Community Meeting

There will be a community meeting to discuss the Johnia Berry murder at 6:00pm this Friday, January 19th in the Don Ehninger Youth Suite at the Cokesbury Center, 9915 Kingston Pike. The purpose of this meeting is to update local residents on the status of the case and discuss ways that the community can support the Berry family and assist authorities in apprehending the person responsible for Johnia’s death.

Members of the Berry family will be at the meeting to answer questions and to seek suggestions from the community on new ways to get the information to the public. We have also invited DA Randy Nichols and the lead detectives on the case from the Knox County Sheriff’s department and hope that they will make an effort to attend.

If you have any questions regarding this meeting, please email me at denahysmith@tds.net.


Sincerely,

Dena HySmith

The anonymous evil...

Since Johnia's murder, our family has experienced unbearable grief and pain. Some of that comes from the sheriff's lack of cooperation with outlets that we feel would help solve the case. Most of it comes from the sheer loss of Johnia.

But, once and awhile, we receive the occasional sting of hate from the anonymous posting here or from an email directed at my family. So, I'd like to take just a second to share the body of an email my mom received a few weeks ago...

"Get over it she is dead.
Maybe her pimp killed her because she did not give him his cut.
I am sick and tired of seeing her face all over the place.
If they were going to find who did it that would have by now.
Maybe you should see if OJ can help look for the killer.
Or maybe see if Joran Vandersloot was out partying with her..."

Now, some people may wonder why I've posted this email. (Have I given credit to the author? Not yet, but I will in a moment.)

The reason is simple. I want everyone out there to understand the anonymous cruelty that we all face. It may come in the form of a cowardly email, like the one above. It may come in the form of a hateful (and anonymous) post that we've seen here in the past.

And, in its worst form, it comes like it did to my sister over two years ago...

Our sole purpose of maintaining this website is to find Johnia Berry's (anonymous) murderer. It's that simple.

And, yet, it's that difficult.

I, along with many of you out there, only wish justice for Johnia. But, as you can see above, there are others who want to push the pain to another level.

You see, I decided a while back to moderate comments on this site in order to weed out the occasional post that directed hate toward my sister. Was this the right thing to do? I believe it was.

But, some folks don't like feeling their ability to spew venom has been cut off. So, what do they do? They send an email directly to my mom.

This is unacceptable.

So, tonight I want to offer a couple of things -

1) An invite to the person who sent this email. If you have any courage, I invite you to email me directly at kebman@mac.com. Leave your phone number where you can be reached because there are a few things I'd like to discuss with you.

2) Offer this person's email to you, the readers of this site. If you are able to discover this person's identity, I would greatly appreciate you sending it to me. If anything, I want you all to know the closest thing to an "identity" that person has left. (By the way, check this email address at myspace.com)

"jeff's" email address: deznuts@charter.net

I realize that I might receive a few unsavory posts regarding what I've written and I appreciate your opinions. However, if there is anything derogatory about my sister or the rest of my family, you can bet it will stop at the moderation level.

So, here's the invitation to the cowardly evil out there:

Email me at kebman@mac.com and leave a real contact where you can be reached. If there's something you'd like to say about Johnia, I'd prefer you do it to my face. If you are responsible for killing my sister, then by all means, contact me.

Other than that, Johnia's killer remains at large. Let's all work together to bring him to justice.

- Kelly