Warm Springs Man Sentenced to Serve 18 Years in Federal Prison After Conviction on Charge of Murder in the Second Degree

PORTLAND, OR—Today U.S. District Judge Ancer L. Haggerty sentenced Ted L. Barney, Jr., 23, of Warm Springs to serve 18 years in prison for murdering 24 year-old Delmer Davis. Barney pled guilty on October 3, 2011, to murder in the second degree involving the death of Davis. Barney will also serve five years of supervised release when he is released from the Bureau of Prisons.

According to the prosecutor’s statements in court, on July 26, 2011, on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, the defendant was a passenger in a car driving in a residential neighborhood. A man standing in the driveway of a home in the neighborhood threw a rock at defendant’s car as it drove by. The rock missed the car, but defendant told the driver to turn around and then stop the car. The defendant got out of the car and approached the man in the driveway, who was about 75 feet away (the driveway was long). The defendant then began shooting with a 9mm handgun. The man hid behind a vehicle in the driveway.

Defendant fired approximately five shots at the man hiding behind the vehicle in the driveway, but the defendant missed his intended target. However, one of the bullets from defendant’s gun went through the back window of the vehicle. That bullet hit the head of Delmer Davis, who was sitting in the back of the car holding his infant son. Mr. Davis died en route to the hospital as a result of that wound. Mr. Davis’s infant son suffered no physical injuries.

The defendant, who initially may not have realized he hit anybody (the windows of the vehicle were tinted), turned himself in to the Warm Springs Police Department later that day when he learned the police were looking for him. Defendant provided the murder weapon to the Warm Springs Police, and after Miranda warnings, he confessed that he was the shooter and that he was aiming to hit another man in the driveway.

“Prosecuting violent crime in Indian Country is a top priority for my office and I hope this prosecution has brought some closure to the victim’s family and the Warm Springs Community,” Amanda Marshall, United States Attorney for the District of Oregon. “Mr. Barney needlessly took the life of Delmer Davis because Mr. Barney wanted to settle a dispute with a gun. This is a tragic and painful loss for the victim’s family.”

The Warm Springs Police Department and the FBI’s office in Bend, Oregon, investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel handled the criminal prosecution.