The ex-boyfriend of a woman who was shot to death in her 7th Ward house along with her 13-year-old son was booked Saturday with two counts of first-degree murder. In the early morning of Monday, Oct. 10, Keith Tate called police to report a medical issue with the boy, Au'Sha Butcher. When police arrived, they found Tate's ex-girlfriend, 36-year-old Kywanda Butcher, dead in the living room and her son dead in another room, NOPD spokeswoman Remi Braden said in a news release.
Detectives focused on Tate. In searching his belongings, they found five rifles, one shotgun and a shoebox full of ammunition. They arrested Tate Saturday morning after summoning him to police headquarters to return his pickup truck.
Tate, 45, appears to have a history of domestic altercations. He told detectives that his relationship with Butcher was "on-again, off-again."
In April, a Kywanda Grant, with an address in the same 1300 block of Annette Street as Kywanda Butcher, sought a temporary restraining order against Keith Tate. The order was issued but never served, and the case was dismissed.
Police would not confirm whether Butcher, who sometimes went by the last name Humphrey, also used the name Grant.
Court records indicate that Tate had multiple hearings on "domestic matters" in 2000. During that period, he was arrested twice on a slate of charges including battery and violating a protective order. He was convicted only of resisting an officer.
In 2005, Tate was arrested on suspicion of forcible rape. A judge issued a domestic stay-away order, but prosecutors refused the charge.
"This suspect chose to live a life of crime, and was obviously let out of jail time and time again, with no consequences for his criminal actions," NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas said in the news release. "Criminals are not specialists, they're generalists. Yesterday's armed robber can be tomorrow's murderer. Our officers will continue to work hard to remove these career criminals from roaming freely through the streets of New Orleans."
Tate is being represented by the Capital Defense Project of Southeast Louisiana, which is standard in first-degree murder cases where the defendant is indigent, said Kerry Cuccia, the project's director.
Cuccia said it would be premature to comment, since his office has just begun investigating the case. But he cautioned against making inferences based on the defendant's rap sheet.
"Whatever pattern someone may want to read into it is meaningless at this point," Cuccia said.
Both Butcher and her son were shot at close range and had been dead in the Annette Street house for at least a day before their bodies were discovered, according to the Orleans Parish Coroner's Office. The mother was shot in the head and the boy in the neck.
Detectives found signs of forced entry in the back of the house, but nothing appeared to be stolen and no rooms were ransacked.
"I said, 'Thank you, Jesus,'" Butcher's sister, Linda Myles, said of Tate's arrest. "I had been praying -- we all had been praying -- that whoever it was, God was going to reveal the truth to us. We've been in a lot of pain. It's not going to bring my sister and my nephew back, but I'm glad they got him."
Au'Sha, an honor roll student who liked video games and playing with his friends, was a "sweet child," according to Myles.
Butcher, who worked as a waitress in the French Quarter, was a devoted mother to Au'Sha and his three sisters, Myles said.
"Everywhere she went, people fell in love with her. She had that kind of smile," Myles said. "She was good-hearted. Anything you needed, she would help."
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