All-American Killer: The Rape and Murder of Berry Bryant
Promising Young Woman
In October of 1996, eighteen-year-old co-ed Berry Bryant was sitting on top of the world. A natural beauty with an impressive intellect to boot, she was already becoming popular with her fellow students only a month after her arrival at Wyoming’s Northwest College. Blessed with both a kind spirit and a desire to stand up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves, she endeared herself to nearly everyone she met.
As Berry drank in the joys of youth and the freedom that went hand-in-hand with college life, a threat was lurking nearby that she hadn’t seen coming. A mere thirty days into her first semester at Northwest, her hopes and dreams for the future would be shattered in a frenzy of violence that would take her life and the promise it held, leaving a trail of broken hearts in its wake.
The events leading up to the tragedy began on the evening of Friday, October 4 when Berry and her friend, Jessie, attended a campus shindig. The get-together was intended to give new students a chance to mingle and get to know each other. One of the guests, however, had other things in mind.
At some point in the festivities, Berry announced that she was going outside for a minute, but that she would be right back. While she was gone, another partygoer, a popular athlete named Levi Collen, approached Jessie and started quizzing her about her friend’s relationship status. Even though they were already acquainted, he acted as if he was seeing the attractive young woman with the honey blonde hair for the first time.
Jessie nixed his romantic aspirations by telling him that Berry had recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend and had sworn off dating for the time being. Apparently unable to process this information, he had asked Jessie to play matchmaker. Sticking to her guns, she told him to leave Berry alone. Thinking that the subject was closed, she had turned her attention to other, less bothersome, attendees.
Unaccustomed to hearing the word no, Collen decided to take matters into his own hands. Though no one was aware of it at the time, he had left the party to look for Berry. Unfortunately for her, his efforts had been successful.
Just after midnight, Jessie — who had long since returned to her room — received a call from the resident assistant at a neighboring dorm informing her that Berry had missed curfew. Since it was completely out of character for her to flaunt the rules, Jessie asked the RA to help her look for her friend, whom she feared might be in trouble. When they found her car in the parking lot, they surmised that, if she had left the grounds for some reason, it had been at someone else’s urging.
When Berry’s mom, Sharon, heard her phone ringing in the middle of the night, she knew that something was wrong before ever picking up the receiver. Upon learning that her daughter was nowhere to be found, she hung up and began calling every hospital in the vicinity. Her apprehension grew as she was informed time and again that no one fitting Berry’s description had been admitted.
Sharon would wistfully recall that she and Berry’s younger brother, Ryan, had followed her to college a few weeks earlier to make sure that she got there safely. It had been a time of letting go that she had both dreaded and embraced. Her daughter was becoming her own person and as heartbreaking as that was on some levels, it was the way things were meant to be. As they said their goodbyes, they had no way of knowing that Berry was walking out of their lives for good.
The Storyteller
At around the same time that the search for Berry was getting underway, Collen had showed up at his dorm, covered in blood. When his roommates asked him what happened, he claimed that he had been involved in an altercation with a man he had never met before. He recalled that the fight had gotten so out of hand that he had been forced to defend himself with a knife he carried on him at all times for protection.
Not quite buying into his version of events, Collen’s buddies had pressed him for details. Cracking under the pressure, he had blurted out that he thought he may have unintentionally killed a girl. Since being involved in a murder cover-up was not how they wanted to start the semester, Collen’s dormmates had wasted no time turning him in to authorities.
The story that Collen told police mimicked the one he had originally shared with his friends. According to him, he had stabbed a strange man in self-defense and that was all there was to it.
The officers on duty noted that Collen’s face, as well as his hands and forearms, were a map of fresh scratches, which didn’t seem to fit in with his scenario of being attacked on the street by an anonymous madman. To the seasoned lawmen, it appeared as though someone had made a desperate effort to defend themselves, and it hadn’t been the young man sitting before them.
After his interviewers let him know in no uncertain terms that his account didn’t ring true, Collen broke down and admitted that he had killed Berry. He claimed that they met up at the party and agreed to take a ride out to Polecat Beach. Once there, they had engaged in consensual sex in the backseat of his car. When they were finished, for reasons unknown to him, Berry had suddenly turned violent, striking him in the back of the head with a beer bottle.
