Lawyer Daniel S. Berry of the city of Savanna was shot and instantly killed Monday morning about 9:20 a.m. as he was about to enter his law office on the second floor of the Pulford building on Main street in Savanna.

Mr. Berry left his home that morning with no thought that it would be the last time or that he was soon to be the victim of a foul and dastardly murder. He met several of his friends as he was going to his office and had a brief talk with them after which he proceeded up the stairway and through the hallway to the office door where the life of Daniel Berry ended.

Just who did this most atrocious deed is now the talk of everybody at Savanna, as well as abroad.

Two citizens of Savanna were at once suspected. One an ex-convict who was released from Joliet prison a short time ago, and who had been indicted for being an accessory to criminal practice. He was prosecuted by Berry and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary. He is reported to have said that as soon as he got out of prison he would settle Berry. This man lives in Sterling and it is reported he was seen in Savanna the night previous.

The other part suspected is a prominent business man of savanna and the motive thought to be jealousy for too great an intimacy between Berry and this man's wife as the gossipers of Savanna have it. It is rumored that Berry had been warned of this intimacy by the husband and hat he had threatened to kill him if it occurred again and that because of this warning and a protection, Berry carried a revolved which was found on his person when shot. We hear however that the innocence of the above party has been partly removed by his proving an alibi viz. that he was in his place of business talking to a woman at the time of the shooting and they both remarked and wondered what it meant. Thus it remains a mystery as to whom the murderer is and special effort is being made to find out who did the awful deed.

Mr. Berry was shot by sone one standing behind and a little to one side of him as one bullet entered the back of his head near his ear and came out over his left eye and lodged in the casing of the door. Another bullet entered the right arm. He was shot apparently as he was stooping to unlock his office door. When his body was found a bunch of keys was in one hand, a bundle of letters in the other.

There were powder marks on the dead man's face. The theory is that after the first shot the murderer fired again as Berry fell, standing so close that the powder flashed in the dying mans' face.

It is said Vernon Welch, a switchman, was the only person who caught a glimpse of the assassin. Welch entered the building in which Berry's office was situated a moment after the shots were fird. As he reached the head of the stairway he saw a man run through the hallway and leave the building through an unfinished portion of the building at the read. Welch did not seem the man's face and his description of the feleing man gives no clue, but the above seems to be only a rumor.

John Bearton, a nephew and partner of Mr. Berry had been at the office previous but had in the meantime gone to the postoffice where he met Berry going to his office and when he returned found his uncle dead. No one was on the second floor but the assassin at the time and two telephone girls who heard the shooting but they were too frightened to immediately open the door.

A coroner's inquest was held but that in secret because of the mystery surround the case.

Mr. Berry is well known in Carroll county as a private citizen, an able lawyer and a prominent politician having served in the legislature two terms from this district and was very prominent as a legislator filling the speakers chair on several occasions. During his last term, however, he unfortunately became entangled and mixed up with bad men and had to share the infamy and boodle charges that were hurled against hthem whether he was guilty or not, which later he always declared and denied his guilt. But let that be as it may, Mr. Berry was a man of marked ability , one of the ablest and shrewdest lawyers at the Carroll county bar and at one time had a promising political future before him had he rightly and wisely preserved it. He was the attorney for the Milwaukee and st. Paul railway at the time of his death and was connected with the biggest lawsuits ever held in Carroll County.

It is regretted that such should be the lot of so able a man. On the contrary if he has been guilty of wrong doing and has blighted the homes of other people there will be little sympathy extended by the public at large except as to the bereaved family of wife and two daughters who have the sympathy of all.

Source Unknown - found in the Sterling Library Collections (About 1913)