Rodney Scott Berget was born on May 15, 1962, in the state of South Dakota, United States. He was one of six children in a deeply impoverished family that initially sustained itself through farming. However, after the family farm failed, the Bergets relocated to the city of Aberdeen. The shift from rural life to urban hardship placed enormous stress on the family. During this time, Berget’s father, Benford, began drinking heavily and became physically abusive toward both his wife, Rosemary, and their children. The turbulent home environment contributed to the breakdown of the marriage, and the couple eventually divorced in the 1970s.

As a young boy, Rodney endured frequent beatings and witnessed domestic violence, shaping much of his early emotional and psychological development. He began committing petty crimes during adolescence and was eventually incarcerated for theft. At the age of 25, in 1987, Berget was serving time for grand theft and a previous escape when he and five other inmates escaped from the South Dakota State Penitentiary. He remained a fugitive for approximately one month before being recaptured.

Tragedy within Berget’s family deepened when his brother, Roger Berget, was sentenced to death in 1987 for his role in the kidnapping and murder of schoolteacher Rick Patterson in Oklahoma. Roger was executed by lethal injection on June 8, 2000, at the age of 39. Berget, who was incarcerated at the time, was reportedly devastated by the execution of his brother.

After being released from prison, Berget attempted to rebuild his life. He celebrated his 40th birthday in May 2002, referring to it as one of the few genuinely happy moments in an otherwise bleak and tragic life. However, this sense of hope was short-lived. In 2003, he was arrested once again—this time for kidnapping and attempted murder—and was sentenced to two life terms. By the time of the 2011 murder that would seal his fate, Berget had been incarcerated at the South Dakota State Penitentiary for nearly a decade.

On April 12, 2011, Ronald “R.J.” Johnson, a 63-year-old corrections officer, was brutally murdered inside the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls. The attack occurred during Johnson’s shift on the day he was scheduled to retire. The murder was part of a failed escape attempt orchestrated by inmates Rodney Berget and Eric Robert, who disguised themselves using prison uniforms and a cart while attempting to flee.

Berget and Robert lured Johnson into a storage area, where they bludgeoned him to death with a metal pipe, wrapped his body in plastic, and stole his uniform and keys. Their plan involved impersonating guards to move past checkpoints, but they were stopped at the last gate due to suspicious behavior. The body of Officer Johnson was discovered shortly thereafter.

Both inmates were charged with first-degree murder. In a highly publicized case, Berget pled guilty, as did Robert. During Berget's sentencing hearing in early 2012, the defense presented extensive testimony about his abusive childhood, poverty, mental health issues, and traumatic life events—including the execution of his brother. The defense pleaded for life imprisonment instead of capital punishment, arguing that Berget's past merited mercy.

However, on February 6, 2012, Judge Bradley Zell ruled that the gravity and depravity of the crime outweighed any mitigating circumstances. Berget was sentenced to death by lethal injection. His co-defendant, Eric Robert, was executed in October 2012.

Berget initially appealed the sentence but later chose to waive further appeals and accepted his fate. However, his execution was delayed in 2017 after his mental competency became a point of legal challenge. A year later, after a series of evaluations and court rulings affirming his mental fitness, Berget was executed by lethal injection on October 29, 2018, at South Dakota State Penitentiary.

He was 56 years old at the time of his death, and his execution marked the fourth in South Dakota since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the 1970s.