Arrest Affidavit in Tesla Katy Crash Confirms Butler Pressed Accelerator to 100% Before Killing Martha Avila. Arraignment Set for July 6.

Since the June 19 crash in Katy, Texas that killed 76-year-old Martha Avila inside her own home, investigators have worked through vehicle black-box data, phone records, and driver testimony to build a manslaughter case against 44-year-old Michael David Butler. He was arrested Wednesday and booked at the Harris County Jail, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

What the Arrest Affidavit Says

The affidavit, filed in Harris County District Court, lays out a specific sequence of events. Butler had FSD engaged while making DoorDash deliveries around 8 p.m. on June 19. In the six seconds before impact, according to the lead investigator's account in the document, Butler pressed the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. The vehicle reached 73 mph, more than double the posted speed limit on that residential street.

The brake pedal was NOT pressed at any point in the final minute before the crash. No mechanical error was detected or recorded in the vehicle's data. Butler's toxicology screen at the hospital showed no alcohol or drugs.

Video from Butler's Model 3 showed the car failing to stay in its lane, leaving the roadway, striking the curb of Avila's driveway, and going airborne before hitting the front of her two-story brick home. Avila was pinned inside and airlifted to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Butler told paramedics the car was on "autopilot" and told hospital providers he had switched to self-driving mode, then "passed out" after changing the music and glancing at the navigation screen, according to the affidavit.

The Phone Search Data

Data extracted from Butler's phone, detailed in the affidavit, showed a series of Google searches from May 2026: "Tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026 model," "FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving," and "tesla fsd too timid," among several similar queries, some with spelling errors and repeated multiple times. Investigators cited those searches as evidence that Butler had been actively dissatisfied with how cautiously FSD operated weeks before the fatal crash.

Tesla's Position

Tesla's head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, posted on X shortly after the crash that Butler "manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area." Elon Musk separately posted that Butler's account does not align with how "FSD drives slowly through neighborhood streets and this was a high-speed crash."

The affidavit's findings on the accelerator data are consistent with what Tesla's executives said publicly. A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The Strongest Counterargument

A fair defense concern, and one a reasonable Butler supporter would raise, is whether FSD itself bears some responsibility for creating conditions where a driver might feel compelled to override it aggressively. If the system routinely drives too cautiously for practical use, a driver frustrated with its behavior is still a driver, but the design question doesn't disappear. Critics of autonomous vehicle systems have long argued that systems marketed under names like "Full Self-Driving" encourage over-reliance and create ambiguity about who is actually in control.

That concern doesn't change what the black box shows: Butler pressed the accelerator to 100% on a residential street himself, the brake was never touched, and no mechanical fault was recorded. Whatever prompted him to override the system, the override was his action. The affidavit makes no finding that FSD malfunctioned.

Broader Legal and Regulatory Context

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board both opened investigations into the crash, according to The Verge. Avila's family has filed a $1 million wrongful death lawsuit in Harris County District Court against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence. The family's attorney, Ryan Zehl, called the crash "preventable" and described it as part of "a rising number of autonomous vehicle crashes, particularly including Tesla," according to WSJM.

This case sits inside a pattern of legal pressure on Tesla's driver-assistance marketing. A California judge ruled last year that Tesla misled consumers about its cars' autonomous capabilities through the names "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving." A Florida jury found Tesla partly liable for a fatal 2019 Autopilot crash and awarded more than $242 million in damages, a verdict Tesla has appealed, according to Business Insider.

What Comes Next

Butler's arraignment is scheduled for July 6 in Harris County, according to online jail records. The manslaughter charge carries a $150,000 bond, per the Harris County Sheriff's Office. His attorney declined to comment to Business Insider. The open question for the wrongful death lawsuit is whether Tesla's data-collection practices, the "collision snapshot" system that transmits crash data to Tesla's servers, will be subject to full discovery, and what that data shows beyond what the affidavit already describes.