none of his family members present. Bonin's ashes were later scattered over the Pacific Ocean. Three weeks after Bonin's execution, authorities discovered that his mother had openly exploited an administrative error pertaining to her son's social security disability payments – which Bonin had begun receiving for a mental disability in 1972 and which should have terminated upon his 1982 imprisonment – to maintain payments on her Downey home. This administrative error – totaling approximately $79,424 – was only discovered after a funeral director notified the Social Security Administration of Bonin's death. Alice Benton subsequently agreed to pay restitution for receiving these payments in March 1996, claiming neither she or her son were aware of the illegality of their actions. Throughout Bonin's trials and in the years of his subsequent incarceration on death row, experts devoted much speculation and debate as to whether the root cause of his crimes lay in his extremely abusive and dysfunctional upbringing. One of Bonin's lawyers was quoted as stating it was "virtually impossible for [Bonin] to be a successful human being" given the various extreme childhood abuses he had endured, with a prospective biographer also opining that Bonin was essentially unable to handle minute problems in his day-to-day life due to past trauma. Opponents and advocates of the death penalty alike were in agreement Bonin had endured extensive physical, emotional and sexual abuse throughout his childhood, but much scorn was given to the claims from his attorneys and supporters that his murders had been a direct manifestation of the abuse he had endured, and an attempt to purge his frustration and anger onto his victims. In one article published in the San Francisco Chronicle three days prior to Bonin's execution, editor Robert Morse opined: Butts, who was accused of accompanying or otherwise assisting Bonin on at least nine of the murders, hanged himself while awaiting trial on January 11, 1981. He left no suicide note. At the time of his death, he had been scheduled to be tried on July 27 for six of the murders he had accompanied Bonin upon. Correspondence found within his cell indicated Butts had been greatly distressed at the impending release of a transcript of evidence he had given behind closed doors at his preliminary hearing days prior, and the effect it would have on his friends and relatives. Despite claiming in his formal confession to investigators shortly after his