{"id":1519978,"date":"2026-07-02T12:58:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?guid=faf8d409b8b3093ac25e3b86013b6d4b"},"modified":"2026-07-02T12:58:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T17:58:28","slug":"texas-man-charged-with-manslaughter-in-tesla-crash-that-killed-a-woman-in-her-home-sheriff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1519978","title":{"rendered":"Texas man charged with manslaughter in Tesla crash that killed a woman in her home: Sheriff"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jail booking photo of Michael Butler, who was arrested, July 1, 2026, on a manslaughter charge stemming from a crash of a Tesla into a home in Katy, Texas, that killed a 76-year-old woman. (Harris County Sheriff's Office)<\/figcaption><\/figure>

(KATY, Texas) -- A Texas man has been arrested on a manslaughter charge after his Tesla crashed into a home last month while he claimed it was in self-driving mode, killing a woman inside the residence, authorities said.<\/p>

The driver, Michael Butler, was arrested on Wednesday and booked at the Harris County Jail, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.<\/p>

Butler is scheduled to appear in court for arraignment on July 6, according to online jail records. He remained in custody on Thursday morning, according to jail records.<\/p>

The fatal crash allegedly involving Butler unfolded on June 19 in the Houston suburb of Katy, Texas, according to the sheriff's office.<\/p>

Butler was traveling in his Tesla Model 3 around 8 p.m. local time and claimed the vehicle was operating \"with an automated driving assistance system,\" the Harris County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.<\/p>

Butler allegedly failed to drive in a single lane, left the roadway and crashed through the front of a two-story brick residence, according to the sheriff's office.<\/p>

Butler's car allegedly drove into the front room of the home, pinning 76-year-old Martha Avila, the sheriff's office said.<\/p>

Avila was airlifted to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the sheriff's office said.<\/p>

Avila's family filed a $1 million wrongful death lawsuit last month in Harris County District Court, alleging Tesla and Butler were negligent.<\/p>

\"So, what we have is a horrific and what we believe will be proven to show preventable crash amidst a rising number of autonomous vehicle crashes, particularly including Tesla. And in this particular situation, a 76-year-old grandmother who was tragically, preventively and needlessly killed while in her own residence,\" Ryan Zehl, an attorney for Avila's family, told ABC News in an interview last month.<\/p>

Investigators said Butler, who was injured, showed no signs of intoxication and was cooperating with investigators.<\/p>

It was unclear on Thursday if Butler had hired an attorney.<\/p>

Investigators said Butler claimed his car was in self-driving mode, but Tesla disputed that and alleged he overrode the feature.<\/p>

Following the crash, Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla, posted a response on social media, saying Butler's account of the crash \"makes no sense.\"<\/p>

\"FSD [full self-driving] drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high-speed crash!\" Musk said in his post.<\/p>

In a separate online post, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla's head of artificial intelligence, responded to Musk, alleging that the self-driving mode on Butler's vehicle was manually overridden.<\/p>

\"Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area,\" Eluswamy claimed in his post. \"They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.\"<\/p>

Zehl said that Tesla has a system called a collision snapshot that sends data to its servers during significant crashes.<\/p>

\"So they clearly have the data because they're talking about accelerator data. We would like to see it. We don't have it. We will request it,\" Zehl said.<\/p>

The crash is being investigated by local authorities, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board.<\/p>

ABC News' Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>

Copyright \u00a9 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jail booking photo of Michael Butler, who was arrested, July 1, 2026, on a manslaughter charge stemming from a crash of a Tesla into a home in Katy, Texas, that killed a 76-year-old woman. (Harris County Sheriff’s Office)(KATY, Texas) — A Texas man ha…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":1519982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2026-07-02\/N_Michael-Butler-ht-gmh-260702_1783001951462_hpMain.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,1447],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-heads","category-abc-national-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-04 15:22:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/syndication.abcaudio.com\/files\/2026-07-02\/N_Michael-Butler-ht-gmh-260702_1783001951462_hpMain.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1519980,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519978\/revisions\/1519980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1519982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}