Inside the Mind of Eugene Butler: Paranoia and Murder on the Farm

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Eugene Butler moved to a quiet north Dakota farm and built himself a fortune.

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No family, no fuss, just a guy and his land.

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But beneath that calm surface was a man haunted by shadows that only he could see.

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But when the sheriff got involved, Eugene ended up in a mental hospital.

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Then years later, something was found beneath his farmhouse that flipped the whole story upside

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down.

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Before we jump into that story, if you like true crime, brief and bingeable, you're exactly

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where you need to be.

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Hit follow now for at least two new episodes every week.

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This is 10 Minute Murder.

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Let's get into it.

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Niagara North Dakota is one of those places where if you blink, you might miss it.

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Around 50 people call it home.

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And the landscape looks like the kind of peaceful farmland postcard you'd expect.

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Some green pastures, animals grazing like they don't have a care in the world.

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Nothing about it screams dark or twisted.

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But appearances can be deceiving.

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Back around the turn of the 20th century, Shawnee, a tiny farming village just few miles

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from Grand Forks, welcomed a new neighbor.

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Eugene Butler rolled into town with his brand new 480 acre farm.

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And Shawnee has never quite been the same sense.

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Eugene came from Royalton, New York.

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A good stretch from his new dirt patch in the two brothers he left behind.

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Still, he wasn't a rookie.

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He knew his way around a farm and within a few years, folks noticed his place was booming.

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The herd was thriving, the land was shaped up and the money was flowing.

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Eugene was making a killing.

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With no wife, no kids, to split the take, every penny stayed right in his own pocket.

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Eugene earned a reputation for being notoriously cheap.

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His neighbors remembered him, griping about how much his housekeepers cost him.

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Even though cash seemed to flow like the Missouri River, Eugene quickly put a stop to what he

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called "costly luxuries" and fired all of his staff.

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Instead, he took the farm work and the house chores himself, managing the large farm house

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he built with his own hands.

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Only during the busy summer months when the farm worked piled up, would he reluctantly

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hire a few seasonal farm hands.

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At first, this setup seemed to suit him.

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Neighbors described Eugene as friendly, even a bit charming, but as the years passed, he

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retreated further into himself.

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People who once considered him a friend, chalked it up to a lonely or lifestyle he was choosing

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to live.

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When he wasn't paying farm hands, Eugene could go long stretches without talking to or even

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seeing anyone.

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His world, his whole bubble shrank to cattle, crops and chores.

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He rarely made the trip into town, but when Eugene did show up in public, that's when

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things started to raise eyebrows.

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By the time people did catch sight of Eugene, he looked absolutely worn down, disheveled

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and on edge.

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He kept saying someone was after him, though he couldn't always say who was after him.

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Things got strange enough that in 1904, Eugene made the Grand Forks Herald.

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The local paper called out his odd behavior and reported that Eugene claimed every widow

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and old maid in the country was desperate to marry him.

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In some ways that might have been right, to a certain extent.

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His farm was crushing it financially.

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Just the land alone would be valued between $40,000 and $50,000 back then, which would translate

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to making Eugene a millionaire by today's standard.

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He'd taken a rundown patch of dirt and turned it into a cash machine, but Eugene himself

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was clearly unraveling.

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It's safe to say that any woman who actually knew Eugene wasn't rushing to say yes, and

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no one could expect every widow and old maid in the country to even know he existed.

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So those marriage claims?

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Let's just call them optimistic.

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Eugene's neighbors were seeing the first signs of serious paranoia.

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He talked nonstop about invisible men chasing him and believed that they were always trying

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to break into his farm.

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By day, he tended to his animals and worked the land.

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But at night, he was a completely different person.

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Neighbors saw him standing guard outside his house or acting even more erratic.

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He'd race his horse through the farm after dark, screaming like he was charging into battle.

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This kind of terrified the community that wake up, convinced something was wrong, only to

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find Eugene fighting enemies no one else could see.

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Eventually, they called the sheriff.

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When he arrived and saw Eugene, he decided the man needed help.

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Eugene was admitted to the North Dakota State Hospital in Jamestown.

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He's likely to have been the richest person ever to be sent to a mental institution in

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North Dakota at that time.

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Looking back, it was clearly the right decision.

