Megan Paris emotional as she’s sentenced to 20 years (L); (R) Ian and David Berger (WSLS screengrabs)
The former live-in girlfriend who told multiple different stories of how 3-year-old Ian Berger sustained severe head injuries while the toddler was in her care was sentenced Thursday to spend 20 years in prison following a no contest plea to murder.
Megan Paris, 32, appeared emotional in a Campbell County, Virginia, courtroom as she was sentenced to 40 years with 20 of those years suspended in the second-degree murder case.
After Ian Berger died of a traumatic brain injury, Megan Paris, a Gladys resident, told investigators at least three different versions of how the severe injuries occurred, including stories of the toddler falling out of a booster seat and hitting his head on a bathtub or falling down the stairs.
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Local ABC affiliate WSET reported, however, that Paris had abused the victim several months earlier — inflicting bruises and breaking his shoulder — and that the defendant chose not to call an ambulance on the day the toddler suffered fatal injuries.
Megan Paris (Blue Ridge Regional Jail)
Prosecutors said — and a doctor testified, WSLS reported — that it was clear, given the severity of Ian Berger’s injuries, that he did not merely fall down or accidentally hit his head in the bathtub. Doctors performed an emergency skull surgery to try and save Ian, but he died at the hospital on Sept. 18, 2020.
Ian’s father David Berger, of Rustburg, said in a victim impact statement at sentencing that “there are no more good mornings, good afternoons, good days or good nights for me.”
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“There are only days and bad days,” he said.
After his son’s death, locals launched a fundraiser to help. David credited those locals for saving his own life.
“To be honest, if it wasn’t for friends like this, I probably wouldn’t be here,” David Berger said at the time. “It’s been really nice having a bunch of friends helping me through the hardest time of my life.”
In May 2021, David shared a heartbreaking post remembering the good times with Ian while also calling for justice and revealing just how hard life had become:
I’m so glad I got to teach him how to fish. He was instantly hooked on fishing. We ended up spending most of the day fishing instead of going out on the boat. As a father I longed for moments like this. I remember the feeling when my dad taught me things. How excited I was, I couldn’t wait to teach Ian everything I had to offer. I miss and love you so much buddy.
God, they say you don’t put anyone through something they can’t handle. I don’t know why you think i can handle this. And continue to pour more onto me. I am so tired, so weak, so drained. I have nothing left to give. I get up every morning, whether i got to sleep or not and keep trying to push. I didn’t ask for this, why me. My greatest accomplishment, my biggest joy, my whole world, ripped from my arms.
I go to therapy, I’m on a regular schedule with a psychiatrist, I’m on more medicine than i can remember, i have group counseling with other parents who’s lost a child, I’m doing everything I can but this pain, this pain is too much…
#JusticeforIanColeBerger
Court records show that Paris initially faced the top charge of first-degree murder but that the charge was amended to second-degree murder, to which she pleaded no contest in February.
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