“Jeremy, No!” — A Cry in the Dark That Idaho Will Never Forget
To neighbors in the quiet mountain town of Victor, Idaho, Jeremy Best looked like the picture of stability. A devoted husband. A new father. A man who kept to himself but never raised suspicion. That illusion shattered on a freezing November morning when hunters came across a nightmare in the snow.
There, along a desolate roadside, was Jeremy—naked, disoriented, and muttering incoherently. Just feet away lay the lifeless body of his 10-month-old son, Zeke.
It was a discovery that led investigators to uncover something even more horrifying back at the Best family home: the murdered body of Jeremy’s pregnant wife, Kali Jean Randall, shot in the back. Her unborn child had died with her.
What unfolded in those final days of November 2023 was a grim unraveling no one in the tight-knit community could have predicted. But now, justice has spoken.
Jeremy Albert Best, 50, was sentenced last week to three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole—one for each life he extinguished: his wife, their unborn baby, and their son.
He had pleaded guilty in February 2024, part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. During sentencing, he offered a brief apology to the families he shattered. But for many, the words rang hollow.
“This was an act of staggering cruelty,” said Teton County Prosecuting Attorney Bailey Smith Baker. “There is no making sense of it. But at the very least, this sentence ensures he will never harm another soul.”
The first clue came on November 30, when a chilling 911 call pierced the silence of an otherwise calm night. A woman’s voice screamed, “Jeremy! Jeremy, no!”—and then, nothing. When officers arrived, they found Kali dead. Best and baby Zeke were gone.
For two days, hope flickered that the infant might still be alive. That hope ended when hunters stumbled upon the surreal scene in the snowy wilderness of eastern Idaho: a father in psychological collapse, and the child already lost.
Kali Jean Randall was more than a mother—she was a creative spirit, a jewelry artisan, and a former veterinary technician with a deep love for animals and people alike. Her brother, Brian Randall, called her “a beautiful soul who saw the good in everyone—even, tragically, in Jeremy.”
The couple had met in 2009 and married in 2022. No one in the family ever suspected anything was wrong. “He was just a normal guy,” Brian told reporters. “We never imagined this.”
Conclusion:
The haunting echoes of Kali’s final scream, the senseless loss of baby Zeke, and the brutal betrayal from a man no one suspected—these are the wounds the town of Victor will carry for years. Jeremy Best will never leave prison, but the question lingers: how does someone so seemingly ordinary commit the unthinkable?
In the end, the sentence brings closure, but not peace. And for a grieving family, the tragedy will always be measured in lives lost—and the silence that followed a single, desperate cry for help.