BUTLER, Ralph Ken (Skip)

The Wickenburg Sun, Wickenburg, Arizona Thursday, June 15, 1972 Skip Butler’s tragic death saddens town (Thursday, June 15, 1972) The tragic death in the line of duty of a popular young law enforcement officer cast a pall of gloom over this community this week. Deputy Sheriff Ralph Ken (Skip) Butler, 32, died Monday in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix of multiple injuries received Sunday morning approximately 11 miles west of Wickenburg on Highway 60. Deputy Butler, according to fellow officers, was driving his sheriff’s car west on patrol when he received a radio call for assistance at the scene of a highway double fatality accident 15 miles east of Wickenburg. It is believed he turned on his flashing lights, pulled off into the borrow ditch alongside the highway and then made a u-turn that brought him directly into the path of a westbound tractor-trailer combination. In the resulting collision, the deputy’s car was almost completely demolished and he was pinned in the wreckage. He was eventually taken to Community Hospital here for emergency treatment and then flown by helicopter to St. Joseph’s, where he was placed in intensive care. All efforts there, including brain surgery, were in vain. Skip Butler was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., but attended school here - graduating from Wickenburg High School with the Class of 1958.