Butrick was born in Gainesville, Florida and was an only child. He graduated in 1977 from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California. He attended the California Institute of the Arts for acting, but was dismissed from the school.
His first screen role was as a rapist in two 1981 episodes of the police drama Hill Street Blues.
Meanwhile, he appeared in the 1982 comedy film Zapped!, the 1988 horror film Fright Night Part 2, and as Barbara Hershey's hillbilly son in the 1987 drama Shy People. He had a variety of guest roles in television series and television movies.
While Square Pegs was in pre-broadcast production, Butrick was cast to play David Marcus, the Physicist son of James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his former lover Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch), in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He continued the role in the follow-up film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, in which the character was killed. He later appeared as T'Jon, the captain of a cargo vessel rescued by the crew of the Enterprise in "Symbiosis", a 1988 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Butrick died of toxoplasmosis, complicated by AIDS, on March 17, 1989, at the age of 29. He has at least two panels dedicated to him as part of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, both referencing his role as David Marcus.
The 2008 release of Square Pegs on DVD included a featurette dedicated to Butrick, in which his co-stars, including Jami Gertz and Sarah Jessica Parker, and show creator Anne Beatts, paid tributes to and recounted anecdotes about Butrick.
