Bruce Felder Rainey, Chief of Police 

Weatherford Police Department

On the evening of Monday, June 23, 1941, Chief Rainey had gone home and changed into other clothes so he could assist and supervise the painting of lines on the streets of the city of Weatherford. At 9:30 P.M. his car was found abandoned about a mile west of the city on Highway 66. The keys were missing, however, a shotgun and police whistle were found inside. Chief Rainey was no where to be found.

A massive search effort began. It was about noon on July 3^rd that Rainey’s decomposing body was found in a rock crevice two miles south of Weatherford. An autopsy report indicated blunt force trauma on the left side of his head causing a fractured skull, and three bullet wounds to the head which apparently occurred after he had been thrown in the rock crevice. His billfold was still on his body, but missing were his keys, gun and watch.

The break in the case, which followed three months of intensive investigative work by Sheriff Everett Stambaugh, other Custer County Officers and the State Highway Patrol’s division of investigation, came during a routine police arrest on June 29^th. A Chickasha man was charged with burglary and illegal possession of a pistol when a finger print expert happened to see the pistol and remarked it was the same make and model as the one that killed Chief Rainey. Tests proved the pistol was in fact the same weapon used to murder Rainey.

John Calvin Butler, 24, admitted during questioning that he had been present during Rainey’s abduction and murder, but tried to say he had shot the officer and tried to implicate another person.  Since the other person was able to establish a definite alibi, Butler was convicted for Rainey’s murder on October 1, 1941. He was sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in the spring of 1973.

Bruce Rainey was survived by his wife, Viola, and three children, Hazel, David and Milton.