Just days after being freed from jail and placed on a no-contact order for his prior crimes against his girlfriend, a Minnesota man learned his fate for brutally assaulting and strangling her in her apartment.
According to a news release from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, Matthew Brenneman, 40, was given a 285-month jail sentence, which is approximately 24 years, for the murder of Danicka Bergeson, 33.
“My daughter did not deserve the unimaginable horror that took her from us,” said her father, David Bergeson, in a victim impact statement, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. “Her body was desecrated and discarded like refuse.”
The victim’s sister Ariana Bergeson elaborated by saying,
In the case of justice, I feel we are all overdue. Justice would have been him being held accountable the first time he ever laid hands on her, justice would have been him being sent to prison years ago.”
“Let this be the moment where we collectively say ‘no more,’” she added, the newspaper reported. “Let this be the moment where we as a society finally take a stand for the victims of domestic abuse, those who are too often forgotten or ignored.”
Erin Lutz, an assistant county attorney in Hennepin, expressed regret to Bergeson’s loved ones.
“We are sorry that the system did not do more and that we are here today,” Lutz said.
Brenneman expressed regret before his sentencing, according to KMSP, a local Fox station.
“I just wish we weren’t here and this wasn’t happening,” he said, the station reported. “Unfortunately, we are where we are. I want to apologize to the Bergeson family.”
One charge of second-degree murder was accepted into his plea in June.
After Brenneman pled guilty, the prosecution dropped all but one allegation against him, including first-degree murder. Killing Bergeson in a “zone of privacy” and treating her with “particular cruelty” by letting her body deteriorate in the residence were two aggravating elements in the crime, which he admitted to.
After a downstairs neighbor heard screaming and banging from the flat above, police were summoned to the apartment complex where Bergeson resided on July 8, 2023, as previously reported by Law&Crime.
Brenneman, who attempted suicide by swallowing bleach, was discovered by police in the bathroom inside the house. The odor of bleach was overwhelming.
A large trash bag and several blankets were discovered around Bergeson as she slept in her bed. She had numerous cuts and bruises, according to the police. According to the investigators, she had been deceased for a minimum of one day.
Also found were Brenneman’s handwritten notes, which included an apparent confession and an apology.
“I do not wish to divulge what all transpired, personal things exclusive to (Bergeson) and myself to know or seem as though I’m trying to justify the many terrible, absurd or unacceptable things that happened between us,” he wrote. “I never loved any woman I was romantically involved with as profoundly and honestly as (Bergeson).”
Brenneman has a history of violent events involving domestic violence. He had pled guilty to assaulting Bergeson and was released from jail eleven days prior to her body being found.
