NatureBoost Episode 72: Operation Geronimo
January 2026
SMA
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>> They were just cutting the heads off of the vast majority of those deer. So, they weren't necessarily eating them. When I say "gross over limits" of say, fish... they would noodle and run a large amount of trout line, stuff like that. I'm talking like a truckbed full, I mean several. It's not just 10 or 15 or 20. It's like a truckbed full. It was gross over limits. I think that it's just their mentality of, they want to see how much they can do, as many big bucks as they can kill... the biggest bucks they can kill. You know? It's just their mentality of it.
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>> Hey there, and welcome back to NatureBoost! The podcast where we explore the outdoors in Missouri, one adventure at a time. I'm Jill Pritchard with the Missouri Department of Conservation. This episode is unlike anything we've done before! We're kicking off 2026 stepping into the world of true crime. This is the story of one of Missouri's most notorious wildlife poachers. And, the investigation that finally brought him down. This is Operation Geronimo, the case of David Berry Jr.
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If you've followed conservation news over the past decade, you may be familiar with the name. David Berry Jr. was at the center of a sprawling, long term poaching operation, one that stretched across countries, involved generations of family members, and left hundreds of illegally taken deer in its wake. But this story isn't just about a poacher, it's about the conservation agents who methodically worked behind the scenes to shut the operation down. One of those agents is Lawrence County Conservation Agent Andy Barnes, who joined me to talk about how this case unfolded.
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[2:00.]
Andy, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me today. For listeners who may not have heard of it, tell us what Operation Geronimo was, and how this case came to be?
>> Operation Geronimo was a case that we had... it really kicked off in 2015. It involved a family in southwest Missouri. It was kind of a multi-generational family, to where each member of the family was taught, basically, wildlife violations, not to cooperate with officers... each one was taught down the line. And, they operated together, and each generation was taught how to do that. So, that's how the case basically started with me. I received information from the public.
>> Barnes began working as the Lawrence County agent in 2006. And, almost immediately started receiving tips about David Berry Jr. and his family.
>> We would get information about people of... rather grand or grandiose violations. And, that's some of the stuff I received about the Berrys. Berry Jr. especially was claimed to have killed 100 deer a year by himself... large, gross over limits of deer, gross over limits of fish, turkeys... shooting turkeys off the roof. So, I was receiving these little bits of information maybe once a year. I would just get a little tip, but I couldn't prove it. There was only a few times that I could substantiate some of the information.
Like, an example would be one year... we don't get a lot of snow in southwest Missouri, but we had snow that stuck on the ground, and it had stayed on the ground for a while. I got a tip that David Jr. had run tire chains on his truck... so he'd outrun me if I was to get behind him one night. So, I drove up past their residence... it's in a remote location. I could see tire tracks coming out of the driveway with tire chains on, which is very unique for Lawrence County. So, he was probably the only one with tire chains. I could follow him into the country side, every field entrance he'd pull in, and drive the perimeter of the field, and drive back out, you know, looking for deer.
[4:04.]
So, I could substantiate some of it. But throughout that time, I couldn't get what we'd need to get a search warrant, or to further the investigation.
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>> Throughout the years, Agent Barnes would continue to hear rumors about the Berry family, and their alleged crimes. Poaching deer at night, often from the road... taking only the heads and antlers for trophies, leaving the bodies to waste. But again, nothing he could prove. The investigation was made even more complicated because people in the community were afraid to talk. Agent Barnes said the Berry family would intimidate local residents, allegedly making threats to anyone who reported them.
>> The issue with, you know... almost all of your really good investigations, whether it's us or highway patrol or anybody... most of it comes from public information. And, that's why we want people to contact us and talk to us. Well, people would not cooperate as well with this family, because they used the threat of cutting their fences, shooting their livestock, items like that, to prevent people from communicating.
>> The Berry family.
>> Yeah, that was the rumors we were receiving. And so, they would tell us "well, I don't want to go any further with it, because I'm scared." It's not necessarily a provable statement. You can't find where there's a recording of them saying... it's just people telling us that that's what they had said. So, with that kind of information, it was pretty hard to go much farther than just the little bits of information that we could receive at that time. And like I said, a lot of it was, you know... like the idea of David Jr. killing 100 deer a year. You know? That's a pretty bold statement. That's pretty... that would be incredibly rare. By the end of the investigation, it was probably pretty realistic.
[6:03.]
