Sunny Days, Happy Memories

The flowers are blooming, the air is warm, and everything seems just a little brighter since the arrival of Spring last week. As I look out the window, I am overwhelmed with thoughts of Johnia today. I am thinking about how much she enjoyed this time of year: tank tops, flip flops, and riding around with the top down, her pony tail swinging in the breeze. In the picture above, she is accompanied by her niece (my oldest daughter), Camryn. Their faces are cast in shadow, but they are waving and you can see their smiles. On this particular day, they were both just happy to be together and to be alive.

I wanted to post a brief note and picture today, because Johnia is so strongly in my heart and on my mind. When I feel the warm sun on my face it takes my back to other sunny days and happy memories. One of the best times was a family beach trip the summer of 2002. Johnia and I spent a lot of time sharing a raft on the waves that week. We talked, laughed, and baked in the sun. We simply had a good time. I can see her smile. I hear her laugh. I can hear her call my name. I am thankful for my memories.

Johnia lived each and every day to the fullest. She appreciated everything in life: her family, her friends, the warmth of the sun, the gift of life. She made the most of each day and was thankful for it. It is because of Johnia that I appreciate the sunshine, the flowers in bloom, the warm air, and all the beauty that is just outside my window today. It is because of Johnia that I have learned to appreciate life.

Johnia was full of life and love and reminded us all each day of her love for us. When I read 1Corinthians 13: 4-8, 13, I think of Johnia:


Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.


With love, Kristie

Media Coverage: The Johnia Berry Act

Arrests may put DNA to wider tests

Bill would permit samples from felony suspects to be checked against other crimes

By COLBY SLEDGE Staff Writer, The Tennessean
Published: Monday, 03/26/07


Tennessee police could soon be collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested in connection with a violent felony and checking them against samples from other crimes if a currently proposed bill becomes law in the state.
The bill is making its way through the legislature as a growing number of police crime labs nationwide are creating databases of DNA taken from people who are not convicted or charged during investigations and using that DNA to match them to other crimes.
Such databases operate beyond the reach of state or federal laws. They have sparked a controversy, pitting the labs against civil libertarians and defense lawyers who say such databases violate the rights of those who supplied their DNA samples under different circumstances.
Current Tennessee law requires that anyone convicted of a felony on or after July 1, 1998, provide a blood sample to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation so scientists can extract the person's genetic code.
Under the proposed bill, named the Johnia Berry Act of 2007 after an East Tennessee State University graduate student killed in Knoxville in 2004, a DNA sample could be taken from anyone arrested in connection with a violent felony. Violent felonies would range from first- or second-degree murder to carjacking.
That sample could then be used to examine other crimes in search of a DNA match, said Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville. Ramsey and Sen. Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville are co-sponsors of the Senate version of the bill.
"The parents (of Johnia Berry) encouraged me to do this, but I was a little reluctant at first," Ramsey said. "But then I considered, we take fingerprints of people who are charged, and lots of times DNA can prove innocence as well as guilt."
DNA of innocent isn't kept
Under the bill, if the charge is later dismissed or the person is not convicted, the TBI would destroy the DNA sample. If the person is charged or convicted of any other crime resulting from a match, however, the sample would remain in the TBI database, Ramsey said.
The bill is set to be reviewed in the Senate and the House on Tuesday. It is sponsored by state Rep. Jason E. Mumpower (R-Bristol) in the House.
Ramsey said the purpose of the bill is to improve the state's current DNA database.
"We don't have much of a database except for a very few convicted sex offenders," he said. "It's coming to where DNA is really the 21st-century fingerprint."
Ramsey said he had spoken to Gov. Phil Bredesen about the bill and that Bredesen said he "would be willing to work with me on this."
Few court rulings exist to say whether DNA databases are legal or whether data contained in them can be used in criminal cases. State legislators in Illinois and New York this year are among the first to consider bills that would regulate or forbid the databases.
All 50 states and the federal government maintain databases of DNA profiles taken from persons convicted or in seven states indicted for murder, rape and other crimes.
The DNA profiles are matched to genetic material taken from unsolved crimes through an FBI computer system. The system, called CODIS, has matched suspects to crimes in more than 35,000 cases, said FBI spokeswoman Ann Todd.
However, there are a growing number of DNA samples the FBI can't store. They include DNA taken from criminal suspects who aren't charged.

"Johnia Berry Act"

Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey
State of Tennessee Legislative Weekly Wrap-up

“Johnia Berry Act” approved by Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed a bill on Tuesday to require all individuals arrested for violent felonies to provide a DNA sample to the TBI. The “Johnia Berry Act” is named for an ETSU graduate who was murdered in Knoxville after moving there to work on her graduate degree.

Current law provides that persons provide a DNA sample only after they have been convicted and sentenced for certain violent felonies. DNA samples are the fingerprints of the 21st century and are an essential crime fighting tool. I sponsored the bill to increase the chances of catching violent criminals and to exonerate those who may have been wrongly charged.

Johnia Berry was an ETSU graduate that had moved to Knoxville to enroll at UT to work on a Master’s Degree. On December 6, 2004, someone entered her apartment and brutally murdered her. The killer has not been found despite the fact that DNA evidence was taken at the scene. The parents of Johnia feel that Tennessee does not have enough DNA samples in their data bank. Last year, I worked with the TBI to get more funding and staffing for the DNA data bank program. This year I hope to gain passage in both the House and Senate for the bill.

The legislation now heads to the Senate Finance Committee.

More about the bill: http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/bills/currentga/BILL/SB1196.pdf.

Media Coverage: A Statement from Sheriff Jones

The following article was published in the Farragut Press on February 15, 2007:


Jones to continue Berry investigation
Alan Sloan - Thu, Feb, 15, 2007
Expressing confidence the murder case of West Knox Countian Johnia Berry will be solved, new Knox County Sheriff Jimmy "J.J." Jones said a timetable for completion of DNA suspect testing is hard to pin down.
"We’ve sent over two hundred pieces of D-N-A to be tested, and we still have some that are out," said Jones, who emphasized his experience as a former homicide lead detective. "T-B-I has done really good ... they hired six more D-N-A analysis people. There was a big backlog, now we’re down to some forty pieces that are left, that have been outsourced to another lab. ... It’s a time-consuming process that they have to go through."
Berry, 21, a University of Tennessee graduate student, was brutally murdered Dec. 6, 2004, in her Brendon Park apartment in Cedar Bluff.
Concerning the Berry family and general public sentiment, "It’s a sad situation ... I understand they’re frustrated," Jones said, "but we’ve worked that case as hard as we’ve worked any homicide case since I’ve been here, and I’ve been a policeman twenty-eight years [the last 21 at KCSO after seven with the Knoxville Police Department]."
With KCSO Detective Brad Hall assigned full-time duty on the Berry case, "We will solve that case — I hope sooner than later," Jones said.
Jones added contact with TBI and Attorney General Randy Nichols’ office happens "on a weekly basis."
Rebutting suggestions that TBI should be called to assist with the case — or even take over — Jones said "they’ve never investigated homicides in Knox County ... T-B-I doesn’t have near the manpower we [do]. I don’t know how many agents they have assigned to this county, but it’s a very small number."
"T-B-I works homicides in the smaller counties that don’t have the manpower or don’t have the larger departments."
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