MINNEAPOLIS — The Hopkins man accused of killing his girlfriend after being ordered by a judge to stay away from her has now been indicted by a grand jury for 1st-degree murder.
The upgraded charge for Matthew Brenneman, 39, comes just days after his defense attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the case.
Danicka Bergeson was found dead at the Ramsgate Apartments in Hopkins on July 8, 2023, after a neighbor reported hearing screaming and banging. Brenneman was present, having ingested a large amount of bleach, convulsing on the bathroom floor.
Brenneman had been released from jail just 11 days earlier after pleading guilty to domestic abuse for beating Bergeson, and a judge ordered him to stay away from her.
In their motion to dismiss the murder case, attorneys Emmett Donnelly and Sarah Koziol cite Hennepin County Medical Examiner Andrew Baker's report that was unable to determine a cause or manner of death for Bergeson.
Despite the criminal complaint noting "substantial bruising to her body and marks on her neck," the defense motion states, "Dr. Baker was aware of the history of complaints against Mr. Brenneman for domestic assault against Ms. Bergeson, but he found no evidence of an assault in his autopsy."
The defense attorneys wrote that Dr. Baker found no evidence of strangulation or suffocation, no defensive wounds, and no signs of life-threatening external injuries. In addition, Bergeson had no drugs or alcohol in her system.
"Though the State spoke with Dr. Baker a second time after the autopsy and asked about several different theories to establish Mr. Brenneman's guilt, Dr. Baker's finding stayed the same: nothing in the autopsy suggests a homicide occurred. No medical evidence makes one explanation for the cause of Ms. Bergeson's death more likely than another."
In their legal argument, the defense attorneys note that they cannot find a homicide prosecution nationwide in which the cause and manner of death are both unknown.
They also cite an article from Alpha News concerning the Hennepin County Attorney's Office's initial discussions with Dr. Baker after the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
"Even the same prosecuting authority in this case initially struggled to charge now-convicted murderer Derek Chauvin where the cause of death was undetermined, but the manner of death was homicide," the attorneys wrote.
When they charged Brenneman, prosecutors cited other evidence such as suicide notes Brenneman wrote before police arrived that included statements such as, "I blacked out and lost control and sadly hurt a woman for the first time in my life."
In addition, in a recorded jail phone call, Brenneman and his father discussed the legal theory of manslaughter that included the comment that a "crime of passion might get a lighter sentence," according to court documents.
With the upgraded charge of 1st-degree murder, Brenneman faces life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years if he is convicted. He is being held in custody on a $2 million bond.
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