When a 40-year-old death investigation out of Morgan County went cold, Kentucky State Police in Morehead never gave up on solving it.
The mystery of 17-year-old Dennis Wayne Buttry’s death had widespread influence in Kentucky, reportedly leading to reforms in group therapy. Now police are hoping anyone who attended the Woodsbend Boys Camp, now the Woodsbend Youth Development Center, will come forward with any information.
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LEX18 was there as State Police investigators exhumed Buttry’s body from a Berea cemetery on May 15th, 2012 for a second autopsy, re-opening a mystery that was front page news across Kentucky in 1972.
The detective working the case now was only five years old when 17-year-old Buttry died from a blow to his forehead at the Woodsbend Boys Camp in West Liberty on January 17th, 1972.
Newspaper articles outline how the coroner ruled the death accidental, but state police had reason to believe Buttry was hit on the head during a group therapy session. A grand jury indicted three teenagers at the camp for willful murder. They also indicted the superintendent and a counselor at the camp for accessory to murder. But no one was ever convicted, and with that the articles stopped appearing. But police never forgot the case.
Investigators say the second autopsy brought forth new clues, and now they are asking anyone who witnessed the incident forty years ago at the Woodsbend Boys Camp to come forward with any information.
All the other people involved are still alive today. The adults implicated at the time are in their 80s now. Police say it’s slowgoing because of legal hurdles in the way.
The Woodsbend Youth Development Center is still running today. It was damaged by the devastating tornado on March 2nd, 2012, but the youth center is operational now.
