Horrific crimes against Alisha Bromfield spur law change in 32 states

an eerie moment captured on gas station surveillance a mysterious stranger walks straight up to the clerk but he's not here to make a purchase he has something to say hello yes i like to report our a murder the victim 21 year old expectant mother alicia bromfield just hours before she was toasting the bride and groom at an outdoor wedding did you witness it so what happened after the bouquet was tossed and the cake was cut and just who is the man making such a killer confession do you know who murdered her i did alicia bromfield's mother sherry still has trouble making sense of why her daughter ended up so far from where it all began tell us about alisha so she was always always giving and always you know ready to help the family but she loved to have fun she loved to laugh she never took life serious just one of those people that was just so special that just really made you feel special when you were around her a loving daughter and friend and soon to be mom alicia was six and a half months pregnant with a little girl how did you find out alicia was pregnant i remember i was studying for a class that i was taking and she sat on the floor and she said i have something to tell you and i could tell she was nervous and i said you're pregnant and she said yeah and she started crying my husband and i told her that we would support her but there would still be challenges alisha was going to be a single mother the father of her child someone she met at college didn't want to be involved but alicia was just fine with that even better than fine she was so so excited to be a mother and she named her baby ava lucille one semester away from graduating with degrees in forensic psychology and criminal justice alicia was working at the same job she'd had since she was 16 in the garden department at a major national retail store she always wanted to be good at her job so she worked really really hard to do well and all that hard work didn't go unnoticed by alicia's boss a 36 year old man named brian cooper what was he like when i met him i actually got a job from him too he was very friendly and the apparently affable supervisors seem to take an instant liking to alicia with the two striking up a casual friendship though alicia's best friend is quick to point out that's all it was alicia never had a sexual relationship with brian or a boyfriend girlfriend relationship not that i'm aware of and you're her best friend correct in fact alicia's mom thinks the main reason alicia really hung around her much older boss was self-preservation i think she was very afraid of losing her job she had a baby that was coming to support and this job had offered her you know time off in the winter with pay and she never had that before being only 21. alicia's loved ones also believe that's why she ended up saying yes when brian cooper asked her to accompany him to his sister's out of town wedding she said i need to keep this job and besides they just be going as friends how bad could it be the august numptuals will take place some four hours away in idyllic door county wisconsin door county wisconsin is a kind of rural area right along lake michigan it's very popular for people who live in chicago just a few hour drive away we can rent cabins go fishing and people host weddings and brian booked the san bay beach resort for their accommodations i'd never heard of the place before i had to look it up i didn't realize how far away it was but the way she explained it she said it's fine we're staying at the hotel with you know the whole wedding party so we're all going to be in the same place but then we're going to come home the next morning and it'll be fine but the morning of the wedding sherry receives a strange call from her daughter she said we're packing up the car to leave and i said why would happen and she said we got in a fight i said how could you do that to his sister you know he was walking his sister down the aisle and i said make sure that you call the sister at the hotel you know and tell her that you're not coming she goes i don't know where she's staying and i said what do you mean you guys aren't at the same place no i texted her later and i said is everything okay and she said yes we're staying and then the wedding brian walks his sister down the aisle at the intimate outdoor ceremony then they celebrate the newlyweds at the reception after the last champagne toast brian and alicia returned to the resort just a few hours after that alicia bromfield will be dead and a mystery man in sopping wet clothes will confess to every chilling detail 911 what is the address of your emergency i'm calling for somebody else i'm going to put the person on the phone the morning after a beautiful lakeside wedding gas station surveillance video captures a man in wet clothes walking in and up to the counter he's there not to fill up he's there to fessel our 911 center received an incoming call from a gas station attendant that said there was a young man that wanted to speak to police 12 yes i like to report a murder please a murder yeah okay the man making the shocking claim what is your name brian cooper that's right brian cooper the brother of the bride and