Detroit man charged over missing 13-year-old Na’Ziyah Harris will stand trial

Jarvis Butts, 42, of Detroit, the man accused of kidnapping and murdering 13-year-old Na’Ziyah Harris, will stand trial, CBS reports. 

On Jan. 9, 2024, Na’Ziyah Harris was reported missing by her grandmother and adoptive mother, Annette Harris when she didn’t come home from school in Detroit, MI.

Her grandmother, recalled dropping her off at school that morning and searching through the neighborhood and at her school when she didn’t return home that afternoon. She said the young girl had never gone missing from school before.

Now one year after Na’Ziyah Harris went missing, authorities say they believe they have the person responsible for her disappearance and have charged the 42-year-old Detroit man with murder.

Jarvis Butts charged with Na’Ziyah Harris disappearance and murder

Butts has been charged with first-degree premeditated murder, second-degree criminal sexual conduct and child sexually abusive activity.

Jarvis Butts

Butts is accused of having an inappropriate relationship with Na’Ziyah, who was last seen getting off the school bus in her Detroit neighborhood on Jan. 9, 2024. Na’Ziyah’s body has never been recovered.

Na’Ziyah Harris goes missing

During a court hearing on Jan. 16, 2025 to determine if Butts should stand trial, prosecutors revealed disturbing details about this tragic case.

Prosecutors said Na’Ziyah used a school-issued tablet to send text messages from her class to Butts to confirm they would be meeting after she got out of school that day.

Harris then allegedly met up with Butts and the two reportedly went to Ypsilanti, Michigan before returning back to Detroit, where Butts checked into a motel. Harris was then never heard from again and was reported missing.

Authorities allege Butts had been sexually abusing Harris since 2022 before deciding to kill her in January 2024.

As a result of the abuse, Harris became pregnant. Text records allegedly show that Butts knew Harris was pregnant and that he began searching online about abortions, abortion pills, and drinking red anti-freeze.

Suspect has a horrific history

According to prosecutors, Butts has a grimy past, specifically targeting and befriending women to get close to and sexually abuse their young daughters.

What Butts is alleged to have done to Harris is not the only sexual abuse case Butts is involved with. He also has been charged for reportedly sexually abusing two other young girls, and was convicted of sexual assault in 2005, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors called Butts a “serial child rapist,” who sexually assaulted an 8-year-old family member and a girlfriend’s 4-year-old daughter, who reportedly caught an STD from the assault.

He was charged on Sept. 27, 2024, as a habitual fourth-time offender.

Butts and Harris had reportedly known each other because he was the father of her cousins.

Butts had been the on-and-off-again boyfriend of the preteen’s aunt, Shannon Harris, who he shared five children with. Harris testified in court she didn’t suspect anything was going on between them beyond a standard niece-uncle relationship.

The abuse of Harris allegedly began in 2022 with sexually explicit texts and photos being sent to the child.

How suspect was determined to be connected

Authorities said they were able to track Butts to the Rouge River in Detroit the day after her disappearance, where police would later recover the clothes Harris was last seen wearing. Authorities said there was damage to the clothing that could indicate there was a struggle.

ClickOnDetroit reports, investigators found suspicious Google searches from December 2023 on electronic devices belonging to Butts one month before Na’Ziyah disappeared.

The Detroit Public Schools Police Department reportedly investigated the case until early February 2024 and then turned it over to the Detroit Police Department.

The defense argued that there isn’t enough of a connection between the alleged evidence to suggest that Butts is responsible for Harris’s death. However, Judge Aliyah Sabree found that there was enough for a jury trial. She has sent the case to the 3rd Circuit Court for trial.

“You’re the monster in this whole picture,” Sabree told Butts in court on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, reports CBS News Detroit.

Butts has entered a not guilty plea.