers who found Butts attempted to save his life, but they were unsuccessful.
The death is being reported and investigated as a suicide at this time, but no further details have been released about how he died.
Butts pleaded second-degree murder in connection with the death of Harris, who was last seen getting off a school bus on Jan. 9, 2024, on Detroit's east side.
Though the teen's body was never found, prosecutors believe Butts killed her after grooming and then sexually assaulting her over a number of years. Prosecutors alleged that Harris was pregnant at the time she disappeared, and that Butts was the unborn child's father. He knew Harris through family connections, having a child with Harris' aunt.
Butts was sentenced on March 12 to 60 years in prison on those charges and five other cases connected to the sexual assault of other children, ages 4 to 13, one including an 8-year-old relative.
Speaking to WWJ's Darrylin Horne on Thursday, Harris' cousin Roxy spoke about how the family is reacting to Butts' death.
She said it was certainly expected, calling the reported suicide a "coward way out."
"I don't think he suffered at all, to be honest. He was very familiar with the petitionary system, but maybe the circumstances were a little bit different, and maybe inmates maybe held him accountable for his actions," Roxy said. "You know, it's bittersweet in that aspect, however, to know that he no longer gets to have certain privileges."
She said there are still a lot of answered questions in the case.
"Whereabouts what happened to her, about her unborn child. I couldn't been prevented on so many levels," Roxiy said, adding that someone in the family must have known that Butts was a pedophile.
The investigation into Butts' death is ongoing.
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