RIP Dan and Spit

On July 4, 1998, two skinheads — Lin “Spit” Newborn, 24, and Dan Shersty, 20 — were murdered by boneheads in the rocky desert northwest of Las Vegas, USA. Their crime, like that of Maciek D., was to be effective in the fight against racism and fascism.

The only person to be convicted of their murders, John Edward Butler, was initially sentenced to death for the crime in 2001, but, after failing in his first attempt in 2002, was eventually successful in winning an appeal against his sentence in 2004. However, prosecutors say that at least four people were involved in the plot to kill Lin and Dan, although so far no others have been charged. Further, “While hate crimes such as the torture of a gay man in Wyoming and the dragging death of an African-American man in Texas have received national attention, the deaths of Lin Newborn and his friend Dan Shersty are chronicled more by friends and activists than the national press”. In fact:

Prosecutors from the Las Vegas district attorney’s office were slow to prosecute the case despite holding the key evidence necessary to try the case only a week after the murders. It was not until after a 500 person Anti-Racist Action protest in the fall of 1998 in John Butler’s neighborhood, and a similar protest in 1999, where activists marched down the Vegas strip distributing information on the case to tourists and demanding the case be prosecuted, that the district attorney acted.

Allegedly, Butler had received money in the past from the Las Vegas police department as a police informant.

Ross Hack, who fled to Europe when he was identified as a suspect two years ago, has never been charged for his involvement in the murder. According to the defense attorney, Ross Hack has been on a “two-year vacation in Europe,” courtesy of his rich father.

Prosecutors say they have no plans to pursue charges against Ross Hack. Melissa Hack also remains uncharged in the case.

Lionel Newborn said his son had told him that he was involved in various organizations that opposed racism.

After the slayings, the father learned with some pride that his son played a leading role in this effort.

“I had no idea that he was involved to the extent that he was,” Lionel Newborn said. “I probably wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night.”

See also :

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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32 Responses to RIP Dan and Spit

  1. Candy says:

    Please view/join my group I started for my dear friend Lin Newborn. http://groups.myspace.com/SpitRIP

    Please spread the word about this group, it’s a great place for people to preserve his memory!

    Thank you,
    Candy S.

  2. Cassy H. says:

    REST IN PEACE IN A PLACE FREE OF COLOR AND WORRIES WE LOVE YOU SPITFUL
    GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
    CASSY

  3. Jeff says:

    Very sad! Now Butler has a new trial for the sentencing phase! Seems like there is never any peace for the victim’s family.

  4. Very sad says:

    Butler’s girlfriend is on this site called http://www.thedramadome.com you have to sign up to be on it, but she is defending him.

    This site has people on it that have people in jail or prison, but it doesn’t seem to be going over very well there.

    This is so sad.

  5. Too Much says:

    Butler’s g/f is all over the net. There is a site about corruption in NV and she is one of the moderators. She talks about her *baby* and how hard his life is in prison.
    http://www.nevadacorruptions.com
    Butler’s little wench goes by the name of *froggy*

  6. Just found out says:

    I heard Friday from a friend of mine in Vegas that Butler got married in July. I found where the marriage license were purchased in White Pine County. I called White Pine County Court House and found that he was married on 7/22/09 at Ely State Prison.

  7. Just to let you know says:

    People at the dramadome site can’t stand “Froggy” and her racist husband. They have people on there that are black and or in mixed relationships. Also they all, and I mean ALL hate her lying ass.

    Yes Butler the Polar Bitch got married to the dumb broad Mary Evelyn Brasel… Now known as Mary Evelyn Butler.

    SICK F**KS DESERVE EACH OTHER!!!

  8. Aaron says:

    Interesting how all these so-called men fight as a pack and generally prey on people who are alone or outnumbered 10 to one, if they are by themselves they scream insults from the other end of the street and run like rabbits when you make a move on them.

    When you look back to WW2 they were all a bunch of closet gay junkies with serious trust and mental issues, and they are not much different these days. My thoughts are with the family of these skinhead brothers we have lost. A small triumph is that this gutless narc for the pigs is probably someones girlfriend inside.