the woman he's calling to report murdered was his date to the wedding 21 year old alicia bromfield you know for sure that a murder occurred do you know if it was today that this happened last night brian cooper was the expected mother supervisor at a major national retail store and there's a reason he's so certain she's been killed did you witness that you witnessed it okay do you know where her body is in the room do you know who murdered her i did you did okay was it an accident or were you angry or it was intentional no okay well you're doing the right thing i'm glad you called me i'm a good person besides what i did last night i wish i said i'm just gonna flip [Applause] everybody moments later door county sheriff's deputies arrive at the gas station [Applause] 36 year old brian cooper is taken into custody then down to the station door county sheriff's investigator mark winkle learns of the bizarre 9-1-1 call and immediately heads over to the resort what did you see describe as you walk in when i arrived after opening the door i could see a female decedent in her 20s she was laying on the floor she was nude but did have a blanket covering her up to about her chest and her head was on a pillow and um obviously deceased but it just appeared as if she was resting a little closer examination of the body you could see that there were injuries bruising scratch marks while the gastly crime scene is processed winkel heads to the station to interview brian cooper on your way back to the ranch to the sheriff's department what's going on in your mind and what you know you have to do well i know that there's a lot of pieces to this puzzle that has to be put together i know that i have to develop a rapport with brian cooper and i need to extract her or get as much information as i can from him voluntarily will the confessed killer continue to talk or clam up so what brought you up to door coming that wedding was last night the rest should be there yeah and who did you come up with and how do you know alisha we're the co-workers and we're somewhat dated [Music] what she's pregnant she praying with your child i've always wanted more but i always was respecting her because of her pregnancy cooper tells winkle how he and alicia argued earlier in the day and by the end of it alicia had had enough informing him there wasn't going to be like a friendship after we got back but then was there ever much of a friendship to begin with reportedly alicia only agreed to attend the wedding because cooper threatened to fire her if she didn't alicia's best friend and one time co-worker says she believes it based on how brian often treated alicia at work it was just a lot of forcing her to do things like go to work when she maybe had a doctor's appointment or she couldn't come in almost demeaning who she was as a person just to make her feel bad making her feel like this is your number one priority you always have to be here there was also name calling alicia had told me he had called her a [ __ ] and a [ __ ] at work her boss but the icing on the hostile work environment cake was what brian was actually saying about alicia he's telling other people and other co-workers that this is my girlfriend and you know we're going to go out on a date and they never did at least not until that wedding cooper says after the wedding and reception they go back to the room that's when things take a tragic turn we got back to the hotel and she just went back into the bed and i was drinking and she fall asleep yes and what was going through your mind when she was asleep the reality was setting in that there wasn't going to be even a friendship when we got back which was today and you didn't want that to happen i don't know okay i was debating what i was doing and so i was doing some prepping and like thinking about her harming her okay so you were doing some prepping what kind of present well i put uh some chords i i i was thinking about maybe tying her up or whatever but i didn't so there was some chords like underneath the bed legs there's like a cord from like a cell phone or something i remember i got it with a plug in it maybe it was from my computer i don't remember okay what it was like a white one and a black one right were you thinking of tying her up or strangling her with that no i was thinking of like tying her legs but as she was sleeping she was moving her legs so then i just said that's stupid so when she's sleeping on the bed where were you i was just pacing outside and coming inside having a cigarette coming back inside she's asleep were you getting more angry i was you were getting more angry maybe i would have caught angry getting frustrated hurt feeling hurt and then and then i laid in bed and then what happened i mean you decided enough and she woke up a little bit and then i mentioned something about because we watch on this tv show that i have on dvds um and we were planning on doing it this coming sunday okay so you asked her about maybe watching a show on sunday and what was her response like there wasn't going to be a sunday right with us right now that kind of triggered and then set the trigger right then what did you do then i kind of just jumped on her and was she on her back she was and then i jumped her and