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When Eugene arrived at the North Dakota State Hospital, it didn't take long for staff to

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realize he was in no condition to care for himself.

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He was consumed by fear, constantly talking about the invisible men who were chasing him.

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The ones only he seemed to see.

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His paranoia was so deep that he refused to have his photograph taken.

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Convinced the camera would suck out his soul.

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Whether you believe in ghosts or not, this man was clearly trapped inside his own private

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nightmare.

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Despite all the fear and confusion, Eugene wasn't violent or aggressive.

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In fact, hospital staff described him as mostly a model patient.

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He never heard himself or others and rarely showed anger.

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Instead, he carried kind of a quiet sadness, like someone weighed down by a mental illness

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too powerful to overcome on his own.

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One surprising detail from this time was his fondness for the hospital dances.

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It's hard to imagine, but Eugene found moments of joy in these gatherings.

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He even fell deeply in love with one of the nurses, showing a tenderness that seemed at

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odds with the dark thoughts that haunted him.

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For nearly a decade in the hospital, Eugene remained in this fragile state.

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Then in 1913, he passed away quietly in his early 60s.

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His two brothers, still living back in New York, received his remains, which were sent to

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Middleport for burial.

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This gave some measure of closure to a life overshadowed by mental illness, a chapter that

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had kept Eugene from the world and from himself.

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But as Eugene's story wrapped up, a new question came into focus.

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What was going to happen to that highly profitable farm he had left behind?

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Eugene's legal guardian, a lawyer named Wilbur Halt, took charge of dividing what was left

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of the farming empire.

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The land and assets were split between Eugene's brothers and their children.

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About two years after Eugene died, work began on the farmhouse to bring the property back

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up to life.

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That's when a workman named Leo was digging under the farmhouse cellar when he stumbled

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onto something unexpected.

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He found what looked like a trapped door in the ground.

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Curious, he opened it and saw layers of red clay and dark dirt.

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Leo started poking around with a shovel to figure out what exactly the space had been used

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for.

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But he had no idea what was waiting below.

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Lined up and shallow graves were six bodies.

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The site was brutal.

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Since Eugene had spent nearly a decade in the asylum, those remains had been underground

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site unseen for at least that long.

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The bodies were too decomposed to pinpoint exactly when they had been buried.

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Each victim had been killed by a blow to the head with a sharp object, crushing their

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skulls.

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Some had broken legs, likely to fit inside the cramped cellar.

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At first, investigators thought Eugene had killed an entire family since two of the remains

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appeared to be female.

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But neighbors had no memory of anyone in the area going missing.

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No family, no strangers.

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The truth was darker.

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Eugene's victims were young men, aged between 15 and 18.

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They'd been killed, stripped, and buried in his cellar.

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No one came looking for them.

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Most likely they were seasonal farm hands Eugene had hired.

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Transients, desperate for work, with nowhere else to call home.

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With Eugene long gone, figuring out why he might have killed these young men, is like trying

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to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

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Many quickly came up as a possible motive.

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Eugene was notorious for being stingy.

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He complained about every penny spent and kept large sums of cash hidden around the farmhouse.

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When authorities searched the place after his death, they uncovered roughly $6,000 stashed

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away, which is about $215,000 in today's money.

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A small fortune just lying around.

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One theory is that the boys, likely seasonal farm hands with little else, might have been

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tempted to try to steal from Eugene.

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If that's true, he didn't hesitate to use deadly force.

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There is also the possibility that Eugene's paranoia spiraled out of control.

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Maybe he saw threats where there were none and killed in a panic, or out of fear that cannot

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be fully understood now.

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A more complex theory touches on Eugene's sexuality.

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Some believe he might have been struggling with his identity and punish these young men

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either for tempting him or rejecting his advances.

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Back then, such things were hidden in silence and shame, and it could have added to his inner

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turmoil.

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Ultimately, none of this is certain.

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No clear answers have ever surfaced.

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The motive remains buried beneath layers of mystery, just like the victims themselves.

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Identifying the victims proved impossible.

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Their remains were collected into a box, but several went missing, likely taken by souvenir

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hunters.

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The box and much of the evidence has since disappeared completely.

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In 2016, the Grand Forks County Sheriff's Department made a public appeal for new leads or

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information, showing this case still haunts the community today.

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