Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. To keep creating
new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help
the Murderpedia project stay alive. We have many
plans and enthusiasm
to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really
need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.
Date of crimes: March 25, 1994,
and March 26, 1995
Location: Western Avenue at
Capitol Drive, San Pedro, county jail
Victims: Takuma Ito and Go
Matsuura, both 19 of Japan; Tyrone Flemming, 23, of Los Angeles
Status: Briefed on appeal,
awaiting argument
Butler shot the Marymount College
exchange students during a late-night carjacking.
Butler approached Matsuura as he
stood next to Ito’s white 1994 Honda Civic in the supermarket parking
lot, forced him to kneel down and shot him execution-style. Ito, sitting
in the driver’s seat, also was shot in the head at point-blank range.
Butler drove off in the car.
The killings devastated students
at the Rancho Palos Verdes college, where the young men studied
filmmaking.
It also touched off an
international incident. In Japan, U.S. Ambassador Walter F. Mondale
called it “the saddest day in my time here as ambassador” and issued an
apology on behalf of President Clinton.
Awaiting trial, Butler helped two
other men stab fellow county jail inmate Flemming to death. Butler received a second death penalty sentence in 1997.
California Supreme Court upholds Butler death sentence
By Larry Altman
- DailyBreeze.com
June 18, 2009
The California Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence for a San
Pedro man convicted of carjacking and killing two Marymount College
exchange students 15 years ago.
The court announced Thursday it had rejected defense
claims challenging the sentence of Raymond Oscar Butler, who was
convicted in 1996 of killing 19-year-old film students Takuma Ito and Go
Matsuura on March 24, 1994.
Ito and Matsuura were shot to death in the Ralphs
supermarket parking lot on Western Avenue in San Pedro. Ito was a
Japanese citizen and Matsuura was American but grew up in Japan.
The killings created headlines in Japan, shocking
Japanese citizens and embarrassing the United States. President Bill
Clinton apologized to Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa for the
deaths on his country's soil.
A Long Beach Superior Court jury of seven men and
five women convicted Butler of two counts each of first-degree murder,
second-degree robbery and carjacking, along with special allegations of
multiple murders and that