Woman Indicted in Stabbing Death of Friend

Nov. 18, 2020 – A grand jury has indicted a Kentucky woman in the stabbing death of a friend during an argument earlier this year, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

Harley Berry, 20, was indicted on a count of second-degree murder. She is being held in the Shelby County Women’s Jail East.

Investigators said that on May 30 Berry was with a group of friends at a rented house in the 900 block of Sheridan when she and 22-year-old Elijah McQueary got into an argument.

Witnesses said Berry grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed McQueary several times, including in the neck. He ran into the front yard, collapsed and was taken to a hospital where he later died.

While then driving back home to Elizabethtown, Ky., investigators said, Berry called the victim’s mother and told her what had happened. She later was arrested there by police and was returned to Memphis.

The case is being handled by Felony Asst. Jimmy Thomas of the District Attorney’s Vertical Team 1 which prosecutes cases in General Sessions Division 7 (Veteran’s Court) and in Criminal Court Division 1.