A Tuesday evening in rural Grimes County ended in tragedy for a local family. Fifty-one-year-old Vicente Yanez lost his life after a quiet evening turned violent on a private property near the Gibbons Creek Reservoir.
Emergency dispatchers received an urgent call right around 5:00 p.m. reporting a disturbance and possible gunshots. The call directed deputies to a patch of land along County Road 173, situated between County Road 174 and County Road 175 in the Keith area.
Deputies from the Grimes County Sheriff’s Office pulled up to the scene shortly after the call came in. They walked onto the property and located Yanez lying motionless on the ground from a fatal gunshot wound.
First responders tried to assist, but there was nothing they could do for the fifty-one-year-old man. Investigators quickly established a perimeter around the property to preserve evidence and secure the surrounding area.
According to investigators, a physical fight had broken out between Yanez and another man on the property shortly before the shooting. The altercation escalated rapidly as forty-year-old Richard Butterworth III pulled out a handgun during the struggle.
Butterworth allegedly fired the pistol during the fistfight, striking Yanez and killing him on the spot. Deputies detained Butterworth at the scene and brought everyone present to the sheriff’s office for detailed questioning.
The loss of Yanez has left loved ones and neighbors in the small Keith community searching for answers. Authorities notified his next of kin and offered condolences as state and local investigators continue working to piece together what caused the deadly dispute.




