Cooper Guilty of Sex Assault; Jury Hung on Murder Charges

• Sign up for the Plainfield Patch newsletter
• Like Plainfield Patch on Facebook and follow us on Twitter

Cooper is charged in the death of 21-year-old Alisha Bromfield, also of Plainfield, and her unborn daughter. Prosecutors alleged he strangled, then sexually assaulted Bromfield after she refused to rekindle a romantic relationship with him. 

Despite deliberating for 14 hours on Friday and Saturday, the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the two homicide charges, according to the Door County Advocate.

The newspaper reported that jurors sent a note to Judge D. Todd Ehlers sometime after noon on Saturday, saying they had reached a decision on the sexual assault charges, but not the first-degree homicide charges.

The judge subsequently dismissed the jurors, and asked attorneys to set a time for a new trial. The case could be retried by October, according to The Advocate. Click for video of Ehlers reading the verdict.

Read more:

• Cooper Takes Stand in Door County Murder Trial
  Plainfield Man on Door County Murder: 'There's No Good Reason'
• Door County Trial Begins in Slaying of Pregnant Plainfield Woman
• Gas Station Owner: Cooper Was Calm, Polite While Reporting Murder

Bromfield was more than six months pregnant with a daughter, who was to be named Ava Lucille, when she died. The 21-year-old had gone to Door County to attend the wedding of Cooper's sister. The pair were not dating at the time of the murder, and Cooper was not the father of Bromfield's child.

Cooper, who remains in custody as a convicted felon, told police he had been drinking at the wedding, then later at the resort where he and Bromfield were staying, according to a video of a police interview shown during the trial. On the recording, he tells police he thought about killing her and "snapped" when she refused to watch the TV show "24" with him. 
Jurors also heard audio from a call Cooper made to 9-1-1 to report the murder. On the tape, Cooper tells the dispatcher that "There's no good reason" for the crime, answering, "I did," when asked, "Do you know who murdered her?"

On Thursday, Cooper took the stand, testifying he only remembered "bits and pieces" of the morning Bromfield died, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette. He also said he didn't remember making a 9-1-1 call to report the crime. Click to read the full Gazette story.

On Saturday, the judge informed attorneys there were two dissenting jurors. The jury had previously asked Ehlers for the legal definition of the word "intent," and also asked if a legal clause "volving intoxication means so intoxicated that Cooper couldn’t form intent, or so intoxicated that he killed but did not intend to," according to the Door County Advocate.

Bromfield was a 2008 graduate of Joliet Catholic Academy and had attended Western Illinois University.