Amanda Noverr has plead guilty to two counts of murder in a deal with prosecutors that will send her to prison for the next twenty years. According to court documents Amanda Noverr and her boyfriend Adam Williams would murder James and Michelle Butler, a couple from New Hampshire, and bury their bodies on a Texas beach. Amanda Noverr and Adam Williams would flee the country and were eventually arrested in Mexico and extradited back to Texas. Adam Williams would take a plea deal for a life sentence without the possibility of parole to avoid getting a death sentence. On top of the murder charges Amanda Noverr was already sentenced to a ten year prison term for other felony charges which she will serve at the same time as the new twenty year sentence for the double murder.
Amanda Noverr More News
Amanda Noverr, one of the two people accused of killing a New Hampshire couple and burying their bodies in a shallow grave on Padre Island in 2019, pleaded guilty to multiple felony charges, including first-degree murder, Tuesday after striking a deal with state prosecutors.
Noverr, 34, appeared before 105th District Judge Jack W. Pulcher masked and in a pink jumpsuit via Zoom from the Kleberg County Jail.
She stood calmly as Pulcher read aloud each of the four felony charges against her.
Noverr went on to plead guilty to all of the charges, including tampering with evidence, theft and the unlawful possession of a firearm.
Pulcher, after asking for recommendations from prosecutors, sentenced Noverr to 20 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for the murder of James and Michelle Butler.
This sentence, Pulcher said, would run concurrently with each of Noverr’s 10-year sentences with TDCJ for the other three felony charges.
Prosecutors told the court their recommendations were influenced by their belief that Noverr was responsible for purchasing the weapon used to kill the Butlers, but that she did not pull the trigger.
Prosecutors also referenced Noverr’s lack of prior criminal history in the decision.
By accepting the plea deal, Noverr agreed to waive her right to appeal the sentence and the completion of DNA and ballistic testing from evidence found at the crime scene.
Pulcher said Noverr will receive credit for the time she has spent incarcerated since first coming into custody on Nov. 5, 2019.
Noverr’s plea hearing and sentencing came three months after her co-defendant, Adam C. Williams, pleaded guilty to the crime after striking his own deal with prosecutors.
Williams, who has a criminal history, agreed to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life in prison with no option for parole. In return, state prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, as they had previously said they would.
Unlike Williams’ plea hearing and sentencing, however, no victim impact statements were read aloud Tuesday.
Prosecutors said that while the family of the Butlers were aware of Noverr’s plea deal offer, they decided not to attend the plea hearing.
Deborah Van Loon, James Butler’s sister, previously told the court in a statement read aloud by state prosecutors after Williams’ sentencing that their lives are “forever changed.”
“They have destroyed so much more than they will ever know,” Van Loon wrote