  9. Summer says:

    I will never forget the hot summer afternoon when my dear friend Spitfull held my 6 month old daughter in his hands and declared himself her Godfather. That was in 1992, and at that time, I couldn’t have imagined a life without him in it. Now I have a son as well, born July 3, 2008…I can’t help but to believe that my Spitfull had something to do with it all. The irony in just the date itself…You are in my heart always Spit…I love you.

  10. A friend says:

    R.I.P Dan & Lin. You will never be forgotten.
    Butler should fry for what he did. He’s nothing but a coward, snitch, bully and scumbag. Reading that he got married sickens me to the core. How can he be allowed to live a decent life when he snuffed out two innocent ones? His wife is obviously a nazi too. Like it was stated before, they deserve each other and I hope that Karma is not far away from these two scumbag, nazi, braindead retarded pos.

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  12. Cherie says:

    R.I.P. You will both always be loved & remembered.

    Why isn’t Butler dead for what he did? He’s married too? The bonehead should be on stale bread and water in solitude with images of his victims plastered to his walls. No visits, no calls and no contact with the outside world, just him rotting in the same misery he likes to inflict on others. He deserves nothing more.

  13. @ndy says:

    Charge bares cold-case probe
    Carri Geer Thevenot
    Las Vegas Review-Journal
    October 16, 2010

    A new criminal case against the former girlfriend of a convicted murderer reveals that federal authorities are investigating the 1998 shooting deaths of two men who opposed racial prejudice.

    Clark County prosecutors contended long ago that Melissa Hack helped lure the two victims to the desert, where they were ambushed and fatally shot, but she was never charged in connection with the high-profile murders.

    A sealed complaint, listing one count of making a false statement, was filed against Hack, 34, in July. It has since been unsealed and replaced with a federal indictment on the same charge.

    “What’s happening here is they have been unable to piece the case together, because we all know if they had enough evidence against her, they’d charge her,” said Hack’s attorney, Brent Bryson. “They don’t, so they’re putting the squeeze on her in other ways, trying to make her feel the pressure.”

    The prosecutors listed on the indictment are Avner Shapiro, a trial attorney with the Justice Department’s civil rights division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Bliss. Trial is set for March 1.

    Fred Merrick, a Las Vegas police violent crimes section detective, prepared the complaint against Hack. According to the document, he was deputized about a year earlier as a temporary federal agent to work with the FBI on the 1998 cold case, which occurred on federal land and “involved subjects… identified with one or more neo-Nazi Skinhead groups.”

    Hack’s former boyfriend, John “Polar Bear” Butler, 38, was the only person charged with the murders. He was convicted in Clark County District Court and sentenced to die, but the death sentence was overturned. He’s serving a life sentence at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs.

    Butler was a leader of the Independent Nazi Skins when he participated in the murders of Lin Newborn, 25, and Daniel Shersty, 21. Prosecutors theorize that the victims were killed because they were members of a skinhead group that opposed racial prejudice, and have said the victims were lured into the desert early on July 4, 1998 by Hack and another, unidentified woman Newborn met while working at Tribal Body Piercing.

    Newborn and Shersty went to the desert near Powerline Road and Centennial Parkway expecting to party but instead were shot, prosecutors said. “John Butler didn’t do it alone,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent said in 2003. “At this point, we have not amassed sufficient evidence to charge anyone else, but the statute of limitations for murder never runs out.”

    On Friday, Laurent said he was unaware of the ongoing federal investigation.

    “The district attorney’s office has not received any additional information that would allow us to proceed on anyone else for these murders,” he said.

    According to the federal complaint, “The investigation identified several subjects who were suspected of luring the victims into the desert the night they were killed.”

    In the new complaint, Merrick noted that Hack associated with the Independent Nazi Skins. Hack’s brother Ross, also a neo-Nazi skinhead, and others in the group were feuding with Newborn, he wrote. “Based upon the investigation into the murders, (Melissa) Hack is considered to be a subject.”

    According to the new federal complaint, Melissa Hack met June 16 with a Nevada parole officer supervising her on unrelated narcotics charges.

