Matt Butler is captain of Osborne High’s football team. He’s set to attend college on a football scholarship and then, ideally, play professionally. Matt is the second victim of David Ware, the Osborne Slayer. David murders Matt in the abandoned locker room after school one evening, slicing open his skull and scrambling his brains in a mocking nod toward Matt’s anxieties about having chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain condition common among football players that’s caused by repeated head injuries. At the time of Matt’s murder, he struggles between making his coaches and father proud and respecting his (and his mother’s) very real fears about the possibility of developing CTE. Lately, Matt’s anxieties about the brain condition have worsened—he’s been misplacing everyday objects, and memory loss is an early symptom of CTE. However, the novel hints that David Ware has been hiding Matt’s belongings—David tends to toy with his victims before he murders them, moving around their personal belongings to make them paranoid.
Matt Butler Quotes in There’s Someone Inside Your House
The There’s Someone Inside Your House quotes below are all either spoken by Matt Butler or refer to Matt Butler. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 9
Quotes
Makani was grateful that she didn’t believe in ghosts; she only believed in the ghostlike quality of painful memories. And she was sure this house had plenty.
Related Characters:
Makani Young, Ollie Larsson, Chris Larsson, Matt Butler, Jasmine
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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Matt Butler Character Timeline in There’s Someone Inside Your House
The timeline below shows where the character Matt Butler appears in There’s Someone Inside Your House. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2
...the odd loner. The entrance of a rowdy group of football players interrupts Makani’s musings. Matt Butler, the star player, jeers at Ollie, but Ollie ignores him. The jocks roughhouse among...
(full context)
Chapter 7
...and they’re playing one of the worst teams in the league tomorrow night. So why, Matt Butler wonders, is Hooker is being such a jerk? Matt stands in the locker room....
(full context)
Matt’s still annoyed at Buddy for ripping down the Sweeney Todd banner, too. Hooker is constantly...
(full context)
Matt has only ever dreamed of playing professional football. Lately, however, Matt’s mother has started printing...
(full context)
Matt decides to join his teammates at Sonic. He turns off the water, dries himself, and...
(full context)
Matt tries to calm himself. Maybe the guys took his practice clothes before he even got...
(full context)
Matt kneels before the figure. They raise their head slowly. Just as Matt recognizes the person,...
(full context)
Chapter 8
The day after Matt’s murder, the police pull students out of class and question each of them individually. The...
(full context)
...they were supposed to wait until all the students left. If someone had been there, Matt might not be dead. Then Darby speculates about the connection between the murders—is it true...
(full context)
...Ollie and Zachary have gained traction, given that both boys had gotten into altercations involving Matt in the past few weeks.
(full context)
Makani wonders aloud whether there’s no secret reason why the killer chose Haley and Matt. Maybe they didn’t have any secrets—maybe the killer only chose them because they were popular....
(full context)
Chapter 9
...on TV. Ollie says the police think that the killer must be someone smaller than Matt, since they had to subdue him by stabbing him in the abdomen first before going...
(full context)
Chapter 10
...loose. Ollie doesn’t seem to want to understand the gravity of the situation. Haley and Matt were popular, he argues, and he’s the opposite of that. Chris is unamused. He asks...
(full context)
...talking. They think that Ollie’s alibis for the nights of the murders aren’t solid. Also, Matt and his friends have bullied Ollie for years, and Haley rejected him when he asked...
(full context)
Chapter 12
...doors. Everyone is scared. Rodrigo’s murder scares people because he was so average—not popular, like Matt and Haley had been. His murder means anyone could be a victim. Now that Osborne’s...
(full context)
Chapter 21
...Caleb thinks about the mutilations David performed on the other victims: slashing Haley’s throat, scrambling Matt’s brain, cutting off Rodrigo’s ears. He pleads with David to tell him what he’s going...
(full context)