- Date Of Birth: January 9, 1942
- Date Of Death: December 23, 2018
- State: North Carolina
David was born on January 9, 1942 in Taunton, MA, the son of Walter Butler Jr. and Joanne “Jean” (Quegan) Butler. David is survived by his older sister Ann Sage-Bricker.
David served in the United States Navy from April 15, 1959 to December 11, 1962, and served as Lieutenant in Active Reserve until September 2002. David was also a police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department from July 31, 1967 and was assigned to the Firearms Identification and Explosive Unit in 1968 of the Criminalistics Laboratory, Scientific Investigation Division. Upon retiring from LAPD in 1992, he continued working as a Firearms and Explosive Expert Consultant for criminal and civil cases. David’s hobbies included building extensive train layouts, building model ships from scratch, gardening & landscaping, and enjoying his beautiful retirement in Cape Cod with his friend and cousin Janet VanOrden and her daughter Sarah Townley.
David was the loving husband to the love of his life, Linda Diane Butler, whom he was married to from July 20, 1967 until her death on November 8, 1999. He was the committed father of Marnie Deanna Butler and Candace Danell Porras, and the spectacular grandfather of Janae Linda Porras and Alyssa Joelle Porras.
(Poem found on David’s desk):
Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you, whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used to. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed, at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoke without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well.
-Henry Scott Holland
