Earl Wesley Berry - Murder, Kidnapping, Prosecution, Convictions, Death Sentence, Lack of Remorse

Murder, Kidnapping, Prosecution, Convictions, Death Sentence, Lack of Remorse

Berry was convicted and sentenced to death by a Chickasaw County jury for the November 29, 1987 murder of Mary Bounds. The victim was kidnapped and beaten to death after leaving her weekly church choir practice, and her body was found just off a Chickasaw County road near Houston, Mississippi. Berry admitted to the killing, and the confession was used against him at trial. He had admitted that he intended to commit rape but had changed his mind. He also changed his mind after telling her she would be freed and drove her to a second wooded location and used his fists to beat her to death. The victim died as a result of repeated blows to the head.

Berry used his grandmother’s car and later drove to her house, disposed of a pair of mismatched tennis shoes along the way, burned his bloodied clothes, and wiped the vehicle he had used of any blood stains with a towel, which he threw into a nearby pond. Berry’s brother, who was at the house, witnessed some of this suspicious behavior. On December 5, 1987, he called investigators and told them what he had observed. The next day, Berry was arrested at his grandmother’s home and soon confessed to the crime.

Police found the tennis shoes that Berry had discarded and also recovered the bloodied towel from the pond. Berry was indicted for the murder and kidnapping of Mary Bounds, and as a habitual criminal on March 1, 1988.

Berry had stated in 2007 that he has no remorse for the crime.

He was subsequently scheduled to die by lethal injection on October 30, 2007 at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.