In the quiet of a late December night in 2010, the life of Jonathan Hall, a 27-year-old man with a spirit for wandering and a love for art and music, was brought to an abrupt and violent end. Known to some as 'Jon Flee,' Hall had a reputation as a kind soul who spent his seasons traveling the country, from harvesting beets in Minnesota to working as a cook in the vibrant city of New Orleans. It was in his New Orleans home in the St.
Roch neighborhood that his journey was cut short.
On the evening of December 23rd, police were called to Hall's residence in the 1200 block of St. Roch Avenue. Inside, they found him with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The initial belief of his parents, who described him as a 'natural hobo,' was that he may have stumbled upon a burglary in progress. This theory was supported by their account of a suspicious incident the night before, where someone knocked on Hall's door and then fled.
The investigation into the death of the young man, who had spent a couple of his high school years in Starkville, Mississippi, before his travels took him across the country, quickly led to the arrest of two local teenagers. The suspects were just 15 and 16 years old at the time of their apprehension. The arrests brought a swift, though unsettling, development to a case that had shaken the community.
The older of the two, 16-year-old Cedrick Berryhill, soon faced the full weight of the justice system. An Orleans Parish grand jury handed down a 19-count indictment against him, a litany of serious charges that painted a picture of a violent crime spree. Among the charges was the second-degree murder of Jonathan Hall. The district attorney's office made the decision to try Berryhill as an adult, signaling the severity of the allegations. In a turn of events, in May of 2011, Berryhill was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was ordered to a juvenile mental health facility for treatment and evaluation. The legal proceedings for the younger suspect, the 15-year-old, remain unclear from available information. The final outcome of the case against Cedrick Berryhill following his time at the mental health facility has not been publicly detailed.