    Merrick and FBI Special Agent Kevin Sheehan were there to question her about the murders and to collect fingerprints and DNA pursuant to a federal search warrant. When asked if she had her cell phone with her, Melissa Hack said she had left it at work and that a friend, who was waiting in the lobby, had driven her to the parole office.

    The parole officer then talked to the man who had given Melissa Hack a ride and learned that she had put something in the center console of his car. The phone had stored photos of Melissa Hack and “numerous additional individuals she visibly appeared to associate with. Some of the individuals bore tattoos or signs and symbols that could be relevant to the 1998 murder investigation.”

    Bryson said the federal charge against his client, who works for her father’s vitamin company, amounts to a “thin case” filed in retaliation for her perceived lack of cooperation during the murder investigation.

    “If she continues to be harassed, many options are being considered…” the lawyer said. “It’s pretty well known I handle a lot of civil rights lawsuits.”

    However, Bryson added, “At this point, I have nothing to demonstrate that the government is acting in bad faith.”

    A federal judge in Los Angeles last year sentenced Ross Hack to three years in prison for lying on a passport application while under investigation in the double murder case. He came under scrutiny in January 2008, after he was identified as an organizer of a white supremacist rally in Las Vegas where an individual was assaulted and nearly killed.

    Contact reporter Carri Geer Thevenot at [email protected] or 702-384-8710.

  14. @ndy says:

    Ross Hack got done for lyin’ in 2009. An appeal against a three-year sentence failed in February…

    Ross Hack, Melissa’s brother and leader of the Las Vegas Hammer Skins, a neo-nazi group, has never been charged for his role in the slayings. According to the testimony of Jacob Hack, father of Melissa and Ross Hack, Ross has been on vacation in Europe since being named as a suspect two years ago.

    ~ Butler sentenced to death for activists’ murders, Shawn Gaynor, AGR Online, No. 105, Jan. 18-24, 2001

    ZOG sez:

    Release No. 09-147
    December 16, 2009

    NEVADA MAN SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS IN PRISON FOR LYING TO OBTAIN NEW PASSPORT AFTER AUTHORITIES SEIZED HIS PASSPORT DURING INVESTIGATION INTO DOUBLE MURDER

    LOS ANGELES – An alleged leader of a Las Vegas-based white supremacist gang has been sentenced to three years in federal prison by a federal judge who found that he lied on a passport application as he fled an investigation into his possible involvement in a hate crime in which two people were murdered.

    Ross Hack, 38, of Las Vegas, Nevada was sentenced in federal court in Los Angeles Tuesday afternoon by United States District Judge Dean D. Pregerson, who ordered Hack to surrender to begin serving his sentence on January 20. Hack pleaded guilty to a felony charge of making a false statement on a passport application earlier this year.

    During Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Judge Pregerson called Hack’s case and sentence “unique,” specifically finding that Hack’s motive to commit the crime was to flee an investigation into Hack’s possible involvement in a 1998 double homicide in which two racial tolerance activists were murdered.

    Prior to their murders on July 4, 1998, Daniel Shersty and Linn “Spit” Newborn were leaders of a Las Vegas group known as SHARPs – Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice. On July 30, 1998, during a search warrant executed at Hack’s residence in relation to the murder investigation, authorities seized Hack’s passport, along with weapons and white supremacist propaganda. Investigators left paperwork at the residence informing Hack that his passport was seized by law enforcement.

    A few days later, on August 3, 1998, Hack drove to Los Angeles to file an emergency passport application. In the passport application, Hack stated that he “lost” his passport and that it was “unknown” what happened to it. Hack received his emergency passport and fled to Europe, where he remained for more than six years. While Hack was abroad, his sister’s boyfriend, John Butler, was convicted in the murders of Shersty and Newborn.

    Special Agents with the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, along with investigators with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Gang Division and Violent Crimes Division, began investigating Hack in relation to the passport fraud in January 2008 after he was identified as an organizer of a white supremacist rally in Las Vegas where an individual was assaulted and nearly killed. During the investigation into this attempted murder, authorities realized that Hack had reappeared on the Las Vegas neo-Nazi scene. After reviewing Hack’s 1998 passport application, conducting witness interviews, and interviewing Hack – who admitted that he lied on the passport application because he feared he was being investigated in relation to the double homicide – authorities arrested Hack on March 12, 2008 for passport fraud.

