What a Homeless Man's Loved Ones Want You to Know About Him After His Death

EDWARDSVILLE/GLEN CARBON - “If you knew Matthew, you loved him.”

That’s what Matthew Butler’s loved ones want people to know about the former attorney who slept on the steps of the Madison County Courthouse. Butler died on Friday, July 7, after he was hit by a car the week before.

Now, his family and friends are hoping to change the way people think about mental illness and homelessness by telling Butler’s story.

“The thing about Matthew is that his heart was always good. I mean, his whole life, he was a sweet kid,” Chuck Youchoff said. While Youchoff and Butler were technically cousins, they were only 6 months apart in age and considered each other brothers.

Youchoff explained that Butler was raised in a religious home by a single mother in Springfield. Butler rooted for the Cubs and debated baseball with Youchoff, who was a Cardinals fan. They collected baseball cards together.

By high school, Butler already stood out for his intelligence and ambition. He attended the University of Illinois in Champaign on a full scholarship and received a bachelor’s degree in journalism, then moved to California to study at the University of San Diego Law School, where he completed his doctorate in law.

“Matthew choosing to be a lawyer, we struggled with it a little bit. It didn’t make sense because of how sweet he was,” Youchoff laughed. “Eventually it made sense, because he worked in class-action lawsuits. And so he ended up kind of helping the everyman not be taken advantage of…He was good at what he did. God knows I helped him; I argued with that sucker his whole life.”

Two years after receiving his doctorate, Butler opened his own firm. He met and married a district attorney in Orange County, and they had a son. A few years later, Butler remarried and had another son with his second wife. Youchoff was Butler’s best man, and he said the boys, aged 17 and 10 now, “could not be more wonderful kids.”

The quick success just confirmed what his loved ones had always known: Butler was brilliant, kind and on a promising path.

“Pretty early on, Matthew realized he was probably going to have to make his own way,” Lynda Pavia, Youchoff’s mother and Butler’s aunt, said. “We couldn’t have been prouder of him…You just think sometimes your heart will burst because you’re so proud of someone. He was such a good dad.”

But Butler’s life took a sudden and devastating turn. At age 40, he had a heart valve replacement surgery. Less than a year later, a psychotic break. Butler’s mother, who had moved to California to be near her son and grandchildren, called Youchoff and explained what was happening; Youchoff helped him check into a psychiatric hospital.

“I know this sounds insane now, but at the time, we thought, you never know what happens with people. Some people have an episode like that and will have one again…Other people do not,” Youchoff said. “Well, Matthew was fine.”

Butler returned to his wife and son and resumed practicing law. Believing that the episode had been a one-time event, he refused to seek any other treatment. But it quickly became apparent that he was suffering from something bigger. While they never received a final diagnosis and there is evidence to suggest vascular dementia, Youchoff ultimately believes he had late-onset schizophrenia.

“And because he was so damn smart, he could make it sound plausible, even though it’s not,” Youchoff said of Butler’s worsening delusions.

Butler had already dedicated a large amount of his savings to his sons’ college education funds. He took the rest of the money he had made as an attorney — nearly $5 million — and traveled around the country, staying in hotel rooms and trying to dodge people he believed were after him.

Butler eventually landed in the Edwardsville and Glen Carbon area because it was near Youchoff. But the money had run out. He was homeless.

This is when many people will recognize Butler’s story. He became a fixture in the area, but only to the people who chose to notice him. A homeless, mentally ill man was easy to overlook.

Marianne Kaemmerer Tellor became one of Butler’s closest friends in Edwardsville. She tried many times to connect him with mental health services or provide him with resources, but she eventually realized that it was Butler’s mental illness, not stubbornness, that prevented him from accepting help. While she didn’t always understand it, she chose to show compassion.

“He could not think straight well enough to accept housing,” Tellor explained. “He did not enjoy living out on the streets, but he felt like it was the only safe place for him, which I know doesn’t make sense to us, but it did to him…It’s not that he didn’t have [help] available. But in his mind, he couldn’t accept it from his mom or his brother.”

Yet Butler was never truly alone. He made a lot of friends, and he enjoyed being near the Madison County Courthouse and local libraries, where he would talk to people about their legal troubles and quote snippets of law texts. Edwardsville’s 222 Artisan Bakery became one of his favorite spots. He’d drink coffee with the other regulars and chat about baseball, fishing and philosophy.

“If we could get more people to look at people that have mental illnesses or just people that fell on hard times and ended up on the streets, to look at them as a person and not at the outer shell,” Tellor said. “I love Matthew like he was my son. I absolutely do. My husband did, too. We would have never known that if I would’ve just seen a guy that wasn’t taking a shower…He taught me to love someone the way they are.”

