Yesterday’s sentencing hearing for Dennis Brantner–the man found guilty of abducting and killing Berit Beck in Fond du Lac almost 28-years ago–leaves me feeling that justice was not done. Brantner got ten years in prison for a crime that went unsolved for 25-years. Beck’s family said yesterday’s hearing provided them with closure, but Brantner will spend less than half behind bars than Berit’s friends and family had to spend wondering if her killer would ever get caught.
I guess that we should be satisfied that there was at least a conviction in the case. Brantner would likely have gone free the rest of his life had he not been busted on an unrelated felony in southern
Wisconsin–requiring his DNA to be collected and added to the state database. The value of that DNA requirement and comparing those samples to those from unsolved crimes is borne out in this case.
Despite no logical explanation for how his DNA got in Beck’s van in the Forest Mall parking lot in 1990, one juror refused to convict Brantner on a more serious charge of First Degree Intentional Homicide last year–causing a mistrial. Rather than risk another hung jury–or even an acquittal–in another trial, Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney offered Brantner a plea deal to a reduced charge. Since Brantner entered what is known as an “Alford Plea”–admitting there is enough evidence to convict him, but not admitting any guilt–there will likely never be an explanation of how he managed to kidnap Beck, what happened before and while he killed her, and how he dumped her body in that ditch near Waupun to be found a few weeks later. Maybe the Beck family didn’t want to know that, but as a person who tells stories for a living, I feel like we should know.
Brantner is in his late sixties, and it’s entirely possible that a ten year prison term will end up being the life sentence that he would have automatically faced had the jury convicted him on the First Degree Intentional Homicide charge. I’m guessing the Beck family would like the assurance that they would never have to see Dennis Brantner out and about again–after cheating the system for 25-years of freedom he did not deserve.
Hopefully the Beck family won’t be put through the hell that Teresa Halbach’s friends and relatives have been going through. I doubt that Dennis Brantner’s case is going to draw the attention of wacko conspiracy theorists, one-sided “documentarians” looking to cash in on the story, and media-hungry appeals attorneys who like to try their cases on social media like we now have with Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey. It’s come to the point in that case where it’s hard to remember who the victim of the real crime was.
It’s just too bad that the it doesn’t always feel like the justice system delivers justice.
