- [Cop] Hey, Ron, no (beep),
I got a man's throat's been cut to hell.
He said his son's been shot three times.
He's buried in a grave down here at Uchee
and he wants to go get him.
He was buried and dug himself out.
This is a bad one.
- [Narrator] The terrifying reality
of crime is that many of the most violent,
brutal cases are often completely random.
Or at least, to some extent,
they are not thoroughly thought out or planned.
Of course, lack of planning can lead
to accidents and mistakes,
but it also means that anyone
at any time could become a victim.
What is up, EWU crew?
Today we are going to be covering a case
like none other that will leave you shocked
and hopefully make you more aware of your surroundings.
If you enjoy true crime, mysteries and true stories
be sure to hit the like button and subscribe.
Now let's get into it.
As a parent one's child is their top priority.
Parents teach their children to be wary of strangers,
cross the street carefully,
and learn how to protect themselves when need be.
The last thing a parent wants is for their child
to be subjected to crime
and ultimately, become a victim.
Forrest "Butch" Bowyer was what most would consider
to be the epitome of a good father.
Butch had always wanted to be a family man.
Since he was a teenager growing up in Lee County, Alabama
he had long appreciated the way his family
had always been his rock in life.
When times were tough,
Butch had always had his family to fall back on,
leading him to want that for his children in the future.
When his son Brett was born,
Butch felt like the happiest man alive.
He vowed to always take care of Brett
and ensure to put his son first in every aspect of life
and Butch kept his promise to the best of his ability.
But sometimes, as Butch would come to learn,
life is unpredictable.
Sometimes no amount
of effort can stop things from happening.
There are a few general motives of crime:
jealousy, anger, love.
But perhaps a one of the most confusing types
of crimes is those that are committed
out of the apparent need for cash.
Most people have financial issues
at least once or twice in their lives
but what drives someone to committing violent crimes
in an effort to get their hands on a little extra money?
The short answer is desperation.
The kind of desperation
that makes someone forget their morals.
The kind of desperation can corrupt
a certain type of person.
One who may not feel any regret or guilt for their actions.
Someone like Michael Carruth.
Michael Carruth was a Lee County, Alabama local,
just like Butch,
but the two men lived extremely different lives.
Where Butch was a family man who prided himself
on his fair and respectable parenting strategies,
Michael was a self-proclaimed lone wolf.
Michael was married, though he never had children
as it interfered with his lifestyle.
Michael was a bounty hunter who worked
for his wife's company, Tri-County Bonding
and spent his days tracking down the people who owed money.
Ironically enough, Michael himself never felt
as though he could appropriately keep up with his own bills.
In fact, he was almost always behind on payments
and would constantly find himself looking
for new ways to get his hands on some extra cash.
And eventually, desperation set in.
Well, desperation combined with a desire to chase a thrill.
Late in the evening of Sunday, February 17th, 2002,
Butch heard a knock at his door.
Butch's family did not often have visitors show up
in the middle of the night,
so he assumed that there must have been
some kind of emergency.
Butch and his son Brett had been spending time
talking with each other before bed
and had no idea what was waiting for them
on the other side of the door.
When Butch opened the front door,
he was met face-to-face with Michael Carruth.
Michael, of course,
knew that Butch would have no idea who he was
and so he introduced himself as a narcotics officer
and informed Butch that he was under arrest
for having illicit drugs in his possession.
Though Butch had no idea what kind
of association to drugs Michael was talking about,
he was nonetheless careful to follow Michael's directions.
Even when Michael insisted
that Brett come into custody with them.
Michael was not alone as he forced Butch and Brett
into the back seat of his car.
Rather, the 43 year old bounty hunter was accompanied
by a 22 year old family friend
by the name of Jimmy Lee Brooks, Jr.
Who had been in and out of jail frequently
by early 2002.
Together, the two men had decided last minute
to lure Butch away from the safety of his home
in an effort to rob him.
You see, Butch owned a used car lot
and was known to carry large sums of cash on his person
before and after work.
Attacking Butch had been Michael's idea originally
and neither of the men had intended
for 12 year old Brett to come along with them.
However, since Brett had been awake and aware
of the situation, they found that they had no choice
but to take the boy with them.
