Man charged after body found in motor home freezer

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 5:19 p.m.

A Las Vegas man in prison here on other charges has been charged with murder today after a woman's badly decomposed body was found in a freezer of his impounded motor home in California.

The charge was filed in Orange County against 55-year-old Clarence Eugene Butterfield, whose 22-year-old daughter, Rebekah Butterfield, disappeared from her Temecula, Calif., home about two years ago.

Authorities said it is not known whether it was her body stuffed in a 5-foot-long freezer and found Tuesday night when two impound yard employees opened the motor home to do an inventory and smelled a foul odor.

The body, wrapped in layers of plastic bags, will have to be identified by dental records or DNA testing, police said.

The home was towed on Oct. 1 and had not been connected to an electrical supply, so the body had thawed, according to an Orange County sheriff's spokesman. It was too badly decomposed to verify how the person died. It was an adult female.

Butterfield had been living in the RV on a friend's lot, but the friend asked for its removal on Oct. 1.

Clarence Butterfield worked in construction and at odd jobs. He was separated from his wife and has a long history of violent crimes, the sheriff's office said.

Butterfield was stopped for a traffic violation on Sept. 20 while driving his friend's van in Southern California. He was sent to Las Vegas on Oct. 7 where he has been jailed on a warrant for resisting arrest and interfering with a police officer.

According to Clark County Detention Center records, Butterfield is charged with burglary with intent to commit a felony, forgery and felony theft.

— The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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