April 3, 2020 4:20 a.m.
A Myrtle Creek area man serving time for a 2015 manslaughter case has died in prison.
The Oregon Department of Corrections has announced that 73-year old Steven Merry passed away on Wednesday at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario. He had been on hospice since January.
Merry was arrested on February 5, 2015 after 29-year old Justin Davis of Sutherlin, was found deceased by his father, on Merry’s property on Dole Road in a rural area north of Myrtle Creek. Merry was initially arrested on the charge of murder.
Merry pled guilty to manslaughter in January of 2017 and was transferred into state custody. He had been in the Douglas County Jail prior to that time. His earliest potential release date had been in February of 2027.