WILTON – This will be the second Christmas that Elaine Weed won’t be able to hug her son Butch and tell him “I love you.”

And she still doesn’t know who fired the shot that took the life of Raymond “Butch” Weed nearly a year ago.

He was killed Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2003, between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Visitors delivering Christmas gifts discovered his body at his home on Main Street in Wilton.

State police investigators have worked on the case steadily since that night but still don’t know who did it.

“There is nothing new to report,” state police Sgt. Walter Grzyb said. “As always, we continue to work very hard on the case and work occurs on a regular basis.”

A $10,000 reward offered by the family has been increased to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an individual or individuals in the murder of Butch Weed.

Weed, a contractor and owner of New Horizon Builders, was 40 when he was killed.

Another birthday has since passed and his house and pickup truck have been sold.

Vigil set Thursday

Friends are planning a candlelight vigil at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 23, on Main Street in front of the war memorial in downtown Wilton.

“I feel anger because whoever did this took away not only my son but a special person to many people,” Elaine Weed of Wilton stated in an e-mail. “I cannot understand how a person can live with them self after doing something so awful. I do feel that someone must know something and pray that they will come forward, so that we will know what happened.

“I think about it every day,” she said. “I think that if we had the answers as to who and why, that would give me some sense of closure but even then, that would not bring my son back.”

Butch Weed’s youngest sister, Rachel Fretz, moved from Wilton to Connecticut to try to get away from at least some of the pain.

But that has not happened.

She too prays every day that the family gets the answers they seek.

“I may be hundreds of miles away from the crime scene,” Fretz stated in an e-mail, “but my heart is still broken. I still feel the pain every single day. There has been no closure for the family, our pain is still so incredibly strong. There are no words to describe it. We have no answers, no understanding why we no longer have our brother, our uncle, our son.”

People in the town still talk on a daily basis about the crime.

Just like the family, they want to know who did it.

“People are always asking if they’ve resolved it yet,” Wilton Assistant Town Manager Barbara Vining said. “We don’t have any answers for them.”

After the state police recovery team’s recent dive in the outlet of Wilson Pond, residents had greater hope that the case would be resolved, she said.

“I guess not,” Vining said.

Reward up to $25,000

WILTON – The Weed family has increased the reward to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an individual or individuals in the murder of Butch Weed.

The family asks anyone who knows anything about his murder on Dec. 23 to “please help bring closure to this tragedy by providing any information you can.” The family says that information can be provided anonymously.

They ask that those with information call the Maine State Police at 1-800-228-0857 or e-mail them at [email protected].