From the moment Butch and Brett had been forced
into Michael's car, Butch knew
that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
So when Michael got into his face
and ordered him to empty his wallet
Butch politely and cautiously obliged.
Butch gave Michael and Jimmy every cent he had on him,
down to the coins at the bottom of his pockets.
But Michael and Jimmy wanted more.
They had targeted Butch because they heard he had a safe
in his home with a hundred thousand dollars in cash.
When they interrogated him about it,
Butch denied owning a safe
but hoping to placate the kidnappers
he admitted that he kept $40,000 in cash.
Michael drove back to Butch's home
and demanded that he hand over all the money
in the house.
With Brett still trapped in the vehicle,
Butch led Michael to a box hidden in his closet
which contained $40,000.
Michael was sure there was more money
and he threatened Butch until he eventually led him
to a lockbox, which contained another $20,000.
Michael forced Butch back into the vehicle
and drove the four of them
around 20 miles south of Butch's neighborhood.
Once the group reached a deserted area
where a local highway was under construction, they stopped.
Hoping that what he had given would be enough
to satisfy Michael and Jimmy,
Butch muttered a quick prayer to himself
as he watched his two captors count the cash
in their hands.
For a split second, the two men looked
at each other with slight grins on their faces
and Butch felt a wave of relief,
thinking that his prayer may have worked.
But then Michael pulled out a knife.
Jimmy forced Butch and Brett out of the car
and onto their knees on a dirt path.
Without so much as a split second of hesitation,
Michael pressed the blade of his knife
against Butch's throat.
Michael slashed a cut across Butch's neck
that spread from ear to ear.
As Butch began to lose blood,
Michael and Jimmy pushed him backwards into a shallow grave
they had dug earlier in the evening.
As Butch's body went limp
at the bottom of the 18 inch deep grave,
Michael fired a round of gunshots into 12 year old Brett
after the boy had watched in horror
as his father was brutally attacked.
Seconds later, Brett's lifeless body was tossed
into the shallow grave atop his father's.
Jimmy and Michael quickly proceeded to grab shovels
from the trunk of Michael's car
and shovel loose dirt over the shallow grave.
After packing the dirt generously over the bodies
Michael was positive that no one would be able to
locate the grave and that it would eventually be paved over
and hidden forever.
Satisfied with how the two men managed
to clean up the crime scene,
Michael and Jimmy sped off just as quickly as they had come.
Perhaps if he truly wanted to get away with such a crime,
Michael should have double-checked his work
before leaving so quickly.
There, buried under a foot and a half of dirt.
Butch realized that he was in fact still alive.
Alive and bleeding out as dirt filled his mouth
and made it even harder to breathe.
Though his throat had been brutally slashed,
the knife had not cut deep enough
to sever any major arteries,
meaning that Butch was bleeding out
but not enough to have killed him.
54 year old Butch remained mostly conscious
from the minute his attackers had pushed him backward
into the shallow grave.
Knowing that Michael and Jimmy would inevitably
try to kill his son,
Butch pretended to be dead
in an effort to ensure he would be able
to help Brett if need be.
What Butch had not been expecting was the gunshots he heard.
Butch had assumed that their captors
would use the same knife on Brett, not a gun.
Once Butch heard the sound of the car speeding away,
he quickly made an effort to dig himself
out of the grave using only his hands.
Severely wounded and weighed down
with the weight of his son's limp body,
Butch spent around 10 to 15 minutes
slowly suffocating as he pushed dirt up
and out of his way to the best of his ability.
The whole time he dug his way out of his own grave,
The only thing Butch could think about
was making it out so that he could get help for Brett.
When he finally managed to breach the surface
of the shallow grave, Butch made an effort
to unearth Brett's body along with his own.
Seeing that Brett was still unconscious
from his gunshot wounds,
Butch worked up the strength to prop his son's body
up into a sitting position
before leaving him at the scene of the crime.
Butch, operating completely off the adrenaline
pumping through his body,
proceeded to walk a fourth of a mile
through the woods in search of any kind of help.
When he finally found himself approaching the edge
of US 431,
he began frantically waving his arms
until he successfully flagged down a car.
The driver of the vehicle could not believe their eyes
as they pulled up next to Butch, who was covered in blood
and looked like he had come straight out of a horror film.
The driver offered Butch their cell phone
which he used to call the local Lee County police department
and explain the events of the evening.
