According to verbal reports, as related by Mrs. John Dennett of Rockville (then a girl living in Long Valley and who pieced her story from Indian and white sources), the Berrys fought for their lives. The Indians shot one of the horses, rendering the wagon useless. In the fighting, one Indian was shot. Joe Berry loosened the other horse and tried to escape but was killed in so doing. The Indians closed in and captured Robert and his wife. They tied Robert to a wheel where he was forced to watch them torture Isabel, who was an expectant mother. They shot arrows into her and laughed at her as she tried to pull them out. Then they shot him full of arrows. Mrs. Dennett said her father always felt that the Berrys had been killed in revenge for some Indians slain by Long Valley men who had found them roasting a beef. At that time three were slain: an Indian, a squaw and a papoose. When the Berry tragedy was reported in St. George, orders were issued forbidding travel unless in groups large enough to provide adequate safeguards. This led to the declaration of martial law, May 2, 1866, and to the issuance of instructions to concentrate the settlers in fortified places of at least 150 men. Patrols were ordered out in various directions, especially across the trails used by the Navajos in raiding the Mormon country and in contacting the rampaging Utes of Sevier County. When Silas S. Smith, stationed on the Sevier, heard of the Berry massacre, he found that the Paiute chief at Panguitch had known about it for five days without reporting it to him. Smith at once ordered pickets to bring in all passing Indians for questioning. Friendly Indians responded willingly enough, but when two strange Indians refused, a skirmish resulted in which one was killed and the other wounded. Smith decided to disarm the local Indians and surrounded one of their camps near Panguitch one morning before daylight and took their arms. Two visiting Indians were missing from the camp so he kept a guard awaiting their arrival. When they came, they showed fight. One of them was killed, whereupon the other surrendered. The next day Smith surrounded another camp soon after sunrise, but the natives had already fled. However, in the ensuing melee two more Indians were killed. The arms taken from them included several guns, many new arrows, and a peck of new arrow heads. Some escaped to Panguitch Lake and spread the alarm among the Indians there. General Snow had a number of chiefs from Panguitch, Parowan, and Red Creek brought to Parowan for conference. He tried to pacify them with arguments and presents but insisted that they must not have arms or ammunition and must have passes in order to travel through the Mormon settlements. This aroused some resentment, but on April 25, 1866, they agreed to leave their weapons at Parowan as a token of friendship. Some of the Indians reported gunfire around Upper Kanab where Col. W. B. Maxwell was on lookout for Navajos.