Nebraska to Pay $479,000 to Settle Inmate Death Lawsuit

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska has agreed to pay $479,000 to the household of a “talkative” Scottsbluff man who was strangled to dying in 2017 by a fellow inmate who did not need a cellmate .

The lawsuit filed by Terry Berry Jr.’s household in opposition to jail officers they argued had been accountable for the 22-year-old’s dying as a result of they put him in the identical cell as Patrick Schroeder was dismissed final week after each side agreed to the settlement.

Berry was nearing parole on a sentence for forgery and assault when he was positioned with Schroeder who was serving a life sentence for killing a 75-year-old man and dumping his physique in a properly. The Lincoln Journal Star stories that Schroeder later pleaded responsible to killing Berry and was sentenced to dying.

Berry’s household argued within the lawsuit that jail officers ought to have identified there can be issues in the event that they positioned the 2 males collectively and a caseworker on the jail even warned coworkers concerned within the determination that Schroeder did not need a cellmate and would not probably tolerate Berry properly as a result of he was identified to be “very talkative and bothersome.”

Again in 2019, a federal choose dismissed the top of the state Division of Correctional Companies and the jail’s warden as defendants, however the case had been allowed to maneuver ahead in opposition to a number of jail staff concerned within the determination to make the 2 males cellmates.

Schroeder killed Berry 5 days after they had been positioned in the identical cell by wrapping his arm round Berry’s neck and squeezing for 5 minutes earlier than getting a towel and twisting it round Berry’s neck till he was positive Berry was lifeless.

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