Dad lost son in same creek where Wichita boy was last seen

When William Butler heard last week that an 11-year-old boy had gone missing in Gypsum Creek, the flashbacks began to set in.

The memories of finding his own 15-year-old son buried in the silt and mud of Gypsum Creek after a flood in June 1981 tore open wounds he thought had healed years ago.

The pain he had worked so hard to master in the 35 ensuing years was fresh again.

“After so many years, you don’t realize the pain is still there until you do start talking about it,” Butler said from his southeast Wichita living room. “It’s getting better, but it’ll never go away.”

The 1981 flood

Butler walked the Gypsum Creek banks again on Monday, this time searching for the missing 11-year-old, Devon Cooley.

Devon was swept away in Gypsum Creek after heavy rains saturated the creek, which firefighters estimated was flowing between 8 and 12 mph.

Butler didn’t need to be reminded of how fast the creek was flowing – he knew how deadly it could be.

Torrential rains swept through the Wichita area in the evening hours of June 29, 1981, causing the brown, muddy waters of Gypsum Creek to rise.

Will Butler Jr., 15, was swimming in the creek with two friends around the footbridge near Jardine Middle School – the same area where Devon was last seen above the water, firefighters have said.

Will was an accomplished swimmer, his father said.

He had swum since he was at least 5 years old, and would go fishing or swimming “every day if he could,” Butler said.

But when the waters began to rise and the current picked up, the creek became deadly even for the most accomplished swimmer.

“That night it was just a raging river when we went looking for him,” Butler said. “I don’t care how good a swimmer you are … when that force comes, you’re not going to swim in it.”

Rescue crews called off their search at 11 that night, and Butler went home and prayed. He prayed that God would lead him to where his son was.

His prayers were answered the following morning.

Butler, frightened that his son might have been swept into the Arkansas River, became convinced Will was in the creek near Joyland Amusement Park.

The short-staffed rescue crews that day ignored Butler’s request to search in that area, so Butler went himself.

When he got to the creek, he noticed part of his son’s arm poking through the silt near the creek bank.

The father attempted to pull his son out, but Will would not budge.

“He was buried completely in the sand,” Butler said. “If (his arm) wasn’t sticking up, I don’t know if we would ever have found him.

“The finding was the hard part.”

Coping with the loss

For about nine years after Will was found, Butler refused to accept what had happened.

He lost faith in God, he said, and turned to alcohol.

If he wasn’t working at Boeing, he was tending to his alfalfa and milo fields on his 40-acre farm near Augusta.

“I think the work part was just a distraction so I wouldn’t think about it,” Butler said. “You couldn’t face it because you didn’t have time to think.

“I became very bitter, and I wanted to know why (God) didn’t take me instead of him. I think I took it as punishment for me that it was on him.”

It wasn’t until two World Impact missionaries came to minister to him that he began to feel love in his life again, he said.

“(They) showed us what the real love of Christ was all about, I think,” Butler said. “To me, for someone who didn’t know you could show that kind of love, it really got me to open my eyes.”

Butler and his wife, Cynthia, became foster parents for 12 years.

In that time, the Butlers said they had more than 300 kids come in and out of their house. They provided emergency 72-hour shelter in addition to longer-term foster care services.

They ended up adopting two of their foster children.

All of this, meanwhile, was slowly helping him heal from the loss of his son.

“It’s so cool to watch them grow up and become who God created them to be,” Cynthia Butler said of their foster children. “(God) took one son, but he has blessed us with an incredible … big family. He just gives back.”

William Butler, now 74, still cries when he talks about his son.

The pain, he said, is “never going to heal completely.”

“It’s a lifetime thing,” he said. “It’s nothing extreme, like it was. You never think you can hurt that bad, but it gets better as time goes on.”

The first day of life after Will began eight years after his death, when his father visited his gravesite at Highland Cemetery and left a letter on the headstone.

In the letter, William Butler wrote about how much he missed his son and about how fondly he remembered the times he would take his three sons skating or bowling. How he wished he could have experienced more in life.

But mostly how much he was loved.

Planeview remembers

Marc Kemp, who has lived in Planeview nearly all his life, still remembers Will Butler.

He was the neighborhood friend whom everyone wanted to play basketball or football with, he said.

Kemp’s backyard now abuts the Planeview bike path alongside Gypsum Creek.

When he saw firefighters and divers searching through the creek last weekend for Devon Cooley, it brought back waves of bad memories, he said.

“It’s just like reliving 35 years ago all over again,” Kemp said. “It’s kind of eerie … that something like this is happening all over again.”

The difference: Devon still has not been found, which means the Cooley family has no closure.

“The mind really wants to think, without seeing (a body), there’s some possibility … he could still be alive,” William Butler said.

“You don’t really accept it. You don’t accept it even after you find him, but you want that hope.”

Firefighters continue to search for Devon, though high waters and strong currents in Gypsum Creek have temporarily suspended efforts.

Devon’s family hosted a candlelight vigil Monday night to memorialize Devon, who would have turned 12 on Thursday.

Butler came to the vigil with advice for the family: Don’t be afraid to grieve, mourn, cry about it and share Devon’s memory with the world.

“Counseling after treatment, for me, was what started the healing, when that guy showed me the love of Christ,” he said Tuesday. “It had a big impact on healing.”

This story was originally published June 2, 2016 at 5:43 PM with the headline "Dad lost son in same creek where Wichita boy was last seen."