Woman Whose 10-Year-Old Daughter Was Killed in 1999 Loses a Second Daughter to Murder: 'Has to Be a Nightmare'
Cherri West’s nightmare began in 1999.
That’s when her 10-year-old daughter, Pamela “Pammy” Butler, was rollerblading outside of her Kansas City, Kansas, home when a stranger grabbed her and threw her into his pickup truck. There was a witness: Butler’s older sister, Casey Eaton. Then just a young teenager, Eaton ran screaming after the truck. A passerby got the vehicle license plate number, but the man got away.
Butler’s body was later found. Her assailant, later identified as Keith D. Nelson, is now sitting on death row for the kidnap, rape and murder of the little girl.
West and Eaton grieved Butler’s loss in the 18 years that followed during which, Eaton became the mother of four children.
Last Wednesday night, tragedy struck the family again when Eaton, 34, was fatally shot. She was in a car, very close to a park named after her slain sister.
Cherri West (right) with her great grandson. West39;s oldest daughter Casey Eaton, was fatally shot on Wed.in KCK. pic.twitter.com/t3GgqH7GOn
- Tammy Ljungblad (@kctammy2009) April 22, 2017
After an investigation and a brief standoff, police arrested Emenencio Lansdown. PEOPLE confirms that he has been charged with second-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm in connection with her death. He has not yet entered a plea and it was unclear if he has an attorney.
Police has not released a possible motive.
Eaton’s sudden and violent death has sent her mother reeling as she works through the pain of losing another child so suddenly.
“It’s hard to believe that it’s happened to us again.” West told Fox4. “I can’t believe I’m standing here doing an interview over another murdered child.”
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“I just want to think it’s a nightmare, but I know it’s not. I know it’s true,” West added.
West told the station Eaton was her oldest child and was a tremendous help for her after Butler’s death.
“I am just totally lost. It truly has to be a nightmare,” West told KMBC.
Her hope for her daughters, she said, is to “wrap your arms around each other and fly high.”