>> It was in December of 2015 when the case finally gained some momentum. That's when Agent Barnes received a tip that Berry Jr. spotlighted a deer in Kansas, and brought it back into Missouri. But only this time, Barnes had the proof he had been missing.
>> The key was, I received two photos. One being him posing with the deer in Kansas, and then one of the deer hanging in Missouri. So, that was a boost to us for two reasons. One is, now we have state violations in Kansas, and state violations in Missouri. But, we also have a federal violation. You can't transport illegal wildlife across state lines. So, that created the federal hook that we would need for a federal case down the road.
>> To clarify, there are specific hunting seasons for non-residents to harvest deer in Kansas, but we know hunting wasn't Berry Jr.'s style. He preferred poaching. And then, by transporting an illegally taken deer across state lines into Missouri, he violated the nation's oldest wildlife law, the Lacey Act. Originally passed in 1900, the Lacey Act bans the transportation of illegally hunted game across state lines. With a federal wildlife violation and an investigation this large, and this sensitive... agents now needed a way to reference the case discreetly. Barnes told me there was a very specific reason why he chose the codename "Operation Geronimo."
>> So, the real Geronimo had a reputation of being able to evade capture, when capture was imminent. It's really a tip of the hat to David Jr. There were several times apparently where I'd pull into a field at night, and he might have been in the field and ran, and I didn't know it. You know, just snippets of information I was receiving. So, I had interviewed him once before, and I had written one of his other family members.
[8:01.]
So, I just couldn't seal the deal. So, I basically named him Geronimo for a reason. I work construction on the side. If I'm on a construction site, I never wanted his name mentioned. So, I was really hyper sensitive of information ever being leaked out. In fact, I even have an issue talking about it now. So, I would name him Geronimo, so at any time if I was talking to an officer... because under MDC, you're really on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I might be working the case, even on my days off. So if I was working information, it was always "Geronimo." I never wanted his name mentioned, to where it would get out that I was looking at him.
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>> After investigators confirmed the two incriminating photos of the poached Kansas deer had been taken on Berry Jr.'s phone, they obtained search warrants for his cell phone, his truck, his place of employment, as well as his residence.
>> We basically started it at daylight in December of 2015, on the day that we served the warrants. This case, at the height, involved like 100 officers. It just happened to be that it was in my county. It's not really even my case, it's just that they lived in my county. So, we had separate teams, myself and another officer were serving the warrant on David Jr., because I could ID him. And then, the other group, the large group... they served the warrants on the residence.
At his place of business... he's been cordial with me over the years. I haven't really had any hard feelings towards him, but he obviously was not going to cooperate. He actually admitted... he had another buck head in the back of the truck that morning, he had just killed it in Kansas, so that was his second Kansas deer. He admitted to both of those, because he knew I had those two, but he wouldn't admit to anything else. He did have the rifle, bloody knife... all the accoutrements for the violations in the vehicle. And then, what we did is I released David Jr. that time.
[10:02.]
With us having a federal case and a state case, when they go hand in hand, there are some legal ramifications that you don't want to taint either side of the case. So, we weren't going to take him to jail, we weren't going to file charges that day.
>> At the Berry residence, officers seized around 50 deer heads, along with some illegally spotlighted rabbits, trophy mounts, and a few firearms. But, the real bulk of the case is what came from Berry's cell phone. When mobile forensics experts began reviewing his phone, they learned Berry's poaching crimes extended into Canada. Agent Barnes and three other officers would then spend the next 7 months going through Berry's communications with a fine-toothed comb.
>> Every time he took a photo, it saved the location, the time stamp everything that he did was recorded very well on the phone. So, we ended up with around 300 charges. We would have to go through that device, and it's not like working drugs. When you're looking at wildlife, well wildlife could be legal or it could be illegal. So, we can't use analysts to download this information and put it into an easy to read version. So, we had to do the dirty work. So, we just spent countless hours for the next 7 months doing nothing but... you would follow down the rabbit trail. You'd find a photo, but then you have to back track that to text messages. He might discuss it with 3 different people, but in 3 different formats. You know? One through text messages, one through Snapchat, one through instant messaging, or something. So then you have to follow each one of those trails, until you can find the story about why they killed this one deer.
They would use acronyms, they would use all this different language. So, you would have to learn all of that. That's really what we did for the next 7 months.
>> At the end of their months-long investigation, Agent Barnes and his team ended up with around 17 suspects. They pulled together interview packets, some 3 inches thick, detailing poaching crimes in Canada, Nebraska, and Kansas... including the illegal take of mule deer... even a porcupine.
