Douglas J. Berry, a 63-year-old man from Watertown, New York, died on September 8, 1989, in the place where he made his living: the coin and jewelry store he owned. Accounts of the night describe a break-in after hours, the kind of crime meant to be quiet and quick, until the person inside stirred in the back room and the burglary turned lethal.
Investigators later tied the killing to Gary Charles Evans, a career burglar from upstate New York, and to Evans’ partner at the time, Damien Cuomo. Sources describing the crime say Evans and Cuomo targeted Berry’s shop, broke in, and were confronted by the unmistakable problem of an awakened owner—someone who could call for help, identify intruders, or simply refuse to be intimidated. In that moment, Evans shot Berry, and the pair escaped with stolen property reported in one account to total about $15,000.
What followed, according to later reporting and summaries of Evans’ criminal life, was a long stretch in which the Watertown killing was folded into a wider pattern of burglaries and violence surrounding Evans. The duo’s earlier brush with police in March 1989—when they were arrested and items such as masks and other burglary tools were reportedly found—ended with their release for lack of sufficient evidence, leaving them on the street months before Berry was killed.
Years later, the case resurfaced in a way few expected: Evans walked into a police station in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, on May 27, 1998, and confessed to multiple murders. In accounts of his surrender and subsequent statements, he described killings in detail and led authorities toward evidence in other cases. The Watertown shooting of Douglas Berry is included among the murders attributed to him in biographical summaries of his crimes, with Cuomo consistently identified as the accomplice during the burglary.
Even then, the story did not end in a courtroom verdict. Evans was arraigned and charged in 1998 in connection with several murders, but he did not live to face trial. On August 14, 1998, while being transported in custody, he escaped his restraints, smashed his way out of a vehicle, and jumped from the Menands Bridge into the Hudson River, dying from the injuries in what authorities ruled a suicide. With Evans dead before adjudication, there was no trial and no conviction that could formally close Douglas Berry’s case in the way families often wait for.
