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GRAND FORKS — Katelynn Berry, the 26-year-old Montana woman with Grand Forks ties whose body was found last month, died from hypothermia, her parents confirmed to the Herald on Friday.
Authorities determined that the manner of Berry’s death was accidental and the cause of her death was hypothermia, according to Hank Berry, Katelynn Berry’s father, and Carmell Mattison, her mother.
Staff at the Richland, Montana, county coroner’s office declined to disclose the manner of death themselves, despite Berry's death certificate being a public record, and staff at the county clerk and recorder’s office in eastern Montana would only provide the certificate in person. John Dynneson, the county sheriff, did not return a Herald request for comment on Friday.
Hank Berry first reported Katelyn Berry missing on Dec. 31. On Jan. 20, her remains were found a short distance from the apartment in Sidney, Montana, that Berry built for his daughter above his workshop. Katelynn Berry grew up, in part, in East Grand Forks and her mother Mattison is a Grand Forks County prosecutor.
Mattison, Hank Berry, and other family and friends have put together the Katelynn’s Voice Foundation, a nonprofit that’s set to award a trio of college scholarships to Montana or Minnesota high school seniors who’ve been diagnosed with a mental illness.
