Chip St. Clair

Chip St. Clair
Born (1975-08-01) August 1, 1975
Elkhart, Indiana
Nationality US Citizen
Occupation Motivational speaker, author, child advocate
Known for Memoir, The Butterfly Garden

Chip Anthony St. Clair (born August 1, 1975) is an American author and Motivational Speaker, best known for his inspirational memoir, The Butterfly Garden: Surviving Childhood on the Run with one of America's Most Wanted. St. Clair's story has been featured on Dateline and Good Morning America among others. In 2004, St. Clair worked with legislators and helped to create and pass the Identity Theft Protection Act in Michigan. In 2005, St. Clair received a U.S. Congressional Record on behalf of his child advocacy work. Prior to founding his own organization, St. Clair was Regional Director of the Michigan chapter of Justice for Children, where he made tremendous strides in aiding children caught up in the nation’s distressed child welfare system. He created legislative initiatives, community awareness programs, and internship programs that still resonate among victims, survivors, and key stakeholders in the child welfare community. St. Clair’s direct involvement in the chapter’s casework played a substantial role in the apprehension of two known child predators whose brutality toward children grabbed national headlines.

In 2007, St. Clair and his wife, Lisa, founded St. Clair Butterfly Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that helps bring the creative arts and literature into the lives of children facing adversity. Universities and high schools across the country have incorporated The Butterfly Garden into their curriculum, and St. Clair’s advocacy work and his riveting lectures have become an integral part of the training for law enforcement, prosecutors, and DHS is several states. In April 2009, St. Clair participated in nearly 100 media interviews worldwide for Child Abuse Awareness Month. St. Clair continues to capture the hearts of audiences worldwide with his compelling story of hope, triumph, and the discovery of the true measure of strength each of us has when we can simply gain the courage to look within. St. Clair briefly studied astrophysics at Michigan State University, and is currently working toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts through Penn State University's online degree program.

Film rights for The Butterfly Garden had been optioned a couple of times, but due to lack of funding, rights are now currently available for purchase.

Early life

St. Clair was born in Elkhart, Indiana, and grew up as an only child in a highly dysfunctional family, with a maniacal and abusive father and an uncaring alcoholic mother. He attributes his love and voracious appetite for literature as a sanctuary and source of grounding as a child. St. Clair moved over thirty times across the country throughout his childhood. In 1990, his family settled in Southfield, and in his senior year of high school, St. Clair met and began dating Lisa Muethel.

On January 22, 1998 while celebrating his fiancée Lisa's birthday dinner at his parent's home in Auburn Hills, Michigan, St. Clair was rushed in an ambulance to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder after being pushed down some stairs by his father during a dinner table disagreement. After being released from Crittenton Hospital, St. Clair learned his father had been taken to Oakland County Jail for domestic abuse after being reported to the police by Muethel. Upon calling his aunt, Christine Clark, for moral support of his decision to bring charges against his father for the assault, St. Clair learned that the man he called Dad, the man he knew as David St. Clair was in fact a fugitive by the name of Michael Dean Grant – an escaped child murderer who had been on the run for nearly 26 years with the help of his mother, Leslie Eyvonne Weaver. St. Clair ultimately turned his father in to authorities, and shortly after learned his father was a possible child serial killer; the prime suspect in the deaths of at least 5 other children. In 1969, 18-month-old Jeffrey Balsley died in Michael Grant's care of Subdural hematoma, with bruises all over his body, one year prior to his conviction of Voluntary Manslaughter in the stomping death of 3-year-old Scott Ingersoll. In 2005, Grant was named a prime suspect in the notorious Oakland County Child Killer case. Michigan State Police went to the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana where Grant was serving out his sentence to compare his DNA to that of the suspected DNA evidence from the Oakland County Child Killer. In St. Clair's memoir, The Butterfly Garden, he chronicles his life spent unknowingly on the run and of his struggle to not go down the same path as his father.

Family

St. Clair married his high school sweetheart Lisa Muethel on February 14, 1999, and the couple have no children.

Works

Memoir

Poetry

Prologue

Career

Chip St. Clair keynote address

St. Clair briefly studied astrophysics at Michigan State University, and is currently working toward a BFA through Penn State University's online degree program. He is co-founder of the St. Clair Butterfly Foundation. St. Clair continues to foster his writing career and is currently working on several fiction and nonfiction projects.

Chip St. Clair is a motivational speaker inspiring audiences around the world with his compelling story. He is currently represented by Premiere Speakers Bureau.

Awards

External links

News

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