Sentenced to prison: Daughter given time for father’s murder

A judge Wednesday sentenced a Waynesboro woman to 27 years in prison for murdering her father — a man who despite battling leukemia had become “the one stable thing in her life.”

Natasha Lynn Maready, 30, apologized to her family and “everyone else this case has affected” 19 months after she plunged a kitchen knife into the chest of Jay Bernard Butler, a 73-year-old Wal-Mart greeter.

The sentence handed down by Judge Humes J. Franklin exceeded that of sentencing guidelines, which called for a prison term of 13 to 21 years. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney David Ledbetter recommended a 30-year sentence.

The decision closed another sad chapter for the mother of two, whom Western State Hospital Psychologist David Rawls described as being like “a tumbling tumbleweed in the old West.”

Public defender Peter Boatner said Maready endured bipolar disorder and years of sexual abuse by a stepfather beginning when she was 9. That man shot and killed himself on the eve of a preliminary hearing on molestation charges. Another stepfather introduced Maready to drugs, alcohol and promiscuity, leading to numerous hospitalizations and leaving her “uniquely unable to cope with the chaos that erupted that night.”

It began May 1, 2007, in her father’s Port Republic Road home with an argument over borrowed money. Maready’s boyfriend, Brian Roadcap, 29, began choking Butler in a bedroom, Ledbetter said.

Butler survived that attack. Maready moved in, attempting to strangle him with a hair dryer cord. When that failed, she grabbed a kitchen knife to strike “the fatal blow,” Ledbetter said.

“[Roadcap] started it … but her culpability rises higher than his,” Ledbetter said in court. “She tried, not one way, but two ways to kill Mr. Butler … not by one stab, but by four stabs to the chest.”

The couple then ransacked Butler’s bank account and bought marijuana before fleeing to California in Butler’s bluish-green Toyota. A “caretaker” asked police to check on the man two days later, setting off a pursuit that included communications tracking by federal marshals. A California sheriff’s deputy caught the pair during a routine traffic stop May 7, 2007.

Roadcap pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in January and is serving a 20-year sentence at Nottoway Correctional Center in Burkeville.

Throughout her troubled life, Maready frequently returned to the security her fathered offered. He attended counseling with his daughter as she made progress toward regaining custody of her children, a counselor testified. The children, ages 9 and 13, are now in foster care. Maready also attended church, where her pastor “never heard her say a negative comment about her father,” he testified.

“He had no control over his daughter, but he continued to love her,” Ledbetter said, reading from a letter from Butler’s sister, Daisy Butler Moore, 88.

Ledbetter credited Sgt. Becky Moran and Sgt. Michael Wilhelm of the Waynesboro Police Department, who flew to California to question the suspects.

“They went out,” Ledbetter said, “and got a confession in this case.”