MINNEAPOLIS — In a Hennepin County Courtroom filled with family and friends of Danicka Bergeson Monday morning, the man accused of murdering her last summer admitted to the crime.
Matthew Brenneman, 40, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder while under a restraining order. He also admitting to a pair of aggravating factors: committing the act in the privacy of a victim's own bedroom and treating her with particular cruelty by allowing her body to decompose following death.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors and Brenneman's defense team agreed to a sentence of 23.75 years (285 months) for killing Bergeson.
Brenneman previously admitted to abusing the 33-year-old Danicka, even pleading guilty to two cases of domestic assault back in June 2023. Following that plea, Brenneman was released from jail pending an Aug. 2023 sentencing and ordered to stay away from Bergeson.
Prosecutors say he killed her 11 days later.
Court documents filed on Aug. 23 detail how officers found Danicka Bergeson's body in the bedroom of her Hopkins apartment, wrapped in several blankets and covered by a thick comforter.
At the time, prosecutors said Brenneman was taken to the hospital after apparently ingesting bleach. According to the criminal complaint, investigators found a note written by Brenneman on the kitchen table. In the letter, the defendant claimed that he never loved any woman as much as he loved Danicka and that he "can't try to live after this."
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office initially charged Brenneman with violating a domestic abuse restraining order and second-degree murder. Prosecutors then took the case to a grand jury, which indicted Brenneman on a count of first-degree murder.
"We often said we would dread this call because we almost felt we knew it was coming at some point, because it repeated itself over and over," Danicka's father David Bergeson told KARE 11 in July 2023.
But the case was weakened when the medical examiner could not determine Danicka's cause of death.
The current criminal complaint includes documentation of a July jail phone call between Brenneman and a family member in which they discussed that a "crime of passion" could carry a lighter sentence.
"Without discussing anything, that's kind of what it was anyway," Brenneman allegedly said. "It's not like I **** had been plotting something."
Brenneman's attorney read a factual basis for his guilty plea, with the defendant verbally agreeing with each point. Brenneman said he went to visit Bergeson at the Ramsgate Apartments even though he was legally prohibited from having contact with her. The defendant shared that he was there for a week or so, adding "to the best of my recollection" the two watched fireworks together on the Fourth of July.
While staying in the apartment Brenneman said he and Danicka got into an argument in the bedroom that turned physical, and he restrained her on the bed. He agreed that Danicka had some health "vulnerabilities" while abstaining from alcohol, which she was at the time the physical assault took place “I believe it was day 2 or 3 of not drinking,” Brenneman shared, which he knew was dangerous for her.
At some point during the struggle, Brenneman agreed, Danicka stopped resisting. He left the room, and “several days later” he “realized” she was dead. He admits he did not render physical aid, check on her or call law enforcement.
Police found Bergeson's decomposing body on July 8.
"Days later when you realized she was dead, that was when you put a plastic bag over her decomposing body?" asked defense attorney Sarah Koziol.
"Yes," admitted Brenneman.
"I think today's details are really painful," Danicka's father David said after the hearing. "To hear him tell his story and us not to get to tell our story, you know, it's it's difficult and he only has to tell enough just to get or just to meet the criteria of the charges. So it's like he can make up what he wants as he goes along and that's what we have to listen to and that's really horrible."
Prosecutors reiterated that Brenneman knew of Bergeson's health vulnerabilities when she was trying to abstain from alcohol, but still failed to provide aid or check on her.
"That is correct," the defendant answered in court.
KARE 11's Lou Raguse has covered this case since its inception and said it was a difficult one for prosecutors, as the medical examiner was unable to determine Bergeson's exact cause of death.
Brenneman is scheduled to be formally sentenced on August 23.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty issued a statement after the plea hearing that said in part:
"Our thoughts today are with the family and community of Ms. Bergeson. Intimate partner violence leaves traumatized survivors and devastated families in its wake. This was a horrific instance of violence, and the long-term incarceration of Mr. Brenneman is appropriate for the sake of public safety."