    The case against Hack is part of an ongoing investigation being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Las Vegas Office, Civil Rights Division; the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department; and the United States Department of State, Diplomatic Security Service, Las Vegas and Los Angeles Offices.

    Ross wrote a letter to a Senator in 2009, protesting his innocence:

    My family has paid over $60,000 so far for my defense. I’m a 37 year old father, former Marine, graduated from college in Europe, wrote a book, have a good family and live in an upper middle class neighborhood. But, according to the police and now FBI I’m a domestic terrorist and [sic] trying to link me as a leader of an organization.

  15. Cherie says:

    They are all guilty of being accessories. Lock them all up with Butler and let them fight it out. Lock his dumb wife in with them too, I doubt she has a brain cell to fight in her defense so it should be easy.

  16. Cherie says:

    R.I.P. Dan & Spit. You will never be forgotten.

    Rot in hell Butler, you will never be forgiven. Maybe your nut of a wife will join you in hell.

  17. j says:

    To all of you on this page that posted hateful things i will pray for you. But please let me tell you that M. Hack and her brother Ross truthfully had NOTHING to do with this. That pos butler did for sure, he also several times changed his story and [only] after the Hacks cut off all contact against this sick individual did he turn the story on them. It is not right what happened to these two boys but believe me i know for a fact the Hacks had nothing to do with this, just had relations with a bad person. Now M. Hack’s civil rights have been abused, and nobody seems to care, i can also say that M. Hack is not a SKINHEAD, she is the most loving person in the world, she would give ANYBODY the shirt off of her back to help color not being a problem, one of her best friends is Asian, another Latina so tell me how a supposed skinhead is friends with people who are not white? Justice has been done and now an injustice is happening but nobody cares and it is wrong. Also the leading witness Joseph Justin was shot and killed by Metro Police in Las Vegas while committing a crime and trying to shoot police, you’re going to tell me this guy is credible? Anything he said should be thrown out the window, i am telling you this truthfully the Hacks DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS, THE GOVERNMENT IS JUST LISTENING TO A CONVICTED RACIST MURDERER WHO IS ACTUALLY THE LEADER OF A WHITE POWER GANG NOT R HACK. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BELIEVE ME JUST KNOW THAT I’M BEING TRUTHFUL.

  18. j says:

    How can you guys sit here and say they are all guilty? You don’t even know what is going on or what happened. Answer this: if they are all guilty then why is it in the media that the only people to witness that the Hacks had anything to do with this was the guy convicted and the guy shot by cops? None of the other witnesses ever could identify the Hacks, that is because they were not there or involved.

  19. Fascist Troll says:

    PISS ON YOU ANTI-RACISTS… I AM GLAD THEY ARE DEAD!

  20. Diandra says:

    @ Fascist Troll:
    Are you Butler’s poor mother? His dumb wife Mary? His unfortunate son Cameron? Maybe you are his braindead brother Lonnie? Or one of his other inbred family members? Whoever you are, you are a sick individual who has zero respect for human life.
    I will pray for you, you sure do need it buddy.

  21. Veritas says:

    Ross Hack went to Europe to study, was never charged or wanted for any crime, and after finishing school, came back to the US on his own accord. Doesn’t sound like the actions of a murderer. He has no prior record as well. The cops seemingly took his passport on a search warrant for his sister Melissa (which they were not allowed to do and denied it; Ross could never find it), and so in order to continue on his planned trip to Europe (and to avoid harassment by the known corrupt Vegas cops), he obtained a new passport by saying he lost it (which is true, it was lost — he couldn’t find it, and the suspected cops that probably took it, denied it). He got 3 years in federal prison (maximum sentencing is normally 6 months for that crime) for that “white lie” which he freely admitted to. He was never a “member” of any skinhead organization and never led one (he was in a small skinhead rock band, though). This is just politics as usual. The cops had no evidence in the 90s against the Hacks and they don’t have any now. But what they do have is tax payer money to harassment somebody indefinitely. When the Hacks win this one as well, I hope the fucking Prosecutor will be charged with a civil rights violation in return (yeah right, not in Amerika).

