On the morning of March 7, 1982 there was a fire which occurred under the eaves of the roof of a 1879 house, three miles northeast of Newell, S.D.  The house was heated with a barrel wood stove.  It was 10 degrees the night before and 50 degrees that day.  A small fire was started in the stove between 7-8am.  The fire was noticed outside the house between 8-9am.  The chimney on the outside of the house was a stovepipe that was insulated against the roof, however some of the insulation had worn off over some months.  A strong east wind was blowing, and blew the flames which started at the point of contact between the stove pipe and the roof, surrounded, again, by worn insulation, into the eaves of the roof of the house.  Jacob Berry had burned railroad ties for firewood in the stove the previous winter, as it would drop below 0 degrees at night, with no problem and no danger.

Why would a house fire start when it was approximately 30 degrees and a small fire was started that morning?  To survive the "Farm Crisis" of the first half of the 1980s, Berry used a small inheritance left by his grandfather, as well as funds given to him by his father who lived overseas to help.  He also worked jobs around the community for various farmers and ranchers when available.  This included setting sheep for shearers, stacking hay, fixing fences, feeding sheep and cattle, helping to rebuild a barn, cleaning manure out of a pig shed, and etc.  He was building his small 120 acre farm from scratch.  When he bought the land in September 1979, it had only two cisterns and two stock ponds.  The house was moved onto the property from Spearfish, S.D., forty miles, and put on poured foundation.  A water pump was installed in the crawl space, a septic tank and drain fields as well.  Various improvements were placed on the property - barn, chicken coop, small shop/shed and etc.

In the Farm Crisis many were "going down the tubes".  One rancher, Alvin Falzarano with 1500 head of sheep on 5000 acres was reduced to 160 acres in the middle of his 5000 acres, with no improvements.  A second rancher, Don Bridenbach, lost his 10,000 ranch.  A third, Keith Swan, lost his cattle.  Berry was none too popular with some because he was building improvements while others were going broke.  One rancher told him: "Even if we have to take your little farm away from you."  In the local Assembly of God church, families were ruined, the orchestra and choir ceased, and 70% of the key membership left.  The pastor, Morris Conklin, was likewise none too happy.  Berry attended the church sporadically.  He told Berry such things as: "I don't care where you've worked," referring to the farm/ranch jobs.  And, "You came to the church in dirty jeans," when Berry had to walk three miles down to the church on the muddy day, due to a mechanical breakdown, in near-new washed jeans, getting a little mud on the cuffs of the pants.  Dress code was loose, even an elder wore jeans to church.

The pastor, as was discovered subsequently, was into witchcraft.  This was admitted to in a United States Federal District Court lawsuit against the Assembly of God in 1996 - the "operation of spiritual forces invoked" and "the actions of Satan as applied".  Two and a half years after the house fire, late October 1984, Berry had three three fires "down by the barn".  One was a haystack fire, the other two being small prairie fires set - one in front of the corrals and one in front of the barn.  Were these fires - the house fire in 1982 and the others in 1984 - a result of someone who didn't like Berry coming up from Denver, Colo. and "doing his own thing" putting improvements on his property while others weren't doing well, or were these fires extraordinary supernatural disturbance, given the Assembly of God pastor's skill at using the black arts.  The church had a history of problems while the pastor was there - foreclosing on a fellow church member, two women walking off and leaving their husbands, and this in a small town church of approximately fifty members.

On Beltane 1983, Berry was accused of, in so many words or less: "You have been found guilty of disloyalty and treachery.  Have you anything to say before judgment is passed."  The punishment was rendered by the pastor: "I LOOSE SATAN."  One of their possible associates, Anton LaVey, stated: "If your curse provokes their actual annihilation, rejoice that you have rid the world of a pest."  He subsequently was told by a church leader: "Have you read the Book of Job?"  This was around the same time period as Assembly of God evangelist Jim Bakker, head of the PTL Club, was committing adultery with Jessica Hahn.  And, Assembly of God evangelist Jimmy Swaggart was caught consorting with a whore.  These were high profile leaders of a denomination who thought they could do anything they wanted.