[12:12.]
They then had to coordinate with 100 state, federal and Canadian wildlife officers to simultaneously conduct interviews... a massive and challenging effort when it involves interviewing suspects in different timezones.
>> That was something new for me, because the Canada personnel... you know, we wanted to do it at our time, Central Standard Time. Well, they were like... "we're in Canada, and we have to fly into these places." So, we had to move the time around a little bit to gain them time. They needed like 24 hours just to get to the people. But on that day, we had already set that unless we needed to, we wouldn't write any warrants on that day. It's an interview, it's a fact finding mission. It was going to be their chance to talk, if they wanted to talk. You know? The main suspects, like David Sr. . . he was never going to talk, and we knew it. But he politely declined, and David Jr. kind of went into the wind pretty quick... but he wasn't going to talk. But, some people did. And so, we had some quality interviews, gained a lot of information, and what we found of course... this is 7 months after we just served some search warrants on their residence.
We did see some electronics, and wrote some more warrants on it. We found that they were actually noodling catfish, after we had already caught them the first time. So, just literally a few days before these interviews, they were out noodling fish. We weren't phasing them any. But, they hadn't had any charges at that time. At that point, we took all of this information that we had gained from the interviews, added it to what we had already gained from the electronics and the other information, the search warrant... and we created prosecution packets.
>> With each prosecution packet submitted, the court saw more of the operation's scope.
[14:03.]
And that evidence allowed investigators to secure even more search warrants on every suspect tied to the case.
>> We had all the residences at that time, again... a combined effort. Everything at the same time. With that one, we gained substantially more at that point. That was going to be... we probably seized 50 or 80 guns. So, we seized a large amount of evidence with the case. That put the last pieces of the puzzle... anything that they could have used to commit those crimes. And we ended up with, again, some more wildlife. They were still doing it. And... then after that point, it was out of our hands, you know? It went into the court system at that point.
>> In addition to the federal case, David Berry Jr. faced numerous wildlife charges in multiple Missouri counties. He was convicted of a felony weapons charge in Barton County, then banning him from owning a firearm, and thus limiting his capabilities of killing a deer. Charges in neighboring Lawrence County resulted in probation.
>> The judge at the time... I remember sitting in, and he said to him "I don't want you to even go into Bass Pro Shop, because it's too close to hunting for me."
>> Not even a month later, Agent Barnes gets word that David Berry Jr., his father and their associates are allegedly poaching again in Greene County. But, this is where the story really shifts. For years, many people in the community were afraid to speak up, unsure of what may happen if they reported the Berry family. But after the arrests and the growing scrutiny, that fear started to fade. One tip became two, and then dozens, with pictures and evidence to back it up. What had once been an intimidated community was now working together to stop a serial poaching operation in their own backyard.
>> I started getting more and more information, more information...
[16:00.]
"David Jr. shot this deer with a gun, the gun is at this location, and here's the photo to back it up." So, we started all over again. We did do a little bit of covert stuff, basically just had a plainclothes officer, she stood roadside. It was in Greene County, near a subdivision. That's where they were hunting at. So, during their original case, I knew that that was part of his M.O. He liked to hunt in the middle of Springfield, because it's basically a refuge. Along the green waste trials and stuff... he could kill deer, big deer in Springfield. He would kill them with archery methods, so they couldn't hear it. He was near this subdivision... sure enough, here comes David Sr. Our agent has the hood popped, like she's having car trouble. He's got a dead deer in the back of the truck.
He just says "you need some help?" She said "no . . ." but she gets it all on video. She said "oh, I see you got a deer?" He said "yeah, I shot it right down there." So, he admitted everything on video. We used that information, plus we had officers that... we would basically drop them off at 2 or 3 in the morning, and they would crawl all the way into this location, and they watched them do a lot of this. Between that type of work, we were able to get the rest of it sealed. At the end of it, I don't remember how many that the Greene County officers charged them with... but it was several, I think 40 or 50 charges out of it. I just wanted one. I just need one on David Jr. for violating his probation.
So... obviously I was talking to prosecutors and stuff about it, and they said "just bring us one. We just need the one charge." So, I brought it back. That's when my judge at that time gave him that creative sentence.
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>> Creative? Unique, maybe. For violating his probation by again poaching deer, Lawrence County judge Robert George reinstated David Berry Jr.'s original jail sentence, but this time with a Disney twist. He also ordered him to watch the movie Bambi once a month over the course of his incarceration.