  22. @ndy says:

    Yeah well anyway.

    Thought I may as well re-publish this here. Also, this blog contains a range of material on the case.

    Skin Deep
    One year after the slayings of Daniel Shersty and Lin “Spit” Newborn
    Joe Schoenmann
    Review-Journal

    The hate-metal concert was billed as a sort of an exclamation point to murder. The Metropolitan Police Department reported that at least 60 skinheads from the Southwest met in Las Vegas over the July Fourth weekend to slam dance to racist bands such as Extreme Hatred and Warfare 88. Police saw them in carloads driving up and down the Strip. One skinhead was seen trying to pull down an Israeli flag in front of a motel on Las Vegas Boulevard. It was a skinhead presence that hadn’t been seen in Las Vegas since the early 1990s. On its face, that’s not so unusual. Las Vegas is centrally located, say hate experts at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. And its cheap hotels and entertainment make it a good watering hole for skinheads from surrounding states California, Utah and A The troubling part was that the concert — which police never found — fell on the anniversary of the slayings of Daniel Shersty and Lin “Spit” Newborn, two anti-racist skinheads discovered shot to death in the Las Vegas desert in July 1998.
    Newborn, 24, was black and worked at a body-piercing salon. Shersty, his 20-year-old friend, was white and an airman first class at Nellis Air Force Base, where he serviced fighter jets.
    Both despised racism and were members of the Las Vegas chapter of Anti-Racist Action. To anti-racist skinheads, the subsequent arrest of John E. Butler, 27-year-old leader of the local Independent Nazi Skins, was no surprise.
    Butler was a racist; the victims were his foes.
    ARA chapters adorned their Web pages with photos and stories about the deceased. And ARA members from around the country rallied a month later in Spring Valley, a Las Vegas neighborhood police identified as home to a relatively high concentration of skinheads.
    The story went beyond Las Vegas.
    The New York Times wrote that Shersty and Newborn “shared a passionate hatred of racism — and that may be why they are dead.”
    Rude: International magazine began an article with: “Lin Newborn and Daniel Shersty believed that all people were created equal. Nobody expected them to die because of it.”
    Few people doubted that race was at the heart of the killings.
    “Certainly we have some indication that that’s what it was motivated by,” said Lt. Wayne Petersen, Las Vegas Homicide Detail.
    But a year later, Butler’s acquaintances, some police sources and skinhead experts at the Wiesenthal Center are casting doubt that race had anything to do with the slayings.
    It might have been something just as deadly but much more common: drugs.
    “It was drug-related; I don’t think it had anything to do with race,” said T.J. Leyden, 33, a skinhead leader in Southern California for 15 years until he decided to change his life in 1997. He is now a full-time consultant to the Task Force on Hate at the Wiesenthal Center, which monitors hate crimes and bigotry nationwide.
    Rick Eaton, who has worked at the Wiesenthal Center for 14 years, also is convinced the two deaths were not race-based. His views coincide with the lack of bragging about the deaths on the Internet.
    “There’s been no mention of this thing whatsoever anywhere, no talk of it among the other skinheads on Web pages,” he said. “The only ones claiming it’s race related are members of the ARA?”
    One source, who did not want to be named, said Butler was known as an enforcer for methamphetamine dealers. That meant he was responsible for ensuring people who owed money paid up. The same source said Butler and Newborn had some kind of dealings with illegal drugs.
    A friend of Butler’s, who did not want to be named, summed up the lack of a racial motive: “Skinheads don’t go around shooting (blacks). They just don’t,” he said.
    He also thinks Butler is innocent.
    “John told me he didn’t do it, and he’s a man of his word to people he knows. And I have no reason to lie for him. But if he knows who did it, he’ll take the rap instead of snitching on them.”
    Working against the theory that Newborn was involved with drugs are the memories of those who knew him. At the time of his death, he worked at Tribal Piercing & Street Wear, 4800 S. Maryland Parkway, owned by Mark Isquith.
    “He was adamant about no violence and no drugs,” said Isquith, who hired Newborn more than a year before his death. “I guess crazier things have happened, but I would be very surprised if drugs had anything to do with it. I worked with him every day and never saw anything to indicate he was into drugs.
    “I would be extremely surprised if it wasn’t motivated racially.”
    Petersen said: “Nowhere in our investigation had we come up with a drug connection. We hadn’t heard anything about that.”
    Details about the police investigation and Butler’s arrest are documented in an affidavit filed in January in District Court.
    It begins around 8:30 a.m., July 4, 1998, northwest of Las Vegas in the area of U.S. Highway 95 and Centennial Parkway.
    Three men on four-wheeled, all-terrain vehicles were riding through the desert when they came upon Shersty’s black Chevrolet.
    They found Shersty’s body lying in front of the car. About 150 yards away they saw three people, two men and a woman, who were later identified as Joseph Justin, Melissa Hack — Butler’s girlfriend — and Butler. The Las Vegas police gang unit had a file on Hack as a member of a Nazi skinhead group.