He recalled that, dazed by the unprovoked attack, he had grabbed his knife and stabbed an out-of-control Berry in self-defense. Believing that he would be blamed for the incident, he had hidden her body before concocting a story to explain his disheveled appearance. He had then headed back to his dorm, where he wasted no time proclaiming himself the victim of a random assault. When officers asked if he would be willing to take them to the site where the events had unfolded, he agreed to lead them to the teenager’s body.
After hearing his harrowing tale, police phoned the county prosecutor, Michelle Marker, and caught her up to speed. Dragging herself out of bed, she got dressed and headed to the police station where a college student turned killer — who up till that night had been considered by many to be the cream of the crop — was waiting.
With Collen and the detectives in one car and the prosecutor in another, they set off combing the back roads in the dead of night looking for the turn off that he described. When they came up empty handed time and again, it became clear that he was deliberately leading them on a wild goose chase. Starved of sleep and in no mood for foolishness, Marker had phoned the driver of the car in which Collen was a passenger and asked him to pull over; she wanted a word with the suspect.
Calling upon every ounce of patience she could muster, Marker had let Collen know that the time for game playing was over. Things could go hard, or they could go easy, it was his call. Realizing that his efforts to put off the inevitable weren’t doing him any favors, he directed her to the exact location where Berry’s body could be found.
A Grim Find Tells a Disturbing Tale
When they came upon Berry’s remains lying discarded in the sage brush, it was a grisly sight for which none of them had been prepared. Contrary to Collen’s claims of acting only out of fear for his own safety, it was obvious to everyone present that the young woman whose decimated form lay before them had been the victim of a shockingly violent attack.
Extensive bruising to Berry’s face indicated that she had sustained multiple blows to the head. In addition, numerous stab wounds were evident on her torso, and her throat had been sliced from ear to ear with such ferocity that she was nearly decapitated.
The medical examiner would later determine that Berry had been violently raped prior to death. Her hands and arms were covered with defensive wounds and her fingernails were found to be broken off to the quick. The results echoed what detectives already knew, namely that the college freshman had fought hard for her life.
When confronted with the coroner’s findings, Collen amended his story once again. In this latest version, which was as close as he would ever get to the truth, he related that he had told Berry that he wanted to have sex, but she had refused. In spite of the fact that it was very late, and they were in the middle of nowhere, she had gotten out of the car and headed towards town on foot. Since he had never taken his cues from a female in his life and wasn’t about to start now, he had gone after her, throwing her on the ground and savagely raping her.
While Collen had freely admitted to beating and sexually assaulting Berry, he claimed that he never meant to kill her. He justified his actions by saying that he had only stabbed her because she had stubbornly refused to stop fighting.
That Berry had fought back hadn’t surprised anyone who knew her. Her mother shared that they had taken a women’s self-defense course in which they learned that the best course of action was to grab the blade of a knife if they were ever under attack. While excruciatingly painful, this defensive move would make it more difficult for the person wielding the implement to gain control, at least in theory. Unfortunately for Berry, though the palms of her hands had been literally cut to ribbons, Collen had been able to wear her down, ultimately ending her young life.
A Serial Killer in the Making
In the aftermath of his confession, Jessie recalled an excursion into the countryside she and Berry had taken with Collen shortly before the murder. Though she had written it off as her own paranoia at the time, she had known instinctively that there was something sinister about the popular jock, who seemed perfectly amiable on the surface.
As they were cruising along with Berry behind the wheel, Collen had made the offhand remark that he suspected she was still a virgin. Though Jessie was offended on her friend’s behalf, Berry had held her chin up and informed him with a smile that she sure was and proud of it. While the object of his desire had seemed oblivious to the fact that he was leering at her with a smirk on his face, Jessie couldn’t help but notice, and it had made her skin crawl.
Jessie later recalled that she had grown increasingly uneasy the further they ventured from town. Unable to shake the feeling that Collen was up to no good, she asked Berry to take her back to campus, which she did without question. While we’ll never know what she was feeling in those tense moments, it’s entirely possible that she too sensed that something was wrong.
