Jeremiah Raymond Berry Pleads Guilty To Feeding Abusive Father To Coyotes

The Cortez Journal reports on the end of a grim story that began in February 2008.
Jeremiah Raymond Berry pleaded guilty on Friday to killing his sexually abusive father and feeding him to coyotes.

The Cortez Journal has more:

Jeremiah Raymond Berry was sentenced to three years in a Colorado Department of Corrections facility followed by 10 years of "intense supervised" probation. He appeared Friday afternoon before 22nd Judicial District Judge Douglas Walker, who accepted a plea deal reached between the district attorney and Berry's public defender.

The AP details the hearing and the crime:

Berry, who cried throughout his sentencing hearing, had been charged with second-degree murder for the February 2008 death of his father, 42-year-old Jack Berry. Jeremiah Berry had faced 48 years in prison if convicted of that charge in Montezuma County. He had previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but doctors concluded during two mental evaluations that he was competent to stand trial.

Jeremiah Berry shot his father in the head, and then dismembered his corpse to feed parts of it to coyotes, according to court documents. Authorities said they also found some of Jack Berry's body parts encased in a bucket with concrete.

Jeremiah Berry told police he killed his father after his father raped him. He said his father told him that day he had been told by God his son needed a sex change to become his wife.

Comments

[WilliamL]

06:58 PM on 10/01/2009

Richard Jahnke, in Cheyenne in the early eighties, shot his abusive father through a garage door with a shot gun and eventually had the governor grant him a new name.

Three years is too much although he looks damaged

[anniebuddy]

05:48 PM on 09/29/2009

The kid gets messed up for life by a sicko pervert and our justice system punishes him instead of giving him help. How is prison going to make it better in the long run ... for him or society? When are we going to the statistics through our pea brains and comprehend that punishment doesn't work.

[Clearing-Brush]

05:09 PM on 09/29/2009

I only checked in case he was Bush's illegitima­te son...... the search continues.­....

[evanrkg]

04:23 AM on 09/30/2009

kinda looks like him, dun'it?

[theone718]

04:48 PM on 09/29/2009

This story is........­...wow. I mean he needs help, he really does. This kid has had a messed up life.

[JohnHorn]

05:13 PM on 10/15/2009

We all know that.

[LLeGrande]

04:33 PM on 09/29/2009

Our wonderful justice system will now make this troubled boy the wife of a true criminal under the watchful eye of our prison industrial system.

[marcain]

04:21 PM on 09/29/2009

If dad rapes you and says God told him that you need a sex change to be his wife, then dad has to die and be fed to coyotes. Duh. Whenever someone prefaces a sentence with 'God told me' it's always a sign of psychosis. Always.

[Idea1013]

04:47 PM on 09/29/2009

But unfortunat­ely, psychosis alone does not qualify as legal insanity. Go figure.

[SMAckley]

10:05 AM on 10/02/2009

But it was dad who was psychotic.

[iworshipthedoggod]

02:49 PM on 10/02/2009

agreed.

[ezbreezer]

02:17 PM on 09/29/2009

What's wrong with recycling?

[LLeGrande]

04:31 PM on 09/29/2009

Ha ha! Ha ha!

I hope the meat was not bad when fed to the coyotes. It would have been a tragedy if the meat was spoiled, thereby making them ill.

[pporter]

12:56 PM on 09/29/2009

Poor kid, Prison is the las place he deserves. Why not a mental hospital or some place where he could get some serious counciling­? WOW

[JohnJudy]

11:27 AM on 09/29/2009

Yeah, three years in prison after being raped by his dad, that should fix everything just fine. We won't be hearing from this young fella again.
tick-tick-­tick......

[confidance government]

11:19 AM on 09/29/2009

Well if a medical examine corroborat­es his testimony regarding sexual abuse, I would have let the kid walk. He was defending himself from sexual assualt, and the "father" got what he deserved.

[Lucille]

01:12 PM on 09/29/2009

In a nutshell.

[invirginia]

02:03 PM on 09/29/2009

Murder and dismemberm­ent are in the sentencing guidelines for rape? How does feeding someone to coyotes constitute self-defen­se?

[Lucille]

05:37 PM on 09/29/2009

Who cares what the perpetrato­r suffers? If the Dad had not raped his son, his own kid would not have shot him and feed him to the coyotes. The kid flipped- out, that's understand­able.

[sylar]

10:58 AM on 09/29/2009

Poor kid.

[Bigrcube]

10:53 AM on 09/29/2009

Is it the high mountain air, the higher elevations­, or something in that high mountain water, huh?!

[Hypomaniac]

09:53 AM on 09/29/2009

So sorry to hear that Keanu Reeves went out like that.

[princeminski]

08:03 PM on 09/29/2009

Which one is Keanu?

[Harrier]

09:36 AM on 09/29/2009

You're not supposed to feed the wild animals because they will come back for more. There should be signs posted all over

[grammargirl]

07:05 AM on 09/29/2009

The poor father. After all, the patriarch Abraham heard the same voice telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac, yet he went on to become the founding father of the world's top three monotheist­ic religions.­..

[diasehmai]

07:52 AM on 09/29/2009

Um, no. Not the same voice. don't let your catholic school bitterness get the best of you.

[RachelMc]

08:28 AM on 09/29/2009

same voice

[StonyStoner]

06:26 PM on 09/29/2009

Abraham said, "Where you want this killing done?'
And gOD said, "Out on Highway 61."

[Tony Walker]

09:14 AM on 09/29/2009

Mohamed heard the same voice