Remains found in Montana last week are Katelynn Berry's, father says
Jan. 25—SIDNEY, Montana — The
remains found near Sidney, Montana,
last week are the body of missing woman Katelynn Berry, her father told the Herald on Monday, Jan. 24.
Police and volunteers searched an area around the eastern Montana town Thursday morning, calling it off after they discovered what Sidney Police Chief Mark Kraft characterized as "human remains." Hank Berry, though, said a sheriff's office employee confirmed to him last week that the body is Katelynn Berry's. Authorities sent the body to the Montana medical examiner in Billings.
The remains were found a short distance from the Sidney apartment Hank Berry built for his daughter above his workshop, he said. That apartment is also the last place he saw her, when he brought her lunch on Dec. 21.
"It's just kind of hard to wrap our heads around all that, still," Hank Berry told the Herald.
Katelynn Berry's mother is Carmell Mattison, a Grand Forks County prosecutor.
Kraft and John Dynneson, the sheriff of the county in which Sidney sits, have not returned multiple Herald requests to speak to the validity of claims circulating through Facebook and other social media sites about last week's search results.
Hank Berry first reported Katelynn Berry missing on Dec. 31. Police searched the 26-year-old woman's apartment shortly afterward and found her cell phone, jacket and other items she presumably would not have left behind in the frigid winter weather.
Despite Thursday's discovery, family friends of the Berrys held a fundraiser on Friday. About 200 people showed up to a bar in downtown Williston, North Dakota, throughout the evening, donating an estimated $1,000, according to Heidi Eide, a longtime friend of Katelynn Berry's aunt. That money, Eide said, is meant to help pay for the fliers family members circulated throughout town and for their travel expenses.
