'He stole my childhood' | Kidnapped mother prepares to face captor up for parole
Christopher Butler, after spending 24 years in prison for his role in a 2000 bank heist in Vista, will ask a parole board to let him free.
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Michelle Renee looked at her seven-year-old daughter, thinking it might be the last time she saw her alive. Renee thought about the two red sticks with protruding wires duct-taped to her daughter Breea's back.
Breea bravely said goodbye to her mom before her masked captors shoved her into a bedroom closet with her pink Game Boy.
Before leaving her Vista home, the masked man Renee knew as 'Money One' gave her a stark reminder.
"You have about 10 minutes to say whatever it is you'd want to say to your daughter because it might be the last thing you ever say to her if you screw up," Renee remembers Money One saying to her on the morning of November 22, 2000.
After the stark warning, Renee and the man known as Money One got into her red Jeep Wrangler and drove to the Bank of America branch in Vista, where she worked as the bank manager. She drove while sitting straight up, hoping not to disturb the dynamite strapped to her back.
"You're driving, and you're seeing these people in the car next to you, just having a normal morning, going to work, and I still have the dynamite on my back," Renee said. "I just want to scream for somebody to please help me and help us and tell somebody what's going on. And I can't."
When Renee arrived at the bank, she entered the vault and showed a coworker what she believed was the dynamite.
"She just began hyperventilating and going, 'Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.' I remember telling her to calm down and to get ready to shut the bank down," said Renee. "I told her I had five minutes, or we're gonna blow. I just started stuffing stacks of cash into a bag."
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Renee left the Bank of America with $360,000. She got into the Jeep, handed Money One the cash, and drove away.
Money One told Renee to drive into a nearby neighborhood and park. Once parked, the man in the ski mask told Renee to get out of the Jeep and start walking. Money One told her where she could find her red Jeep.
After walking a few blocks, Renee found her Jeep and saw the getaway car drive away.
"My first thought was to get a pen and write everything down. I wrote all over the seat of my car," said Renee. "It turned out to be really helpful for the police."
Renee then rushed home to her daughter. Only after she arrived home did the nightmare finally end.
Breea was safe.
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During the police investigation, Renee learned that the dynamite was not real. She also told investigators about a strange interaction she had with a prospective client at the bank the morning before the kidnapping. She said the man said something about opening a business account but started rambling. She told detectives that the man handed her his card, which was still on her desk.
Detectives retrieved the card.
On the card was a man's name, Christopher Butler.
Butler and his two accomplices, Christopher Huggins and Robert Ortiz were soon arrested.
On Dec. 20, after spending 24 years in prison, Butler, the man Renee knew as 'Money One,' will be up for parole. Renee plans to speak.
It will be the third time Butler stood before the board requesting a chance at freedom.
They say he shouldn't be let out yet.
"I think, like with the others, I've been looking for clear evidence of remorse, looking for clear evidence of the deep work that needs to be done so there are not any of those dangerous red flags in terms of whether everyone will be safe if he's released," she said. "I cannot say with any confidence that I've seen any of those signs from Mr. Butler."
A terror-filled 14 hours in November
The Renees were curled up on the couch together on Nov. 21, 2000 when the men smashed through the locked back door.
Guns were raised, Renee begged them to not hurt her daughter.
Breea tried to run to the bathroom to get away, but the men were faster.
"My first thought was to run and try to get out of the house or close myself in a room so that they couldn't get to me," Breea told CBS 8.
Renee was thrown to the floor by Huggins, her hands duct-taped behind her back. Breea, with her wrists and ankles taped together, trembled as she asked whether they were "going to kill my mommy."
Butler did most of the talking. He told them he'd been following her for weeks and said if Renee didn't obey their orders, they would make her watch Breea die then kill her after.
Renee started trying to take in as many details around her as she could, using the skills she strengthened in her career to help. She was in survival mode, she said.
"I think that protective part of the psyche really kicked in for me," Renee said. "That led me to just really begin to focus on the details and think, if I do survive, which I didn't think we would at all, I'm going to do everything that I can to help find these guys."
Her captors had turned off the lights, so she wasn't able to see well at first. But when Renee needed to use the restroom, the bathroom light illuminated the eyes that would haunt her for years. She recognized them behind his ill-fitting ski mask. This was when the strange interaction from the day prior clicked in her head.
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Renee's roommate Kimbra Oliver came home later.