    “Call the police!” she and the other two yelled to the three ATV riders.
    The riders were puzzled.
    “We were like, `What are they doing out there?’ ” one of them said in a recent interview.
    Butler, Hack and Justin then got into a Toyota Camry and drove toward the three men. The driver, later identified as Butler, told them they had found Shersty’s body earlier.
    He told them “they found the body by the Chevy and were on their way, walking to a nearby home, to report it,” the affidavit says.
    At the same time, Butler said he could not hang around “because he had outstanding warrants.”
    The woman had covered her face with her shirt, saying she was feeling sick.
    That’s when Butler noticed the three men had written the Camry’s license plate number in the sand: 284JBK.
    That’s not necessary, Butler told them, because “he would give them his pager number.” He also said the Camry wasn’t his, that it belonged to his girlfriend’s mom. Then, without leaving any names, he drove away.
    When police checked the license plate number, they found the car registered to Hack’s parents. Her mother, Jane Hack, told detectives her daughter, Butler and Justin had used the car to look in the desert for a place to shoot fireworks. They told her that’s when they found the body.
    In the meantime, homicide investigators learned Shersty and Newborn had left Shersty’s apartment between 11 p.m. and midnight on July 3. Shersty’s roommate, Brandon Weir, told police he got a voice-mail message from Shersty about 11:30 p.m.
    In the message, Shersty said he and Newborn “were going out with a couple of girls. He would call later to say what was going on.”
    Knowing that the two were together, homicide investigators went back to the desert and expanded their search. On July 6, roughly 150 yards from Shersty, they found Newborn. The affidavit said Newborn’s body was located in about the same area that Butler, Justin and Hack were spotted by the men on ATVs.
    An autopsy later found two bullets in Shersty’s jaw, both from a .32-caliber firearm. He and Newborn also had been shot with a 12-gauge shotgun.
    Weeks after the shooting, police were looking to question Butler when he was spotted in the 4900 block of East Harmon Avenue. Butler ran and escaped a police officer by jumping over a fence. Though Butler wasn’t caught, the officer who ran after him found a .32-caliber handgun after searching the area he had run through.
    Meanwhile, Justin contacted police and told them this story:
    He said that early on July 4, 1998, Butler called, saying he needed Justin to “help him with something.” Butler would not say over the telephone what the task was.
    Justin said that once he was in the car with Butler and Hack, Butler told him: “I’m going to need you to help with picking up some … accidents that were left out at the scene.”
    He told him he needed Justin “to find a Beck’s beer bottle while (Butler) looked for shotgun shells.”
    “Justin also was told there would be two dead bodies there,” the affidavit said.
    Justin offered investigators this theory for the killing: He claimed Hack had made a date with Newborn at Tribal Piercing on July 3 and that she and another woman met with Newborn and Shersty.
    Newborn and Shersty followed the two into the desert, Justin told police, where the girls pretended to be lost. When Shersty and Newborn got out of their car, Justin said, “they were ambushed.”
    Butler finally talked to police on July 14, 1998. He admitted, the affidavit says, that Hack and Justin were with him the morning of July 4. His story was the same as Jane Hack’s: They were looking for a place to light fireworks when they found the body.
    On July 15, 1998, the story changed slightly. Butler told police he was sleeping at Hack’s home on July 4 when Ross Hack, Melissa’s brother, knocked on the bedroom door. Butler said the brother and sister spoke at the door. Then Melissa Hack told Butler “she needed him to do something. She said they had to pick up some stuff.”
    Butler said Ross Hack had told his sister to look for a bottle and some shells. In the affidavit, Butler told investigators he “believed Ross Hack committed the murders.”
    At this point in the questioning, the affidavit said, investigators told Butler the two .32-caliber bullets found in Shersty’s body matched the .32-caliber handgun police found after chasing Butler on East Harmon Avenue.
    “Presented with that, (Butler) declined to talk,” the affidavit said.
    Butler is being held in Ely State Prison for a trial scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on April 3. He is charged with two counts of murder with use of a deadly weapon and two counts of possession of a firearm by an ex-felon. Butler, born on Christmas Day in 1971, will be 28 when the trial begins.
    He did not respond to a written request for an interview.
    To date, no one else has been arrested in the case. Deputy District Attorney Christopher Laurent said last month the case is “in a state of flux.”
    “We’re still investigating, and if the facts develop such that we can bring a provable charge, we will go forward with that,” he said.
    Petersen said detectives are looking for information that might lead to other suspects.
    “Obviously, we’re not satisfied, and we believe more people were involved,” he said.
    But while those outside of the case still may speculate about why Shersty and Newborn died, in the end, all that matters is two people are dead.
    “And to prove the murder,” Petersen said, “we don’t have to provide the motive.”

