Robbers Steal Easley Family's Christmas

An Easley family wants to know who stole their Christmas and hopes an offered reward will lead to arrests.

Aaron Butner says his wife came home from on Monday, December 3 to find their television hanging off the wall, the back door bashed in – and no presents under the family's Christmas tree.

Butner's wife called him to let him know what had happened.

He told her to call 911, then asked his father-in-law to come over to the house in the Crosswell area.

“I didn't know if somebody was still in there,” Butner said.

The burglars ransacked the whole house, Butner said.

“They took all of our gifts,” he said. “They tore our bedroom apart, took all my wife's jewelry, took a gun that my mother had given me for Christmas years ago. They took anything that they could go sell. The crazy thing was the Christmas gifts, because who messes with Christmas gifts? But they took every present under the tree.”

Butner is offering a $500 reward in the case.

“I'd rather not pay it, but at this point I really want to know who did it,” he said.

The Pickens County Sheriff's Office is investigating the burglary.

“They've been doing really well on it,” Butner said. “I'm very pleased with them, I really can't say enough about them. They said the $500 reward would help them, it would get people talking about it.”

He said the robbery occurred in broad daylight.

“The police think they backed a vehicle in our driveway, then went around and bashed in our back door, then just ran everything out to the vehicle,” Butner said.

He said investigators have some “people of interest” in mind.

“They're asking around,” Butner said.

He hopes the reward will help the Sheriff's Office in their investigation.

“I just feel like they've done everything they can do to solve it,” Butner said. “I just want to drum up some attention to it.”

He said he hopes to be able to reward the police as well.

“If we catch the punks who did it, I'm probably going to buy lunch for the whole police department,” Butner said.

He says he knows his family will be fine.

“God's been good to us,” Butner said. “Our church has been really good to us. We don't care about the gifts so much as we do somebody bashing down our door and coming into our house. That's what's really scary.”

A youth pastor at Lakeview Baptist, he says he keeps thinking of Romans 8:28.

“All things work together for good,” he said. “Something good will come out of it, I know that. Maybe it will make me more like Christ, more forgiving, maybe that's what it is. But I do want justice.”

Anyone with information regarding the burglary should call the Pickens County Sheriff's Office and ask for Chuck James.