Tesla driver faces manslaughter charges over Texas crash that killed a woman inside her home
Police said Google searches showed Butler’s recent frustration with ‘timid’ FSD in his Tesla.
Police said Google searches showed Butler’s recent frustration with ‘timid’ FSD in his Tesla.
by Jul 2, 2026, 10:09 PM UTC
Photo by JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images
Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
The man whose Tesla struck and killed a woman inside her Texas home last month is now facing manslaughter charges, as reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal and local news outlet KHOU 11. 44-year-old Michael Butler was arrested on Wednesday and claimed to have been driving his Model 3 using Tesla’s Full-Self Driving (FSD) system at the time of the crash, according to an arrest affidavit.
The court document includes the officer saying that data extraction from Butler’s phone found several FSD-related Google searches from May 2026: “Tesla fsd not aggressive enough 2026 model,” “tesla fsdnot [sic] aggressive enough 2026,” “tesla fsdnot [sic] aggressive enough,” “FSD is not aggressive enough for city driving,” “tesla fsdnot [sic] aggressive enough,” and “tesla fsd too timid.”
On June 19th, 76-year-old Martha Avila was killed after Butler’s vehicle plowed through her home in a residential neighborhood in Katy, Texas. Tesla AI head Ashok Elluswamy responded shortly after in a tweet, saying the driver “manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.”
Avila’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Tesla and Butler, while both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have opened investigations into the crash.
The affidavit says Butler told paramedics that “the car was on ‘autopilot,’” adding that “he remembers changing the music… (and) looked at the navigation screen” before the fatal collision while making deliveries for DoorDash. He also told hospital providers that he “remembers putting the car in self driving mode” and that he “passed out,” according to the affidavit. An evaluation from the hospital didn’t find alcohol or drugs in Butler’s system, the affidavit says
After reviewing video from Butler’s Model 3, along with data from the vehicle’s “black box,” officials said they found that the “accelerator pedal was pressed, overriding FSD’s speed control:”
On the video, I saw BUTLER’s Tesla continue to increase in speed, and saw the amount of pressure being applied to the accelerator pedal also increase in speed. In about six (6) seconds, the accelerator pedal was pressed all the way down to 100%, “pedal to the metal,” and the vehicle reached a speed of 73 miles per hour, more than double the speed limit on that residential street. The Tesla continued straight towards the middle of the cul-de-sac, struck the curb of the complainant’s driveway, and went airborne towards the front of the home… I noted that the brake pedal was never pressed in the final minute before the crash.”
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