The Disappearance of Wilfred “Butch” King III (Vermont)

After spending an early Friday evening hunting in the woods behind his home in Vermont, Wilfred “Butch” King III left his home on two crutches, driving off into the fall night never to be seen alive again. 

Despite years of investigation, what happened on the night of October 24, 1980 remains a mystery. There are many people, from investigators to family, who say they have strong theories about who is behind Butch’s disappearance, yet decades later, police have never even been close to proving those theories right.

Disappearance

There was nothing significant about the day of October 24, 1980 for Wilfred “Butch” King III before he went missing, except for the fact that he was waiting for a phone call.   

According to reporting by Leslie Koren for the Burlington Free Press, Butch’s parents, who lived next door to him, did not know who their son was expecting a call from. All they knew was that this call was important enough that Butch said he could not leave home until he received it. Butch stayed nearby and hunted in the acres of woods behind his family’s property.   

Butch especially enjoyed hunting for squirrels, which are extra challenging to catch with a rifle. He was out there, following the fast-moving rodents in 40-something-degree windy fall weather for much of the afternoon. By the time he came inside and cleaned up, the call he’d been waiting for came through.

He didn’t leave the house immediately. Butch finished dinner and then about two hours after the call which came in around 5 p.m., he told his parents he was going out to meet up with some friends. He left the house alone around 7 p.m. and got into his four-wheel-drive 1979 blue and white Chevrolet Blazer, an old-school truck decked out with a yellow plow and trailer hitch, plus a yellow light on the roof. He drove away from the home that he’d built at 114 Jericho Road in Essex Junction, Vermont for the last time.

The only sign of him the next day came when two hunters found his crutches, covered in blood, in a field off Middle Road in Colchester. He needed those metal crutches to walk since recovering from being hit by a car two years earlier. Later, when police went to search the field, they also uncovered one of Butch’s boots.

At the time, Colchester Police Officer Clayton Wood said they were treating the situation as a missing persons investigation but were not ruling out foul play. He added that the longer he stayed missing, the more likely foul play was involved. As of this year, 2025, Butch King has been missing for 45 years.

Background on Butch

Butch was born on April 22, 1943. He grew up in Essex Junction, Vermont, the second of Lillian and Wilfred King Jr.’s six children. Butch’s parents had started a paving business together, King Paving Co. in 1957, which they operated out of their home at 118 Jericho Road. The house sat on more than 10 acres of land, with plenty of room to store the paving equipment.

Butch didn’t finish high school and instead he started working for the small but successful family paving business. When paving work slowed down during the winter months, he worked as a carpenter.

When he was 19-years old, Butch’s parents carved off a two acre plot of their land for Butch and he used his carpenter skills to build himself a four-bedroom one-bath, two-story home,(72)(36) just 250 feet away from his parents’ house.

At 23 years old, Butch married 20-year-old Diane Irish on June 25, 1966. She was a cosmetologist at the time. The following year they welcomed their first child, Joey King. Then came a daughter in 1970, and another son in 1971.

Butch was raising his children with his wife and running the family business with his parents. From the outside, they seem like a very close-knit happy family. But their home-life changed drastically after a devastating accident. 

On April 18, 1978, Butch was hit crossing the street outside his house, which sat right along Vermont Route 15, when a 41-year-old woman travelling westbound hit Butch with her car, throwing him up onto the windshield before he rolled down the vehicle’s side. The collision damaged the windshield and hood, but the driver walked away unscathed. (10)(9) Meanwhile, 34-year-old Butch was in critical condition. Doctors at the Medical Center Hospital in Burlington told Butch’s father that his son did not have much chance of surviving the injuries, let alone the resulting pneumonia while he was still in the hospital. And if he did survive, he may never be able to walk again, and would likely be in a vegetative state.

For the first few weeks Butch lay in a coma, but he eventually, miraculously woke up. Still, he was bed-ridden for 8 months after that. Despite the doctor’s predictions though, Butch’s determination and daily practice allowed him to get around on his own again. First with a wheel chair, and then by walking with two crutches. 

In August of 1978, four months following the accident, Diane took out a section in the Burlington Free Press to thank the doctors, nurses and staff for taking very good care of her husband.

A few months later, in December of 1978, the couple brought a lawsuit against the driver who hit Butch. Butch sought $135,000 for his injuries, while Diane asked for $100,000 for herself because, as it is detailed in the lawsuit, she was deprived of, “love, affection, comfort, aid, support, service, and consortium.”

The couple’s relationship suffered in the accident’s aftermath. In interrogatories for the lawsuit which they both signed, they said how the accident had changed their lifestyles. Both said that the other had also changed in, “personality, attitude, manners, state of mind and emotional state.” Diane also told The Burlington Free Press that Butch was like a totally different person after the accident, that he got depressed and his personality changed.

Their case against the driver was still pending in mid-1980 when Butch filed for divorce from Diane. She filed a counterclaim against it, and moved out of the family home. Their two youngest children went with Diane, while their oldest, Joey, stayed with his father.

Diane and Butch finally reached an agreement in their divorce case in September of 1980, giving Butch custody of Joey and Diane custody of their daughter and other son, with visitation rights granted on both sides. The agreement also gave Butch the family home that he built next to his parents on Jericho Road, where he ran the family business. When the agreement was approved, it would give him and Joey official legal rights over the home. 

The arrangement was still pending a final hearing in December of 1980. That hearing would never take place, because within weeks of the initial divorce agreement, Butch vanished.