11/10/2009 - Culver

by Matt McDonald

Fourteen year old Justin Butler smiles on a Culver school field trip for the top students in the class. His friends saying, Justin was often the reason for a smile.

"He's hilarious, he doesn't try to be funny, he just can," said Ryan Fritz, one of Justin's classmates.

Justin died Sunday, a bullet coming through this trailer striking him in the head where he was asleep at three AM, while on a hunting trip with family. On Monday, his twenty one year old cousin Brandon Hornseth is arrested for firing the fatal shot. Hornseth is a worker on the private ranch on Lone Pine Road where the family was camping.

Investigators believe that Hornseth was standing about a hundred yards away, the length of this football field, with a clear view of the trailer when he fired two shots, both hitting the trailer, one fatally wounding Justin Butler.

Behind the doors at Culver High School, counselors set up a safe room for grieving students and staff.

"It's a very safe place for emotions to be shared or concerns or any sort of talking that the students need to do," said school superintendent Stefanie Garber.

It's the fourth student death at Culver High School in a year and a half.

"An overarching kind of tone was, shoulder shrug, not again," said Garber.

Grief is shared in memories. Last year, Justin was part of a plan to thrill the kindergarten students who set leprechaun traps for Saint Patricks day.

"We dressed him up like a leperchaun and acted like we caught him and tied him to a pole," said Fritz.

Again more smiles.

"I don't think there's one person in Culver that could say they didn't like him," said Fritz.