Second of two parts
In the 46 years this newspaper has been covering murder trials, it’s likely no defense attorney has had the challenge that faced Liz Griffith this week.
After all, her client, De’Monta Bell, was accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Colton Butler, and jurors early in the trial saw a video of the defendant shooting him.
This was no “pull a gun quickly and fire” type of shooting. While jurors could not see the first being fired, Bell then ran up beside a truck, into camera view, planted his feet, and with his left hand cupping his right hand holding a pistol, then carefully aimed and fired as Butler fled.
Assistant District Attorney Jeff Mixon said six of seven shots hit their intended target, with at least three hitting Bell in the back.
Despite this unforgettable footage, Griffith put on a possible case of self-defense, but to do so, she took the risk of putting Bell himself on the witness stand.
But to no avail. Jurors convicted Bell Friday afternoon of first-degree murder and suggested he serve life in prison.
The shooting occurred just after midnight, in the first hour of Sunday morning, March 23, 2025, between the gas pumps and the highway of the E-Z Mart store on North Park Drive, Broken Bow.
Bell told jurors he went into the store to get some cigars, and while there, several men came into the store, including Butler.
Bell was at the check-out register when Butler passed by. He said that as Butler passed, Butler said, “What up, bitch-ass n—–? I’m going to kill you.”
Bell said he became very frightened, since Butler had earlier shot up the home where he lived in Idabel.
Bell drove to his uncle’s house in Broken Bow, grabbed a gun, and because he was worried that Butler might be going to shoot up his girlfriend’s house on the north edge of Broken Bow, he followed Butler’s vehicle northward.
The gold GMC truck in which Butler was a passenger turned around at the Jiffy Lube-Fast Lane parking lot, then headed south, with Bell still following it.
The GMC pulled into the E-Z Mart; so did Bell.
The driver of the GMC, Brayden McGee, jumped out and walked back toward Bell, saying, “Whatever you and Butler got going on, that’s between y’all.”
Bell said he got out of his truck and chambered a bullet into the pistol he had gotten at his uncle’s place.
Then Butler started getting out of the passenger side of the GMC, with his left hand in his pocket, and told McGee, “Stop talking to him before I kill him.”
Griffith asked him what his emotions were at that time.
“I thought, ‘He’s pulling a gun; he’s about to shoot,’” said Bell.
“Did you, in fact, kill Colton Butler that night?” Griffith asked. “Yes.”
Then the attorney asked about Butler’s reputation in the community, and Bell said he tried to kill Karen Ramirez, according to Bell’s girlfriend. He said Butler was violent and had beaten other women with whom he had relationships.
He had also fired gunshots into the home where Bell lived in January 2025, hitting one man there, Lewis Craig, in the hand.
Bell said his brother Reginald Hare had contacted him one day, saying Butler had just posted on Snapchat that Bell was at the Valliant mill and he was about to kill him.
Bell said he drove directly home.
“Did you think he was going to kill you?” asked Griffith. “Yes.”
But Bell said instead of shooting Butler that night, he wished he had just gone home.
On cross-examination, Mixon pulled up the video from that night, showing the time stamp of when the Ford Expedition Bell was driving left the E-Z Mart parking lot.
He asked Bell how long it took to drive to his uncle’s house to get the gun. About five minutes. How long to get the gun? About two minutes.
OK, said Mixon, so driving to and from the uncle’s house and getting the gun, 12 minutes. Add to that the time following the gold GMC to the Fast Lane parking lot, then turning around and driving back to the E-Z Mart parking area.
When the two trucks pulled into E-Mart parking lot, Mixon pointed out the time stamp again. Only nine minutes had passed.
Mixon would claim Bell never went to get a gun, and that he actually had it with him the whole time.
He mocked Bell a bit, saying he was so scared of Butler that he not only followed him north but followed him again south at Broken Bow, that he was so scared of Butler that he pulled up close behind him to confront him and loaded a bullet into the chamber.
“You followed him south. You did that because you were so scared of Colton?”
Then Mixon brought up the video of the shooting.
“You weren’t scared at all. You were cool and calm. You hit a moving target six times out of seven shots,” he said.
After the shooting, Bell headed south toward Idabel, and police issued a BOLO (be on the lookout) for the black Expedition.
Idabel officer Amanda Nobles spotted it, hit her lights, and pursued it as the vehicle turned onto Ninth Street.
A few blocks later, the vehicle pulled over, Bell jumped out, kicked off his shoes, and ran four blocks to his uncle’s house.
What about the gun he had just used to kill Butler?
He told Mixon he threw it into the vehicle before fleeing.
But the gun was never found, Mixon noted.
The prosecutor introduced as evidence paperwork showing Bell had previously been convicted of racketeering, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Blakely Williston was called as both a state and defense witness. She had begun dating Butler, she said, when she was 15, and he was 26. He had been violent to her on many occasions, sent her to the hospital once and pistol-whipped her to the point of unconsciousness.
She later began dating Bell.
She testified that she had Butler’s name tattooed on her wrist, but later covered it with another tattoo, and had since tattooed Bell’s name on her butt.
A few days before the fatal shooting, she had become sick, and Butler took her to the doctor’s office, but the waiting room was too busy, so she left, and Butler beat her outside the office. She filed a police report and told Bell of the incident.
She said she was also riding with Butler when he fired the six shots into the home of Bell’s grandmother, where Bell also lived.
Butler hid the gun he used in that incident; she told officers where the gun was, and they found it.
Butler was arrested on a complaint of shooting into a dwelling, but no charges had been filed by the time he was killed two months later.
Williston also claimed that Butler had fired shots at her mother’s home in Garvin while children were playing outside.
Griffith told jurors in closing remarks that she believed Butler had a gun in his left pocket that night, and that his friends may have retrieved it before police responded.
Mixon said jurors cannot make decisions based on conjecture. He said Bell was clearly the aggressor that night, and the defense of self-defense is not available to those who are aggressors.
He asked that jurors give Bell life in prison, and noted that despite Bell’s attorney calling Butler a “monster,” he had only been convicted before of a misdemeanor, violating a protective order, while Bell had been convicted of a felony, racketeering.
“Who’s the monster here? Mixon asked.
Griffith said it was one of the most difficult cases of her career.
Because first-degree requires at least 85 percent of the sentence to be actually served, Bell, 28, won’t be eligible for parole until he is about 66 years old.