  23. LaTonya says:

    “John told me he didn’t do it, and he’s a man of his word to people he knows. And I have no reason to lie for him. But if he knows who did it, he’ll take the rap instead of snitching on them.”
    THIS IS AMUSING SINCE JOHN BUTLER IS A KNOWN POLICE INFORMANT.

  24. Janelle says:

    it’s approaching the anniversary of the time when you were taken from us. rip dan and spit. we will never forget how cruelly you were taken from us and we will never forgive what he did to you. xx

  25. Pingback: RIP Dan & Spit | slackbastard

  26. Rudy says:

    LaTonya says:
    July 11, 2012 at 10:02 pm
    “John told me he didn’t do it, and he’s a man of his word to people he knows. And I have no reason to lie for him. But if he knows who did it, he’ll take the rap instead of snitching on them.”

    THIS IS AMUSING SINCE JOHN BUTLER IS A KNOWN POLICE INFORMANT.

    And here is the proof
    http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/former-white-supremacist-testifies-murder-trial

    John ‘Polar Bear’ Butler AKA cowardly snitch

  27. Kris H says:

    I remember spit very well from the huntridge days.. i was a 14 year old kid who loved punk rock music.. nazi skinheads would be at shows, tormenting everyone in the mosh pit.. spit would stand in the center and let all of us skatepunks dance in peace.. I’ll never forget him.. He died for what he believed in and his memory will live on.. I just pray that all of the right people involved get what they deserve for their crimes.

  28. Amber says:

    My dearest Spit; I will always remember and cherish the time our paths crossed. You were one of the few people I have known that had a truly good heart and soul. It’s the little things I remember… you, me, and mop in that cute little apt of yours. Or riding in her little Acura… her driving like a Nascar driver… you almost too tall for the front seat… and me holding on crammed in the back. Good times. I never thought of the 3 of us that you both would be gone and I would be left standing alone. I can still see you walking by the salon I worked at making faces at almost every day. People would always ask if I knew you. I always answered proudly… heck ya… he’s the sweetest person you would ever meet. I still am proud to say we were friends. You deserved better than the hand you were dealt in life… and in death. I love you more than you know and love will always hold a special place in my heart that has your name etched in it! Xoxo.

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