John Jefferson
Inset: Kailee Brantner (Brookfield Police DepartmentWITI/YouTube). Background: The area where Kailee Brantner lived with her boyfriend in Brookfield, Wisconsin (WITI/YouTube).
Armed with a large kitchen knife with a pink handle, 22-year-old Wisconsin resident Kailee Brantner allegedly attacked her boyfriend last week — plunging the blade into his neck and slicing him open on his arms and chest — during a disagreement over using their house as their future wedding venue, cops say.
“The defendant attacked him without warning,” Brantner’s criminal complaint alleges, according to local Fox affiliate WITI. “(Brantner) had woken up to text messages and screenshots between the defendant and his mother, and this caused an argument.”
Brantner, a mom from Waukesha County, was charged Friday with a count of first-degree recklessly endangering safety using a dangerous weapon in a domestic abuse situation for the Jan. 29 incident, according to online court records. She posted bond and is now required to stay at least 1 mile away from her boyfriend.
According to the local newspaper The Waukesha Freeman and WITI, Brantner told police she was talking with her boyfriend and his mom about “using their house as a wedding venue” before the stabbing occurred.
“(The victim) had woken up to text messages and screenshots between the defendant and his mother, and this caused an argument,” the complaint says.
It’s unclear what was said in the text messages, only that they made Brantner feel “uncomfortable” and pertained to using their home as a wedding venue, according to police. Brantner, who has a daughter, allegedly told her boyfriend she didn’t want him around the child anymore.
Authorities say Brantner came home early from work last Wednesday and attacked her boyfriend immediately and “without warning.”
The two of them allegedly fought back and forth after Brantner brandished the kitchen knife and attacked him with it.
Police say she swung the weapon at him multiple times and sliced him open on his left bicep, right and left sides of his chest, and the left side of his neck.
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Brantner and her boyfriend each admitted to assaulting each other after the incident.
Investigators reported seeing red marks and a cut on Brantner’s nose afterward. She is accused of chasing her boyfriend around their home with the knife as he was attempting to pack up his things to leave. Brantner described what went down as a “heated, physical altercation” during her interviews with police. She told cops her boyfriend threatened her that day — saying, “she was not going to win and laughed that she was going to get her daughter taken away,” per the complaint.
Brantner faces up to 30 years behind bars if convicted. She’s due back in court on Feb. 13.
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