SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Greene County man’s court sentencings in December in Barton and Lawrence Counties are the most recent events in what is one of Missouri’s largest conservation cases involving the illegal taking of deer.
On Dec. 13, David Berry Jr. of Brookline, received a 120-day sentence in Barton County Circuit Court for a felony firearms probation violation. On Dec. 6, he received a one-year jail sentence in Lawrence County Associate Court after pleading guilty to taking wildlife illegally on Oct. 11. The 120-day sentence Berry Jr. received in Barton County Circuit Court will be served in addition to the one-year sentence he received in Lawrence County. These convictions were made with information obtained from Operation Game Thief, a hotline sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and the Conservation Federation of Missouri. Berry Jr.’s convictions are the tip of a long list of illegal fish and game activity by him and other members of his family.
“It is unknown how many deer the main group of suspects has taken illegally over the past several years,” Lawrence County Conservation Agent Andy Barnes said. “It would be safe to say that several hundred deer were taken illegally.”
Lawrence County Prosecuting Attorney Don Trotter agreed.
“Conservation investigators estimated that the group was responsible for killing hundreds of deer over a three-year period,” he said. “The deer were trophy bucks taken illegally, mostly at night, for their heads, leaving the bodies of the deer to waste.”
What Barnes and Trotter were referring to were facts uncovered by several years of investigative work. On July 11, 2016, approximately 100 state, federal and Canadian wildlife officers simultaneously interviewed multiple suspects and other persons of interest in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, and Canada. Information gained from these
