DETROIT – Jarvis Butts sat stoically in a green jumpsuit, with a mask covering his face and his arms and legs shackled during his Thursday sentencing.
One by one, women and girls spoke of the unspeakable impact that the 43-year-old child predator has had on their lives. Butts was sentenced to 35-60 years in prison for killing 13-year-old Na’Ziyah Harris, bringing an end to years of terrorizing young girls.
“Every day I wake up without her, I wake up feeling depressed,” Annette Harris, Na’Ziyah’s grandmother, said during a victim impact statement that she was unable to finish. “I love her and I miss her dearly. I can’t tell her that because her life was taken from her.”
It was a tense, agonizing, and emotional scene in the courtroom. A number of people were ejected after an argument broke out when a supporter of Butts began heckling Annette Harris during her statement.
Butts sat silently. Saying nothing when given a chance to speak.
He pleaded guilty to multiple charges in six different cases on Feb. 12, including second-degree murder in the killing of Harris.
Butts, whose criminal history goes back to 1997, was also sentenced to 10-15 years in prison for five other sexual assault charges, which will be served concurrently.
He had a history of targeting and befriending women. Often getting close to them before eventually grooming and sexually abusing their daughters, nearly all of whom were younger than the age of 10.
One of the girls had her sister read her victim impact statement as the now-teenager sat in the witness stand with her.
“When I was just 4 years old, Mr. Jarvis Butts took away my childhood and shattered my sense of safety,” the girl’s sister said, reading from the young girl’s statement. “I have faced years of pain and trauma caused by his actions.”
Butts and Harris knew each other because he was the father of her cousins. She disappeared on Jan. 9, 2024, when she didn’t return home from school.
Authorities believe he had been sexually abusing Na’Ziyah since 2022, starting with sexually explicit texts and photos being sent to the then-11-year-old Harris.
Butts admitted to killing and claimed to have dumped her body in the Rouge River near 7 Mile and Berg, but her body still has not been recovered.
Butts’ sister, Tijuana Butts, made a victim statement. She testified at Jarvis’ preliminary examination on Jan. 5, 2025, and claimed that she saw Na’Ziyah get out of her brother’s truck at his auto shop Jan. 9, 2024, the last day she was seen alive.
“For the last two years, I have had to go back to that day when I saw a little girl I did not know, that I had never seen,” Butts said, fighting back tears on the stand. “I wish that there was a sign, but she looked OK -- I had no reason not to believe what my brother said to me.”
Tijuana, who said she had been sexually abused as a child, begged her brother to tell the authorities where Na’Ziyah’s body is buried.
Jarvis Butts is currently in the Wayne County Jail, awaiting his transfer to state prison. It appears that years of abusing children may have finally ended with him being led out in shackles on Thursday.
“There are many Na’Ziyahs and many other victims that are unfortunately being harmed right now at this moment and people are turning a blind eye to it and not paying attention,” Tijuana Butts said. “We need to do better as a family in protecting our children from monsters.”