Brian Canarelli was found guilty of second-degree murder with a firearm after jurors declined to convict him of first-degree murder.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A Palm Beach County jury convicted Brian Canarelli of second-degree murder with a firearm in the fatal shooting of James “Cole” Berger, ending a five-year-old murder case that began with a late-night confrontation outside a Jupiter Farms home where Canarelli had gone to pick up his son.

The verdict, returned Sept. 25 after a five-day trial, represented a significant distinction from the first-degree murder charge Canarelli had faced. Prosecutors had asked jurors to hold him responsible for the more serious offense, but the jury instead found the 46-year-old guilty of second-degree murder with a firearm. Berger was 37 when he was killed in June 2021. Circuit Judge John Parnofiello did not immediately impose a sentence, ordering a presentencing investigation at the defense’s request. No sentencing date had been announced in the reporting reviewed for this story.

The firearm finding carries major consequences under Florida law. State law provides enhanced punishment when a firearm is discharged during certain felonies and the gunfire causes death or great bodily harm. For an offense covered by the statute, the mandatory minimum can be at least 25 years, with the law allowing a longer term up to life imprisonment. The precise sentence in Canarelli’s case remains for the judge to determine. The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office, which announced the conviction, said sentencing was pending.

The case grew out of a family dispute that brought Canarelli to a property on 98th Trail North in Jupiter Farms on June 22, 2021. Contemporary reporting based on a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office arrest report said Canarelli’s estranged wife had been at the home with Berger and three children. The adults had decided the children should leave the property after an argument inside the home, and one of the children, Canarelli’s 9-year-old son, asked to go to his father’s house. Canarelli’s estranged wife called him around 8 p.m. to arrange the pickup, investigators said.

According to the arrest report, Canarelli drove to the property in a white Porsche Cayenne and parked outside the front gate. Berger approached him, and the two men began arguing. The confrontation continued near the gate, where investigators said Berger climbed or jumped over the barrier as the exchange intensified. Canarelli’s estranged wife told deputies that she was opening the gate so the child could leave with his father when she heard a gunshot. She did not tell investigators that she saw the gunfire itself, but she ran toward the front of the property and found Berger wounded.

The woman told deputies that she began trying to help Berger and heard Canarelli acknowledge that he had shot him. Another eyewitness gave investigators a more detailed account. Berger’s mother had arrived at about the same time to pick up children from the property. According to the arrest report, she told deputies that she saw Canarelli reach behind his back and produce a handgun while the men were arguing. She said Berger had a pebble in his hand but did not raise it toward Canarelli. She reported seeing Canarelli fire once, then approach Berger after he fell and fire several additional shots.

Investigators documented physical evidence at the scene that became part of the case. Deputies found Canarelli’s Porsche parked near the property, and authorities reported seeing a handgun on the driver’s-side floorboard. Six spent 9 mm cartridge casings were recovered near the front entrance, according to reports based on the charging documents. Berger had been shot multiple times and was pronounced dead at the scene. Canarelli was taken into custody and booked into the Palm Beach County jail in the early hours of June 23, 2021.

The shooting initially led authorities to charge Canarelli with first-degree murder with a firearm. That charge placed the question of premeditation at the center of the eventual trial. First-degree murder requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the elements of that offense, while second-degree murder is a different homicide offense and does not require the same finding of premeditated intent. Jurors were given the option of first-degree murder but returned the lesser second-degree murder verdict with the firearm finding. The verdict therefore established Canarelli’s criminal responsibility for Berger’s death while rejecting the prosecution’s effort to obtain a first-degree murder conviction.

The trial opened Sept. 22 at the Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley Courthouse in downtown West Palm Beach. Palm Beach Post photographs from the proceeding showed prosecutors presenting physical evidence and a sheriff’s office crime-scene investigator testifying alongside a diagram of the scene. Assistant State Attorneys Bethany Johnson and Courtney Behar of the homicide unit prosecuted the case, according to the State Attorney’s Office. The agency said the evidence presented during the five-day trial showed Canarelli fired multiple shots and killed Berger outside the Jupiter Farms residence.

The fatal encounter occurred while Canarelli and his wife were in the process of ending their marriage. Court reporting identified the woman as Victoria Canarelli and said the couple had married in 2012. A petition to dissolve their marriage was filed in August 2020, roughly 10 months before the shooting. A separate family-law appeal involving Brian and Victoria Canarelli reached Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal and was affirmed in March 2026. The appellate opinion does not provide a narrative of the criminal case, but it confirms that their family-court litigation continued years after the divorce petition was filed.

For Berger’s family, the criminal case followed years of waiting after a killing witnessed at close range by people who had come to the property for the children. Contemporary reporting said Berger’s mother had arrived to collect children shortly before the shooting. Canarelli’s estranged wife was also nearby and attempted to help Berger after he was shot. An obituary cited in later coverage remembered Berger as a welcoming, affectionate man whose friends considered him a calming presence. Those personal details were separate from the legal questions before the jury but reflected the loss behind a case that spent more than five years awaiting a verdict.

The conviction also changes the procedural posture of the case. Before Sept. 25, Canarelli was a defendant accused of murder and entitled to the presumption of innocence. The jury’s guilty verdict resolved that question at the trial-court level. What remains is punishment. Parnofiello granted the defense request for a presentencing investigation, a process that gives the court additional information before sentence is imposed. The judge did not set the sentencing date when the verdict was returned, according to court reporting.

The distinction between the charge and the verdict will be central to the final judgment. Jurors did not find Canarelli guilty of the first-degree murder count prosecutors pursued, but they did conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed second-degree murder and used a firearm. Florida’s firearm sentencing law provides for a minimum term of at least 25 years when a qualifying felony involves a firearm discharge that causes death or great bodily harm. That statutory floor does not prevent a judge from imposing a longer prison term when authorized by law.

The State Attorney’s Office announced the conviction on Sept. 28 and identified the case as the murder of an estranged wife’s fiancé in Jupiter Farms. The office credited the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office with investigating the killing and said Johnson and Behar prosecuted it. The announcement did not identify a sentencing date or disclose what punishment prosecutors intend to request. Canarelli remains convicted of second-degree murder with a firearm while the court prepares for the sentencing phase.

Author note: Last updated November 9, 2026.