A gun was shoved in Oliver's face as she was duct-taped also. Ortiz had brought along his Rottweiler and told them the dog was trained and would kill them if they tried to move.
The masked men held them hostage through the night. When morning came, the men taped the fake dynamite to all three of them and showed them a detonator with an alleged 10-mile radius.
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What she knew was that she had minutes to have a final conversation with her daughter.
"I told her that she was perfect for me," Renee told CBS 8. "That she was everything I'd ever dreamed of in a daughter, that when I wanted to become a mom, and I chose to become a mom, that there would never be another more perfect soul for me as a mom, and how much I just loved her."
Then they yanked Renee away.
"Leaving her behind and hearing her voice fade was just the most devastating aspect of all of this," Renee said. "I didn't know if I was going to see her alive again, or what I would find if I got back, or if I was going to survive. It was absolutely the most soul and gut-wrenching moment to walk away like that."
Why they forgave Butler's accomplices
Butler didn't act alone and didn't plan the heist by himself.
They both said they've come a long way in forgiving their attackers.
"Hanging onto anything negative related to what happened doesn't serve us at all," Renee said. "Choosing to go in another direction, in a more positive, healthy direction, was really something I needed to do as a mom, but I needed to do it for myself too."
Both women have met with Huggins, Ortiz and their respective families. They both believe Huggins and Ortiz have truly rehabilitated.
Breea spoke at Ortiz' parole hearing in 2021. She advocated for her former captor's release.
"I said at his parole hearing, I believe it's time for him to go be with his family and to be released from prison," she said.
Huggins will appear before the parole board in March 2025.
Renee said speaking with their families helped heal. It re-centered their focus on being compassionate and understanding.
"Huggins, just like Ortiz, has put in so much work since the day he got there," Renee said. "There is clear evidence of remorse. There is clear evidence of wanting to make amends. There is real, clear evidence of a deep change and healing in their own lives, from their own traumatic experiences."
They can't say the same about Butler.
"When the parole board asked him what's the worst thing you did to them," Renee said, "He couldn't give an answer."
Renee and Breea say he stole more than just money that night.
"He stole a seven-year-old's childhood and made me restart," Breea said. "That's the worst he did, to me at least."
Renee agreed.
"A lot of people say no one was harmed that night, no one was killed that night. But a lot of things died that night. The seven-year-old girl that she was before that night died that night. My career died that night. So much was gone in an absolute blink of an eye that night. I think the worst thing he did was destroy the life we knew."
Where are Michelle and Breea now?
That November night in 2000 changed the trajectory of their lives. Breea said she doesn't know who she would have become had those men not broken into their home that night.
Breea said while they couldn't entirely relate to each other's perspectives of that night, no one else understood their shared trauma.
"We had each other," she said. "That really made our bond grow stronger."
Renee said the ordeal shifted her priorities.
Before Nov. 22, 2000, she thought embodying the "corporate ladder-climbing mom" was the best example for Breea. But that changed.
"I put being a mother as the greatest thing in our healing journey," she said. "I wanted to do this right, get through this well, get through this in a really healthy way. It became my number one focus, and that is still true today."
This experienced shaped them, they said, but it will not define them.
"We're still here," Renee said. "Are we going to let this one catastrophic event control the rest of our lives, or can we begin to reframe this in a way that is going to lead us down a path that's positive, and full of joy and curiosity?"
The pair traveled to 17 countries together over the span of two decades. Breea found the love of her life, Renee gained a son-in-law in November.
Renee has used her experience to inspire others.
She's authored two books and produces a podcast about the complexities of healing, leading with love and addressing complex trauma.
"I want people to understand that no matter what you've survived, you can move your life in a direction that is positive, full of love, full of joy," Renee said.
Renee's podcast Soul Wide Open focuses on healing and empowerment.
"You can still live this incredible, full life no matter what you've survived," she said. "It takes time, support, the right tools, it takes the right mindset. It's so possible to come out on the other side of something like this better than you've ever been. That's certainly true for me."
Shortly after the kidnapping, before the trial began, Renee took Breea to a relative's home in Alaska. They went to hide out, to grieve in isolation, to find their footing once again.
Her bestseller, Nine Days, details her solo road trip from California to Alaska to be with Breea. She prepared to face Butler again when she would see him in trial, a grueling experience that still hasn't fully ended.
Renee will face Butler once again, more than 24 years after that terror-filled night in November.
But this time Renee knows she and Breea will make it through the night.