At that exact moment,
the police station actually had a deputy on duty
that was only two miles away from the crime scene.
The driver offered to take Butch back
to the grave while they waited
for the dispatch deputy to meet them there.
- [Cop] Hey Ron, no (beep),
I got a man's throat's been cut to hell.
He said his son's been shot three times.
He's buried in a grave down here in Uchee
and he wants to go get him.
He was buried and dug himself out.
This is a bad one.
- [Narrator] Upon arrival,
Butch learned that there was an ambulance on the way
but he refused to leave the scene
until he was able to show officers Brett's body,
where he had left him limp the top of the shallow grave
- [Cop] Okay, ambulance is here.
- [Butch] Come get my boy first.
- [Cop] All right, all right, all right,
all right, all right.
Sir, hold on real quick.
What's your name? What's your name?
- Butch. - Butch what?
- Boyer. - Okay, he said his son's
been shot three times down there and been buried.
We got to take him down there.
- [Narrator] The officers who pulled up alongside Butch
actually managed to catch the unbelievable sight
of Butch's state on his police car's dash cam.
Butch can be seen covered in dirt
with blood all over his clothing and holding his neck.
officers were shocked to find
that Butch was still conscious,
let alone able to speak clearly
and recall specific information regarding the brutal attack.
Butch gave officers a full
and almost completely accurate description
of Michael's vehicle
and physical descriptions
of Michael and Jimmy to identify them.
While Butch was rushed to a nearby hospital,
the apple of his eye, 12 year old Brett,
was declared dead on arrival.
Somewhere deep inside, Butch had known his son was dead
from the moment he heard the gunshots fire.
However, he nonetheless hoped that he had not
been too late to help his boy.
Learning the truth completely crushed Butch
as his son was his everything.
Butch had vowed to protect his son at all costs.
And a part of him felt as though he had failed
despite the violent realities of Brett's death.
The least he could do, he felt,
was ensure that Brett's murderers were punished
for their heinous crime.
The investigation into the attack
against Butch and Brett did not last very long.
The detailed information Butch provided
to officers proved crucial.
In fact, Michael was actually stopped
in his car the very next morning
while he was attempting to escape town
as quickly as possible.
After his initial arrest, Michael was taken in
for questioning immediately where he was quick
to reveal the location
of his co-conspirator Jimmy Lee Brooks.
Later that same day,
Jimmy was arrested just outside of Lee County.
Both Michael and Jimmy were charged with capital murder
in the killing of Brett and the attempted murder,
robbery and kidnapping of Butch Bowyer.
But that wasn't everything Michael
and Jimmy were charged with.
According to local Lee County investigators,
it was discovered that Michael
and Jimmy had actually murdered 68 year old Thurman Ratliff
and his 62 year old wife, Katherine Ratliff
and the safety of their own home just one month
before their attack on Butch and Brett.
The deviant duo had supposedly been attempting
to make their criminal rounds throughout Lee County
for as long as they could go without getting caught.
Unfortunately for Michael and Jimmy,
they had not planned such attacks well enough.
Butch's survival represented a lot more
than just a partially failed crime.
His survival represented hope,
hope that victims of Michael and Jimmy's attacks
would receive the justice they so desperately deserved.
Butch's injuries, as terrifying as they had been,
were easily managed with just a few surgeries
and he was able to make a full physical recovery.
However, the effects of the attack left far more
than a scar across Butches throat.
They left him without his son.
Butch had been a firm believer
that a parent should never have to bury their child.
And he learned firsthand what kind of pain
that type of tragedy perpetuates.
Currently, both Michael and Jimmy are on death row
as Butch and the other townspeople
of Lee County wait impatiently
for Brett's murderers to be put to death.
12 year old Brett did not need to lose his life that night.
Unfortunately for the Bowyer and Ratliff families,
greed and desperation corrupt past the point of repair
which can lead to irrevocable pain.
Not many people are brutally attacked,
buried in shallow graves and live to tell the tale.
But Butch Bowyer will never forget the events
of that fateful night in 2002,
and neither will the people of Lee County
who continue to dedicate school gyms
and memorial dates to Brett Bowyer.
At the very least, Butch and his family can cope
with their son's death knowing
that his killers are locked up behind bars
and will be for the rest of their lives.