John Muir Grad Held in Slaying of Teacher, Student

A 22-year-old former student at John Muir High School has been arrested in the double slaying of the school’s most popular teacher and a 17-year-old student, Pasadena police said today.

Robert Gregg Butler of Azusa was arrested late Monday night at his home and booked into Pasadena City Jail on suspicion of murder in the Dec. 13 shooting deaths of social science teacher Robert Jones, 47, and Ronald McClendon, a junior varsity basketball player at John Muir, Officer Mike Guerin said.

Butler, a student at Azusa Pacific College, was a former student of Jones’ who had once lived with the teacher for a time because of family problems, Guerin said.

Last month’s killings rocked John Muir, one of Pasadena’s largest high schools, and stymied investigators who had said they found no clues in the weeks following the slayings.

Police today declined to comment on what led them to arrest Butler or on a possible motive for the killings.

The bodies of Jones and McClendon were discovered in the teacher’s home in the affluent Hastings Ranch area after the school’s principal became worried when Jones failed to show up for work.

Both had been shot once in the head and in the body, apparently as they slept. McClendon, clad in his basketball uniform, was found in a sleeping bag on the couch. Jones was in his bedroom.

Jones, a favorite of teachers and students alike, was known for his compassion and willingness to take troubled students into his home. McClendon’s family said the boy had been staying with Jones temporarily while they attempted to resolve a family problem.