She added that she has learned a lot about Butler — the real Butler, who he was when he was healthy — since his passing. She had a sense, based on what he had told her. But her understanding of Butler has expanded as she talked to his family and even looked at his LinkedIn page, which features an impressive resume and dozens of comments about his work as an attorney, his kindness as a mentor, and even one note from a woman who says he helped her get a job when she really needed it.

In a lot of ways, Butler was still that man. One of his friends from 222 Artisan Bakery gifted him a pair of leather gloves last winter; Butler gave them to someone else who needed to stay warm. He once looked over the bakery’s contracts as a favor to Kim Goodner, the owner. He always chose to go to Lion’s Choice with Tellor when he had money, because he wanted to repay them for the meals they gave him when he didn’t.

“It has been a tremendous comfort to my family that the people of Edwardsville seemed to put their arms around Matthew and care for him and take care of him and help him on his way,” Pavia said. “The people of Edwardsville were a gift from God.”

Tellor echoed that the support he received helped him a great deal, and those that couldn’t see him beyond his situation missed out on knowing a great man.

“The way the community supported Matthew changed his whole life,” Tellor said, adding, “Just because he had a mental illness didn’t mean he didn’t have a personality.”

Butler had a sweet tooth and loved the cinnamon rolls made by Goodner and her employees, who also got to know him. Tellor always encouraged him to eat something nutritious, and he’d tease her that the peanut butter in a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard counted as protein. Pavia remembers that he could never tell a joke without giving away the punchline halfway through.

This is partly why it felt “hideously helpless” to watch his mental health deteriorate, Pavia explained through tears. As a former attorney, Butler knew what to say to avoid being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. He refused to take medication, and his loved ones found it impossible to convince him that what he believed wasn’t reality.

“I had this delusion that I would be able to help him and save him and s***. You tell yourself whatever you can while you’re going through something like that with family that you love dearly," Youchoff said. “I was not good enough to talk around the disease. And he was a lawyer to begin with, you know? Trying to convince my brother to do anything he didn’t want to do wasn’t going to happen. And like I said, in our society, we just let those people die.”

This is what most upsets Youchoff. Butler had five social workers through a local mental health center; three of them quit because they were underpaid. His family looked into a guardianship but found it wouldn’t allow them to admit Butler to a psychiatric ward like they felt he needed. Youchoff notes that the Edwardsville and Glen Carbon police officers “were very good” to Butler when they interacted with him, but Youchoff became frustrated that they couldn’t do more to help his brother. He sees a series of systemic failures in Butler’s story.

“We have more wealth as a nation than any has ever had in history, and we don’t give a f*** about our people,” Youchoff said. “There were still people who viewed a homeless person as, if a guy doesn’t smell good, he must be worthless. He must be someone with no redeemable value.”

It was compassion, not judgment, that helped Butler the most. Butler’s loved ones want people to remember that life can change in a split second for anyone; that’s what happened to him.

“You never know. You never know what’s going to happen someday with your path, and you never know what somebody’s suffering from,” Goodner said. “He has a story. He has kids. There’s something nice there. Don’t judge that person, because that could be you down the road sometime, or your family member…And if you need help, ask for help.”

Even though Butler lost a lot, he never lost his love for the people in his life, especially his sons. He kept a guitar pick on him at all times, because he had been teaching his oldest son how to play guitar. He looked at pictures of his sons every night; when his backpack was stolen last year, those photos were the first thing he replaced.

“Matthew was a father and he loved his children, but he hadn’t seen or talked to them for about ten years,” Tellor explained. “The reason why he didn’t was because he knew that was the best for them, and he was trying to protect them…He was a good father when he was capable of being a good father.”

Youchoff and Pavia make sure the boys know that. They spend time with them during summers and holidays. The kids are growing up to be smart and kind like their father, which makes his family proud.

As Butler’s family and friends grieve, they want people to know that he was loved. His struggles never changed that. They’re appreciative of those who cared about him and the people who saw him.

“The only way I can keep from crying right now is to be angry…but I’d rather tell you about Matthew. I’d rather you knew about how good he was,” Youchoff said. “I wish there was a way for us to tell all those people that gave him a place to stay or any kindness; that is what we’re supposed to give those f****** people. For all of those people that remembered that, I want to thank them. Tell them that was the right thing and that we’ll never be able to pay them back.”

More than anything, Butler’s loved ones hope that people will learn from his life. They want to shine a light on how important mental health and social work is. Butler never got the help he needed, but others’ stories don’t need to end the same way.

“I want people to be aware that mental illness can happen to any family at any time” Pavia said. “And you find yourself trying so hard to understand where the person that you love so much has gone, what has happened. And worse than that, there is no help…I feel like, if his death does nothing else, maybe it will [encourage] people to look into or help with mental healthcare. It’s so bad. And there are so many people who need it so badly.”

A GoFundMe has been organized for Butler’s children; you can donate here.

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