Rosemount teen: 'I didn't want him to die'

Calling his actions "inhumane," 16-year-old Dakota Butler sobbed on the stand Monday as he pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a teenage boy who had come to his Rosemount home to confront Butler's brother about a girl.

"I didn't want him to die," Butler said as family members -- his and those of 17-year-old murder victim Cody Casey -- cried as they watched him in Dakota County District Court. "I didn't want to kill him."

Butler, who was a junior at Rosemount High School, will be incarcerated until age 21 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in what his attorney called a "heat of the moment" crime.

Julie Casey called her son's death a "horrible tragedy."

"There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss him," she said in a letter that was read in court, as Butler buried his head in his hands and cried.

"Now all I'm left with are memories and the questions of what he might have been," she said.

She also wrote that "people like Dakota Butler should not be allowed on our streets."

In court, a motion to certify Butler as an adult was dismissed, and he was instead put under "extended-juvenile jurisdiction." He will serve at the Red Wing correctional facility for juveniles until he turns 21, unless he violates terms of his probation. If he does, he will serve 12 1/2 years at the adult facility in St. Cloud.

"There will be no second chances," Judge Michael Mayer warned Butler. "Do you understand that? The slightest slip, and you'll get that [12 1/2 year] sentence. You will not find [St. Cloud state prison] to be a very pleasant place."

In his statement to Casey's family, Butler said: "I want to apologize for what I've done to you. My actions were inhumane ... I have stolen something dear to you."

"A horrible tragedy"

After school on March 13, Casey rode his bike to Butler's house armed with a sock that had a rock inside it. The criminal complaint said that Casey believed that Butler's 19-year-old brother liked Ariel Neally, Casey's girlfriend. Casey had just asked her to the prom that morning.

Butler told Casey that his older brother was not home, but Casey refused to leave. Butler went inside, the complaint said, grabbed a steak knife and went back outside. The two fought and Butler stabbed Casey somewhere between four to six times, Butler said in court.

Casey, who was a senior at Rosemount High, got back on his bike, wobbled along for a block, then fell over. He was pronounced dead of stab wounds at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

Butler's attorney, Andrew Small, said that Butler couldn't have claimed self-defense during a trial, because the state's self-defense law requires that the person claiming self-defense has to first try to get away.

"There was the option of going into the house and calling the police, there was an escape for him, and in the heat of the moment, he didn't think of that," said Small.

"[Dakota] is a young man who was a good kid and made a terrible decision," he said, calling it a "heat of the moment" crime that followed confusion over who was dating Ariel Neally.

Dakota Butler said during the hearing that he could not forgive himself for killing Cody, and that he actually "deserves worse."

Another one of Butler's brothers, Zachary Albert Butler-Martinez, 18, was charged with aiding an offender. He pulled Dakota and Cody apart during the fight, then, afraid his brother would get in trouble, wiped down the steak knife and threw it in a sewer outside their home. He eventually told police where it was, after first denying he knew what had happened to it. His first court appearance is on June 9.

A diploma in his name

At Rosemount High, the prom that Casey would have attended was on Saturday. Ariel Neally's mother, April Rosendahl, declined to comment on her daughter's behalf.

At the high school's graduation, which will be held in the school's stadium on June 13, Cody Casey's name will be read along with the rest of the senior class.

Emily Johns • 952-882-9056