Crime & Safety
Plainfield Man on Door County Murder: 'There's No Good Reason'
Trial continues for man accused of killing 21-year-old Alisha Bromfield of Plainfield.
The jury heard accused killer Brian Cooper's 9-1-1 call, along with his first police interview, as the Plainfield man's murder trial continued this week in Door County, Wisconsin.
Cooper, 36, is charged with two counts of first-degree homicide and one count of third-degree sexual assault in the strangling deaths of Alisha Bromfield, 21, also of Plainfield, and her unborn daughter.
Bromfield died in August 2012 after attending Cooper's sister's wedding in Door County. Her body was found at a resort in Nasewaupee, Wisconsin, after Cooper called police from a gas station in a nearby town.
Read - Gas Station Owner: Cooper Was Calm, Polite While Reporting Murder
On Monday, jurors heard a recording of Cooper's conversation with a dispatcher after he went to a gas station in Sister Bay, Wisconsin, and asked the business owner to call 9-1-1 for him. Hear the recording on the Door County Advocate website
"I'd like to report a murder, please," Cooper said on the recording, before calmly giving the dispatcher his name, as well as Bromfield's.
"I did," Cooper replied when asked,"Do you know who murdered her?"
"Why did this happen?," the dispatcher asked in the recording. "How did you murder her?" Cooper answered, "I'd like to talk to the police about that."
The accused murderer went on to tell the dispatcher, "There's no good reason," growing emotional as he called the crime "stupid," and saying he did not know why he did it.
Cooper also told the dispatcher that he and Bromfield had argued earlier in the day, prior to his sister's wedding.
Prosecutors allege that Cooper strangled the 21-year-old after becoming angry at her unwillingness to rekindle a romantic relationship. Cooper was not the father of Bromfield's unborn daughter, who was to be named Ava Lucille, and they were not a couple at the time of the murder, according to police.
On Tuesday, the jury viewed a video of Cooper's initial interview with police, in which he told police he drank a lot of alcohol at the wedding, and continued drinking when he and Bromfield returned to their hotel, according to the Door County Advocate. On the recording, he tells police he thought about killing her and "snapped" when she refused to watch the TV show "24" with him.
Bromfield was a graduate of Joliet Catholic Academy and attended Western Illinois University. The Joliet Junior Woman's Club has established a scholarship in memory of her and daughter Ava.
No mistrial; lawyer stays put
On Monday, Judge D. Todd Ehlers denied Cooper's attempt to fire his attorney, Shane Brabazon.
"He informed me that he is not happy with my representation; he does not feel that I have zealously advocated for him," Brabazon told the judge, according to the Door County Advocate.
The judge refused to allow Brabazon to withdraw from the case. On Wednesday, the judge also denied a motion for a mistrial, ruling that the case will continue, the Advocate reported. On Tuesday, Brabazon said a reference to Cooper's former girlfriend was part of a written transcript that was projected onto a screen in the courtroom for 10-15 seconds. He argued that the incident was grounds for a mistrial, since the judge previously ruled that evidence or references related to the former girlfriend were prohibited during the trial.
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