[18:03.]
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>> The Lawrence County jail, it's a rough jail. They've built a brand new one now, but at that time, it's very close proximity... there's 8 people in a cell. So, they would pull David out, and make him go sit in the rec room with the VCR, and watch Bambi in front of all the other inmates. Doesn't give you much street cred, that you're watching Bambi. So, he watched it once a month for 7 months. The one thing about him and his dad, they always hired really good attorneys.
After 7 months, this attorney was able to say "look, he's served 7 months in the county jail for a deer charge", so the judge had to let him out. At that point, the feds ... they filed the federal charges on David Jr. and his coconspirator. Those two are the ones that went to Canada... one went into Nebraska and killed some deer illegally, and then David's stuff in Kansas. So, he gets 4 months in the federal pen for the wildlife crime, David does. And then they get the standard fines. . . I think at the end of ours, for state charges, it was something around like $50, $60, $70,000 in fines. So, they paid quite a bit monetarily. But, it was really that Bambi sentence that got the publicity.
>> The notorious "Bambi sentence" resulted in massive public and media attention, with news agencies from across the globe covering the story. The Disney classic includes a notoriously heartbreaking scene where Bambi's mother is killed by a hunter. The scene is widely regarded as the most tragic moment in Disney history. Some questioned the seriousness of incorporating the animated movie into the punishment, while others applauded the judge's ruling, and the symbolism.
>> I think the general public, they were really divided. Some just said "well, that was kind of ridiculous, you know? He's not getting anything out of it." The other people, they thought it was funny... they thought "well, good, you know?" I think it was the balance of the jail time and the fines... because he paid a substantial amount of money.
[20:05.]
And to get 7 months in our county jail is pretty substantial for a wildlife crime. I think it was the balance of that... it was just the twist of the knife, that he had to watch Bambi. What I thought was funny, is my judge... he had some very high profile homicide cases. He's had kidnappings, all of these... none of those are making the rounds. It's the Bambi case!
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>> But even with the harsh jail sentence, and unusual Bambi punishment in 2018... one question lingered. Would it really stop him? By this point, the poaching was relentless... more compulsory, almost like an addiction.
>> There's a professor up around Montana, and he's written some stuff on game wardens and stuff like that. He mentions basically, "serial killers of wildlife." If we have serial killers of people, you also have serial killers of wildlife. And it's pretty interesting because really, David Jr. checks all the boxes. I'm not saying he's a bad person, he just likes to kill deer, or really kill anything. So, if you look at him, no drug use... hardly any alcohol. I mean, he went to work every day. When he was killing those deer in Kansas, he would drive to Kansas. He actually took a lady on a Tinder date to Kansas to spotlight the deer. He went out to Kansas, spotlighted a deer, and he would spotlight all night long, and then come back, sleep for a couple hours in the parking lot, and come back to work. He could do that for days.
So, they would drive to north Missouri... I mean, that's a 5 hour drive. He would leave work on a Friday evening, go up there, spotlight all night... and they would kill deer, and either hang their heads under bridges, and then come back and pick them up on the way back through... but they would do that for like 2 nights straight. And then, they would bring them back and pose with them at a farm that made it look like a legal kill. They could do that for days, and just go right back to work. It's not like he had addictions, other than wildlife.
Now I remember, I finally took him to jail during one of the times.
[22:03.]
And, he knew we were coming, and he would hide or something. The time I took him to jail, he had actually saw us, or got tipped off. He had went and dumped his phone and some stuff on the side of the road. He came back, and I said "well David, you got to go to jail." So I loaded him in the truck, and he said "would you mind if we go on the road over, and pick up my phone?" Which, he told me... he said "I swear to god, there's nothing on it! I swear." I said, that's fine.... he's very personable. I don't hold any hard feelings. I kind of miss it, to be honest. Because, they were really good.
And so... it's kind of the old school stuff. So I'd pick him up, take him to jail, and he said he's got away with it for a long time. I said "yeah, you sure did." But then he said "but when you caught me, you caught me pretty good." Yeah, yeah I did. It was just a luck deal on a lot of it, but they were all pretty good at it. You have to tip your hat to them. For them to be able to do that much for that many years, and never get caught... I mean, it's pretty astounding.
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>> Beyond the headlines, what does a case like this mean for conservation? MDC's Protection Branch Chief Travis McLane sheds light on wildlife poaching, its broader impacts, and what shutting down a large scale operation like the Berry family meant for Missouri.
