Silas Butner, a 62-year-old African American man, died in London, Kentucky, on January 23, 1971, while a patient at Marymount Hospital. He had been treated there for kidney problems and came into the care of hospital orderly Donald Harvey. Years later, Harvey admitted repeatedly trying to kill Butner, first by attempted smothering and ultimately by interfering with the patient’s oxygen supply so the tank did not provide needed oxygen, causing suffocation.

At the time of Butner’s death there was no immediate indication that it had been deliberately caused; an autopsy was reportedly performed but investigators did not recognize foul play, and the death was not initially treated as a homicide. When Harvey’s broader crimes began to surface in 1987, he confessed to numerous killings dating back to his time at Marymount, identified Butner among other Kentucky victims, and later pleaded guilty in Laurel County to multiple murders and manslaughter related to Marymount patients.

Are there family members, former hospital staff, or others who remember Silas Butner or his care at Marymount in 1971?