Inside the Frantic Search for Tech Billionaires’ Missing Child, Mint Butterfield
Grace Kahng is an Emmy, Peabody, and Amnesty International award-winning investigative journalist with expertise in human trafficking and hunting serial killers. The following is a behind-the-scenes account of the 53 hours leading to the rescue of 16-year-old Mint Butterfield after Kahng was hired and paid by her family to assist in her recovery.
Mint comes from the closest thing tech has to royalty. Mint, who identifies as non-binary and who used they/them pronouns, is the only child of a divorced Silicon Valley power couple, Caterina Fake (the co-founder of Flickr) and billionaire Stewart Butterfield (the co-founder of Slack). Mint has also been raised by Fake’s partner, Jyri Engeström (co-founder of mobile social network Jaiku), with whom Fake has been in a relationship with since Mint was 3.
The teenager’s disappearance sparked massive publicity after Mint was reported missing on April 22. Their family was initially frantic that the Marin County Sheriff’s Office was spending more time investigating Mint than locating Mint’s alleged abductor, Christopher “Kio” Dizefalo. This is the exclusive story of the search for Mint, their return—and how Dizefalo and a woman named Sarah Atkins ultimately faced charges in connection with Mint’s disappearance.