According to investigators, an Alabama lady who had been identified as a person of interest in a Florida killing passed away late last month after shooting herself after the car she was riding in crashed after a police pursuit. Samantha H. Butler, 29, of Alabama, was involved in an accident on August 26. At the time, in Ormond Beach, Florida, authorities did not think she had died due to the accident.
Butler was found to have self-inflicted gunshot wounds that “occurred after the motor vehicle crash,” according to the inquiry into her death, police said on Tuesday. Butler and Roger M. Gilbert, a man from Alabama, were listed as persons of interest in a double homicide in Lake County, Florida, on Thursday, August 25.
The Daytona News-Journal stated that two men from Florida, Shane Eugene Clements, 41, of Altoona, and David Thomas Mikell, 34, of Umatilla, were shot to death in a residence that evening. On August 26, Butler and Gilbert were riding in a car that had been shot at.
When police found the car near Ormond Beach, someone called them to report the damage. Officers attempted to conduct a traffic stop, but the vehicle sped away and struck a KFC. Butler was discovered to be dead inside the car.
Gilbert managed to flee the rubble, but he was later found at a Dollar Tree nearby, carrying a gun that had been reported stolen in Alabama. It wasn’t immediately clear if Butler and Gilbert were related or where in Alabama they were originally from.
According to court documents, Gilbert is detained in the Volusia County Jail for the following offenses linked to the chase: grand theft of a firearm, carrying a hidden weapon, resisting an officer without violence, and having a gun in one’s possession while a felon.
Authorities told the News-Journal that no charges have been brought in the double homicide and that the investigation into the killings was ongoing.
