Juanita "Nina" Butterfly

Nina Butterfly died on 18 October 2026 in a hospital in Santa Rosa, California, after battling multiple health issues. She was 43. Her children, brothers and mother travelled to be with her as her health failed, and her mother said she was smiling, laughing and joking at the end. Two memorials were held for her, one coordinated in Santa Rosa by former Sonoma County Acts of Kindness volunteer Michael Titone. The Press Democrat published a tribute by staff columnist Kerry Benefield on 14 November 2026.

She was preceded in death by her son, Anthony, and her stepfather, Immanuel Mix. She was survived by her mother, Kathleen; her father, James Butterfly; daughters Kathleen, Bethany and Lorelei; sons Emmett and Josiah; and brothers Jimbob and Daniel Butterfly.

Juanita Butterfly was born on 12 December 1982 in Yreka, in Siskiyou County, California, the youngest of the three children of Kathleen and James Butterfly. She identified as Blackfeet and Karuk and also had Nez Perce and Yakama heritage, her mother said. Kathleen Butterfly described a strong-willed family raised to fight for what they needed, and remembered her daughter as fun, loving, kind and full of energy, with many friends who filled the family home.

Butterfly moved from Yreka to Santa Rosa in 2016 and lived on the streets for most of the decade that followed. Along the Joe Rodota Trail and in other encampments she became the point person for volunteers and nonprofit groups, directing assistance to the people who most needed it and offering a trusted voice. Friends said she rarely, if ever, accepted help first.

In August 2024 she painted the names of hundreds of people who had died homeless in Sonoma County on large boulders that had been cemented in place beneath Highway 12, where the Joe Rodota Trail meets the SMART trail, to deter encampments. She said the rocks looked like a cemetery, so she turned them into memorial stones. One rock read: "Do not avert your eyes. It is important that you see this." About a month later the area was fenced off and the rocks were painted over, with officials calling the memorial illegal. She refused to leave for several hours before relenting, saying: "I guess we'll just do it better next time."

With the all-volunteer group Homeless Action! she became the lead and only individually named plaintiff in a lawsuit against the City of Santa Rosa and the County of Sonoma over the treatment of personal property during encampment sweeps. She attended weekly meetings and spent many hours with lawyers, disclosing her medical conditions and past trauma to support the case. Co-founder Adrienne Lauby said she faced harassment for her role but was very brave. She continued after being hit by a car and needing a wheelchair, with her partner, Jason Brown, pushing her across the trail to meetings. The parties settled in February 2026 on terms the plaintiffs considered more just, and she regarded it as a win while insisting the fight should continue.

Butterfly had five children. She lost a son through miscarriage and later lost her husband, Robert Mullen, to leukemia, losses her mother said deeply affected her. After she moved to Santa Rosa her mother raised her children in Yreka. Her mother often begged her to come home, but Butterfly said she had to finish what she had started. Her partner in her later years was Jason Brown. Friends described her as deeply empathetic, with a bright light and a welcoming smile.

Butterfly is remembered in Sonoma County as a fierce and relentless voice for people living without housing. Her boulder memorial on the Joe Rodota Trail drew wide attention to the number of people dying homeless in the county, and her role as named plaintiff helped secure changes to how personal property is handled during encampment sweeps. Katrina Phillips of the Sonoma County Commission on Human Rights said she had never met anyone who so consistently turned hardship into positivity, and advocates have discussed a public tribute in her honour. Her own words summed up her mission: everybody deserves to be remembered.