The morning started like any other in the quiet suburban streets of Rochester. Sunlight filtered softly through half-open blinds, warming the living room with a gentle glow. Seventeen-year-old Larie Butler moved around her home with the easy familiarity of someone who knew every corner, every habit, every rhythm of her life. She smiled at her mother, Karen Butler, as she passed by.
“I’m going to the mall. I love you,” Larie said casually.
The words were ordinary. A part of the routine between mother and daughter. Karen smiled back, expecting her child to return hours later, carrying stories of friends, laughter, and the small adventures of teenage life. She had no idea she had just spoken to her daughter for the last time.
Larie left the house that morning with the confidence of youth. Her backpack rested comfortably on her shoulders, her headphones tucked neatly in, the playlist she had made that week already in her mind. She waved to her neighbors, greeted her friends with a smile, and stepped into the sun-soaked day, unaware that fate had already set a different path for her.
The hours passed. The mall trip stretched longer than expected. Texts went unanswered. Calls went straight to voicemail. At first, Karen assumed it was typical teenage distraction, a dead phone battery, or a group of friends who kept her daughter longer than planned.
By evening, the concern hardened. The shadows of doubt crept into Karen’s mind. She called Larie’s friends, retraced the paths her daughter might have taken, drove to familiar hangouts. Nothing. The city’s streets that evening seemed indifferent, uncaring, while a mother’s anxiety grew into a gnawing fear.
The next day brought the unthinkable. Larie was missing. Flyers with her photograph appeared on telephone poles, inside store windows, and on the windshields of cars across Rochester. Each photo was a silent plea for anyone who had seen her to speak up. The police launched an investigation, canvassing neighborhoods and interviewing friends, classmates, and acquaintances. But the trail was cold.
Five days passed. Five days where every hope clung to the possibility that Larie might still be found. The community held its breath. Every child, every friend, every stranger looked at the world differently, imagining what it would mean to lose someone so young, so full of promise.
Then came the call that shattered the fragile hope. Larie’s body had been discovered floating in a backyard swimming pool on Dorington Road. The scene was quiet, ordinary even—an unremarkable suburban yard, a pool meant for laughter and summer games. But the horror of what lay in that water transformed the normalcy into tragedy.
The medical examiner confirmed the truth everyone feared: Larie had been stabbed multiple times. Her life had been violently ended by hands she once trusted. The realization cut through the town like ice, leaving a wound no words could heal.
Investigators quickly traced the crime to someone familiar. Not a random assailant, but a young man she knew. The betrayal was incomprehensible. DeVonte Lively, twenty years old, a distant relative and friend, was arrested. Inside his grandmother’s home, authorities discovered Larie’s bloody clothing, confirming the horrifying connection. The pool where she had been found belonged to the same house. The puzzle pieces fit, but the picture they formed was devastating.
In the courtroom, the story unfolded like a nightmare. Witnesses described Larie’s bright personality, her dreams, her laughter, her simple gestures of everyday joy. The prosecution painted a narrative of calculated betrayal, of a young life extinguished through trust turned weaponized. The defense could offer little that explained away the evidence: the blood, the body, the lies.
The jury deliberated. The decision was final. DeVonte Lively was found guilty of second-degree murder. The sentence: twenty-five years to life. For the justice system, it was a closure of procedure. For Karen Butler and her family, it was merely a step in an endless procession of grief. No sentence could restore the life that had been stolen, no verdict could fill the space left behind.
Karen learned to live in a world that no longer contained her daughter’s laughter. Every ordinary day was now punctuated with the echo of those last words, “I love you.” They became sacred and painful simultaneously—a blessing that had not been enough to protect, a wound that never healed.
Friends from East High School shared fragments of memory: the way Larie’s laughter filled the hallways, how she talked about music and fashion, the plans she had whispered for a life that would never come to pass. Teachers remembered her as present and engaged, a student who mattered, not invisible.
The community reeled. Parents clutched their children a little tighter. Teenagers reconsidered whom they trusted. Conversations about trust, safety, and the hidden dangers of familiar faces began quietly in homes and schools, carrying an unspoken weight.
Questions remained unanswered. Who was the last person to see Larie alive? What were the moments between that cheerful “I love you” and the act of violence that ended her life? What could have been done to prevent it? Some truths remained locked away forever, known only to the person who took them.
The headlines faded over time. The crime became a case study, a cautionary tale, a memory relegated to history. But for those who loved her, the grief remained raw, vivid, and unrelenting. Every holiday, every birthday, every milestone was a reminder of absence. Every spoken “I love you” echoed with what had been lost.
DeVonte Lively would serve decades behind bars, but no measure of time could reclaim what Larie Butler had lost. She deserved more than to be remembered for the manner of her death. She deserved to grow up, to graduate, to explore the life that had been abruptly stolen from her.
Her story is not meant to frighten but to honor. To speak her name with dignity and remembrance, to celebrate the seventeen-year-old girl she was rather than the tragedy she became.
“I love you.” The words she left behind are now a testament. A reminder of a love that endures, even when life does not. And may her name continue to be spoken with truth, her story told with care, and her memory serve as a call for vigilance, compassion, and justice.