>> I think it's really important to understand with this case that this is not legal hunting. Right? Legal hunting is a very important wildlife management tool. It's a tradition in our state. This is poaching. It's two different things. Hunting and fishing and angling... it's how we manage the wildlife populations, how we keep them healthy. Those limits are in place for a reason. The seasons are in place for a reason. I remember when I was a young hunter, it was kind of unusual to be able to harvest more than one deer. Well now, our populations have done well. A lot of our public don't remember times when those populations were maybe lower on some of these species. And people who are out harvesting 100 deer over a 3 month period, there's no doubt at least locally... they are doing some kind of damage to those populations.
[24:06.]
Even if it's not damaging a population from a management perspective, the social impact is huge. Right? Because, as Andy mentioned, some people like to watch big deer. Some people like to hunt big deer. They've stolen an opportunity from someone else to enjoy those same resources. If you're a landowner who invests a lot of time and energy on your property, managing it for wildlife, whether it's to hunt, or to watch... somebody comes along and in the middle of the night shoots a deer off your property, the one you've been watching. That has an impact on you personally. It's way more than just one deer.
>> This case highlights the importance of community involvement. Without tips from the public, Agent Barnes and investigators may never have uncovered the full scope of the poaching. Conservation happens when people care enough to speak up and protect wildlife that belongs to all Missourians.
>> Even if you think it's insignificant, call the conservation agent. A recent study from the Boone and Crockett Club, it's called the "poach and paste study." They found that only about 4% of wildlife crime goes detected. Comparison that, right? You think about David Berry Jr. and this group that poached hundreds of deer. People tend to think poaching is a victimless crime, and as I kind of alluded to earlier, it's not. It's stealing from everybody. It's a public trust resource. There's a lot going on out there, and you may not even realize that you're providing the tip for the next Operation Geronimo. We have a hotline called the "Operation Game Thief" hotline. That is a way for people, they can remain anonymous. It's a toll free number, 1-800-392-1111. You can call the OGT hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and an operator will answer that hotline number.
But, until everybody takes it seriously enough to provide the information, we're not going to make an impact. The poach and paste study, what they said... the number 1 fear of most poachers they interviewed was actually... they did it because they didn't fear that they could get caught.
[26:01.]
And you kind of heard that from Andy, a little bit. He's like, he did it a long time, and "I got away with it a lot." So, when you think about having one conservation agent per county, or maybe 2 if we're lucky, if we're lucky we have 2... that's 2 eyes or 4 eyes out there looking for things, right? So, we really do rely very heavily on public cooperation. The more that people stand up and report this stuff, the bigger the fear of people, of actually getting caught.
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Andy is very humble. This case wouldn't have happened but for Andy Barnes and his dedication, and his tenacity. I'm chief of our branch, and we have just a shade under 200 conservation agents in the State of Missouri. We have 200 Andy Barnes out there in the State of Missouri. So, I'm very proud of that. If you are somebody who is like Mr. David Berry Jr. and his family, it may take us a while... but we're going to track you down, and we're going to figure out what you're doing. And, we're going to put those resources in place, and we're going to stop what you're doing. It's very important stuff, and it means a lot to me personally. I've dedicated my career, much like Andy has, to conserving our fish, forest and wildlife resources. We're the ones who are charged with doing that, and we take it very seriously. Our staff are well trained. They care very much about protecting these resources for all of our citizens to enjoy.
Whether you're a golfer who likes watching deer in the backyard, or you're somebody who enjoys the hunt, or to fish... we're out there trying to make sure that is able to happen for years to come.
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>> Cases like Operation Geronimo remind us that Missouri's wildlife belongs to all of us, and that protecting it takes teamwork, dedication, and courage. From conservation agents in the field, to community members willing to speak up, every effort matters. That's the partnership that protects the outdoors we love.
I'm grateful to Agent Andy Barnes and Protection Branch Chief Travis McLane for sharing this case.
[28:01.]
And, to all of the men and women across Missouri who work each day to safeguard our natural resources, so we can enjoy them for years to come.
Thanks for tuning into this special true crime edition of NatureBoost! If you enjoyed it, be sure to subscribe, leave us a review, share with a friend, and join us in the future for more NatureBoost Investigates! I'm Jill Pritchard with the Missouri Department of Conservation. Here's to protecting and appreciating the wild things that call Missouri home. Until next time!
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