While the exact details of what transpired at the party earlier on the night of the murder are a bit fuzzy, what is known is that Collen — who had a reputation for being quite the charmer when it suited his needs — had somehow managed to talk the safety-conscious Berry into leaving with him. Since the two had enjoyed a cordial relationship up till then, she would have had no reason to suspect that she was in danger.
When news of Collen’s confession reached the public, a woman phoned police to say that she had fallen victim to his violent ways back in 1995, almost a year to the day of Berry’s murder.
The caller explained that she had met Collen in a bar and the two had immediately hit it off. Believing that he was harmless, she had accepted his offer to go for a drive.
Once they reached the outskirts of town, Collen’s demeanor had changed. No longer the friendly young college student who had been crowned Homecoming King at his high school prom, he informed her that they were going to have sex.
Taken aback by his bold statement, she told him, in no uncertain terms, that they would be doing no such thing. Undaunted, Collen had pulled out a gun and ordered her to take off her clothes. He had then raped her, biting her face and arms like a rabid animal in the process.
When the frenzied attack was over, he had calmly told his victim that he would kill her if she ever said anything to anyone about what had just happened. Having witnessed his dark side firsthand, she had no doubt that he would make good on the threat. It wasn’t until she learned that he was in police custody that she felt safe enough to come forward.
The detectives who worked Berry’s case, as well as members of the community who were learning more about Collen’s actions with each passing day, agreed that the image the all-American boy put forth to the world was — and probably always had been — a carefully crafted illusion. Having shown himself to be a psychopath who could switch from amiable to evil in the blink of an eye, the general consensus was that he would have killed again in due time.
Since he had already laid his cards on the table for everyone to see, nineteen-year-old Levi Collen opted to forgo going through the motions of a trial. In the fall of 1996, he pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault, one count of aggravated kidnapping, and one count of first-degree murder.
On November 27, Berry’s killer was sentenced to three life terms, all but ensuring that he never again walks the streets a free man. He is currently being housed at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington where he is said to be a model prisoner.
Gone, but Not Forgotten
Ensuring that Berry’s legacy of helping others would live on, a scholarship was established in her name in 2021 on the twenty-fifth anniversary of her death. The award is presented to a deserving student each year to help them fulfill their goals for the future — a future that Berry would never see.
In addition to the endowment, in the spring of 2022, the Berry Bryant Memorial Park was erected on the campus of Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. A bench dedicated to the memory of the former student, whose academic endeavors had been cut short by a senseless act of violence, is prominently displayed at the site.
The bench, which was designed by one of Berry’s classmates, is adorned with daffodils, her birth flower. Known to represent fresh starts, forgiveness and a renewal of the spirit, the yellow flowers offer visitors and well-wishers the chance to share in some small way in Berry’s legacy.
Moving Forward, For Berry
Spurred to action by her daughter’s murder, Sharon became a force to be reckoned with in the field of victims’ advocacy. A keynote speaker who traveled the country sharing Berry’s cautionary tale, she took every opportunity that came her way to draw attention to the threat of sexual violence that high school and college students face every day. She passed away on August 9, 2023, of natural causes.
Prosecutor Michelle Marker is also a staunch supporter of the cause. She astutely notes that far too much emphasis is put on teaching girls how to avoid being victimized by the opposite sex, while almost no effort goes into educating boys on the merits of keeping their hands to themselves, no matter how much they may feel compelled to do otherwise.
Berry’s friend Jessie, who was one of the last people to see her alive, later described the tragic events of that October night as the “death of the butterfly.” It is an apt comparison, given that these glorious creatures — who are universally loved for their beauty and ability to spread joy everywhere they go — live a lifetime in only a few short weeks.
Resources:
·powelltribune.com
·post-com.cdn.ampproject.org
·investigationdiscovery.com
·wyomingsilentwitnessinitiative.net
·floraly.com.au
·segretofinishes.com
·Evil Lives Here: Shadows of Death (2022)
·thedavisfuneralhome.com
Images used under provisions of the Fair Use Act for purposes of reporting and education.