Man beat and strangled his girlfriend in her apartment

Background: Matthew Brenneman in court (KMSP). Insert: Danicka Bergeson (Legacy.com)

A Minnesota man met his fate after beating and strangling his girlfriend to death in her apartment. Days after his release from prison, he placed a restraining order against her because of previous assaults.

Matthew Brenneman, 40, was sentenced Friday to 285 months – nearly 24 years – in prison for the killing of 33-year-old Danicka Bergeson, the Hennepin County District Attorney's Office announced in a news release.

“My daughter did not deserve the unimaginable horror that took her from us,” her father, David Bergeson, said in a victim impact statement, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. “Her body was desecrated and disposed of like garbage.”

Her sister Ariana Bergeson added: “I think we are all behind on justice. Justice would have been if he had been held accountable the first time he touched her. Justice would have been if he had been put in prison years ago.”

“Let this be the moment when we say 'enough of it' together,” she added, the newspaper reported. “Let this be the moment when we as a society finally stand up for the victims of domestic violence, for those who are too often forgotten or ignored.”

Hennepin County Assistant District 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 the verdict was announced, 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.”

In June, he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges against Brenneman, including one count of premeditated murder. He acknowledged two aggravating circumstances in the murder: Bergeson was killed in a “private area” and she was treated “particularly cruelly” by leaving her body to decompose at home.

As Law&Crime previously reported, on July 8, 2023, officers were called to the apartment complex where Bergeson lived after a downstairs neighbor heard yelling and banging coming from the apartment above.

Inside, police found Brenneman in a bathroom that smelled strongly of bleach. Authorities say he swallowed the bleach in an attempt to take his own life.

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.

In addition, numerous notes written by Brenneman were seized, including an apology and an apparent confession.

“I do not wish to divulge everything that happened, personal things that only (Bergeson) and I know, or appear to be trying to justify the many horrific, absurd or unacceptable things that happened between us,” he wrote. “I have never loved any woman with whom I have had a romantic relationship as deeply and honestly as I have loved (Bergeson).”

Brenneman was a previous victim of domestic violence and had been released from prison 11 days before Bergeson's body was discovered after pleading guilty to domestic violence against her.

Jerry Lambe and David Harris of Law&Crime contributed to this report.

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