she got scared oh my gosh on top of her then yeah and you kind of straddled over her yeah and then i just started strangling her with your hands with my hands and what did she do did you find that she did fight back and then she was yelling about the baby they don't do it to because of the baby and she bit your finger and she bit me a finger that we rolled off the bed and then where she was laying that's where it happened long do you think you choked her i think this happened really fast um from the back so far maybe a couple minutes as chilling as cooper's confession was it was about to get so much worse brian cooper strangled alicia bromfield to death squeezing the life out of her and her unborn baby girl don't do this to me because i think of the baby as if killing alicia and her daughter wasn't monstrous enough cooper was about to share the actual depths of his depravity did you have sex with her last night yeah after after i strangled her cooper says he raped alicia post-mortem so after she's dead you took her clothes off and then um she's on the floor right right okay i just wanted to like see her naked i guess okay and then did you take your clothes off or were you all ready i just yes i just took my pants off how long did you have sex with him a minute or two maybe three tops so he raped her after strangling her yes at six or seven months pregnant a corpse he's raping yes afterward he morbidly made a bed for his victim she had a pillow under her head i might have done that last night okay and then blanket you covered her up with the blanket after you had sex with her right then cooper says he tried to kill himself first with a dull knife then with a corkscrew but neither worked so he went to sleep in the bathtub and when he woke the next morning he drove to a nearby park i got into the bay and swam all the way out there and tried to drown myself and i was panicking and couldn't do it and i was trying to realize that life was still worth living yeah and then you got back in your car yep and then i was trying to find a gas station to call the cops considering everything cooper just confessed winkle needs to know has he done this before no one else is dead or anything nope okay have you ever harmed anyone else yes my ex-girlfriend just couldn't get through to her so i tied her up for the purpose of trying to like talk to her were you arrested for that no she didn't report it to the police no okay so when it was all horrifically said and done what was cooper's motive for killing alicia and her unborn child i felt like i didn't want to go back home and you didn't want to be alone it's not gonna there's no nothing when we come back home i didn't want to drive six hours home and feel like doing that so ultimately though it's just got to be too much and you strangled her all right did you meet the killer yes brian cooper is charged with two counts of first degree intentional homicide and third degree sexual assault of a corpse while brian cooper is being booked and his injuries photographed across the state line in illinois a police officer friend of alicia's mother sherry anisich is tasked with delivering the devastating news he had tears in his eyes and i knew at that second that alicia was gone i thought he was going to tell me that alysha died in a car accident on the way home and he said there's been a homicide and i just couldn't believe it i just my life changed forever that day and i just couldn't believe that that was true he strangled her he killed her instead of calling 9-1-1 to save the baby he raped her despite brian cooper's very detailed confession he shockingly enters a plea of not guilty so 10 months later alicia's family is forced to face her killer in court cooper would claim voluntary intoxication as his defense saying he was too drunk to know what he was doing when he killed alicia at trial alicia's mom hears the 9-1-1 call and the interrogation of cooper confessing to the killing it's just really hard to sit there and watch somebody just describe the killing of your daughter i felt that when it wasn't real like this really isn't happening but the fact that just the way he was talking like he was describing a game he had watched on tv it wasn't like any remorse also revealed in court was even more evidence of brian cooper's perverted obsession with alicia bromfield during a search of cooper's laptop cops found multiple videos of alicia shot in his plainfield illinois home cooper had installed a spy camera after drilling a small hole in a triangular shelf that was positioned in front of his toilet he would ask her to go over there and take his dog out and so he would have spy cameras in there to capture her going to the bathroom cooper also brought a spy camera to the wisconsin resort where he killed alicia hiding it in a trash can in the bathroom he actually did capture her getting out of the shower and she was naked which was so disgusting after five days of testimony including brian cooper taking the stand in his own defense the case went to the jury the verdict it was split ten to two hung jury alicia's mom sherry was devastated and disgusted i was so shocked that i walked out of the courtroom as soon as they said hung jury and even more shocking they were women for two