John Jefferson
Background: Matthew Brenneman in court (KMSP). Inset: Danicka Bergeson (Legacy.com)
A Minnesota man learned his fate for beating and strangling his girlfriend to death in her apartment days after he was released from jail and on a no-contact order for previous assaults against her.
Matthew Brenneman, 40, was sentenced on Friday to 285 months — nearly 24 years — in prison for the killing of Danicka Bergeson, 33, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
“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.”
Added her sister, Ariana Bergeson: “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.”
Hennepin Assistant County Attorney Erin Lutz apologized to Bergeson’s family.
“We are sorry that the system did not do more and that we are here today,” Lutz said.
Before he was sentenced, Brenneman apologized, local Fox affiliate KMSP reported.
“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.”
He pleaded guilty in June to one count of second-degree murder.
In exchange for pleading guilty, prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges against Brenneman, which included one count of first-degree murder. He conceded to two aggravating factors in the murder, one for killing Bergeson in a “zone of privacy” and for treating her with “particular cruelty” by leaving her body to decompose in the home.
As Law&Crime previously reported, officers were called on July 8, 2023, to the apartment complex where Bergeson lived after a downstairs neighbor heard yelling and banging from the unit above.
Inside, police found Brenneman in the bathroom with a strong odor of bleach, which he swallowed to try to take his own life, according to authorities.
Bergeson was found lying in her bed, wrapped in blankets and a plastic garbage bag. Police said she was covered in abrasions and bruises. Investigators believe she had been dead for at least a day.
A series of notes penned by Brenneman were also recovered, including an apology and apparent confession.
“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 had a history of domestic violence incidents and had been released from jail 11 days before Bergeson’s body was discovered after he pleaded guilty to domestic assault against her.
Law&Crime’s Jerry Lambe and David Harris contributed to this report.
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