(KLZA)-- A man serving life in prison for murder of a Pawnee County man has now been charged with first degree murder and use of deadly weapon to commit a felony in the death of his cellmate at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institute north of Tecumseh.  

According to a news release from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office, 39-year-old Patrick W. Schroeder has been charged in the death of 22-year-old Terry L. Berry Jr..

According to the release Berry and Schroeder were the only occupants in a cell at the Tecumseh Prison on April 15 when Corrections personnel were alerted to respond to the cell the two occupied.  

Berry was unresponsive and transported to Bryan Medical Center West in Lincoln.  He was placed on life support and then pronounced dead April 20.

An autopsy was conducted Friday.  The report says the cause of death is asphyxia, due to compression of the neck structures. The manner of death is homicide.

Schroeder is expected to appear in Johnson County Court on May 3.

Johnson County Attorney Rick Smith and prosecutors from the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office will prosecute the case. 

Schroeder is currently serving life in prison for the April, 2006 robbery and murder of Kenneth Albers who lived on a farmstead just outside of Pawnee City.  Albers died from multiple blows to the head by a blunt instrument.  His body was then dumped down a well located on the farmstead.  

Schroeder lived in DuBois, when he was convicted of the murder in June, 2007.

In 2009, Schroeder was sentenced to more than nine years in prison for robbing the State Bank of Steinauer in January, 2006. The federal sentence is to be served consecutively to the murder sentence.  

Terry Berry Jr. was serving a 3- to 4-year sentence for felony forgery and a jail assault conviction from Platte County. He was up for a parole next month and set for release in December.

Berry was born in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, but had lived at Steinauer  and finished his schooling at the HTRS School according to his obituary.