women to say that he was not guilty because they felt that he was intoxicated after hearing all the evidence was mind-boggling to me when you heard that there was a hung jury did you take that i mean it was just a punch in the gut to me this was a slam dunk we had a crime we had a defendant who confessed we had the evidence that matched his confession and that confession was videotaped it was played in front of the jury but two of those jurors believed his voluntary intoxication defense a defense that mr cooper was so intoxicated he didn't know what he was doing i have to be honest with you that didn't appear to be the case here because he was able to recall the crime in such detail he told you exactly step by step what he did step by step with detail and what was going through his head at the time brian cooper is found guilty of the third degree sexual assault but would he walk on the murder charges at that point it almost becomes real that he could get away with this and that is a terrifying feeling jurors at brian cooper's trial watched him on videotape confessed to killing alicia bromfield and her unborn baby girl and while she's asleep then did you decide to kill her yeah all right and what did you kill her with his defense voluntary intoxication basically cooper said he was too drunk to be able to form intent when he committed the crime our conclusion was that yes he had been drinking but clearly not to the point where he was so incapacitated but the jury was dead locked to the shock of many the trial ended in a hung jury i don't know what more could have been brought forth to me we had dotted all our eyes we had crossed all our t's we had answered all the questions devastated by the decision nobody was about to take this lying down you weren't giving up no you went back to the drawing board we went back to the drawing board and alicia's mom sherry annasich was on a mission of her own you didn't roll over and swallow in your hurt and pain you stood up and you fought yes never again did i ever want a parent a friend family to sit in a courtroom and hear alcohol being excused for anything so the very next day we woke up and we had a meeting with all the alicia's friends and family and that's when we started lobbying to change this law former chicago tribune reporter jeff zazzulowitz wrote about sherry's new crusade when i met sheri and interviewed her she told me about this whole effort and she just said i don't want anybody else to be able to use this defense she took the the tragedy of a mother losing her child in such a violent way and channeled all that energy into this campaign to convince lawmakers to change this law and her hard work paid off in an unbelievable feat sherry got the voluntary intoxication law banished from the books in wisconsin and in 31 other states i don't know how she did it i don't know where she found the strength i don't know how i would have gotten out of bed every morning after suffering such a loss and yet she did it but in a cruel twist of fate it did not go for his trial cooper's voluntary intoxication defense was grandfathered in he would be able to use that defense again in his second trial but would yet another jury buy it almost a year later trial number two it was very hard to be sitting probably four feet away from the person who killed your best friend during jury selection sherry writes an impassioned letter to the district attorney i said please go up there and fight like this is your own daughter jurors would hear testimony from brian cooper and in this trial from wedding guests describing how inebriated he was or wasn't the night he killed alicia after about a week the case went to the jury within an hour we had our verdict guilty of two counts of first degree intentional homicide for the murders of alicia and her unborn child when you heard that verdict read how did you feel i think i cried for 30 minutes i couldn't even stand up i was shaking this man will never never hurt anybody again it was a wave of relief and a sense that i knew he wasn't going to get away with it he had to face the music yet he had you know he had to know that i did this and i am going to have to pay for this brian cooper is sentenced to two consecutive life terms for all who knew and loved alicia the pain of losing her and her unborn daughter eva will never go away what do you miss most about alicia i miss just being able to call her i guess i learned that you don't really realize how easy it is just to pick up a phone and talk to somebody until you can't do it anymore i wish she would have not gone to the wedding she saw him for who he was but too late right yep yeah and that's just that it takes one you know run wrong decision and sherry through her incredible heartbreak wants others to learn from their tragedy i wish that girlfriend would have pressed charges because maybe he could have gotten the help that he needed then what you're saying is if you see something say something stand up and make a difference you can help another family not go through the pain and the nightmare that our family is going through still

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Id: NKuCsh3NQmQ

Length: 26min 24sec (1584 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 12 2021