New Evidence For Brantner Murder Trial

There may be new evidence to support a second murder trial for the 63-year-old Kenosha man suspected of killing Berit Beck. Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Detectives last month talked with Terri McMullen Koscinski. She told investigators she lived with Dennis Brantner for about a year and he strangled her so hard during a breakup in 1998 that he left bruises around her neck. She had talked to detectives in 2014 claiming at the time that she did not date Brantner, but last month told them she had lied. She was afraid what Brantner might do if he found out she had talked to the detectives. Last week Brantner’s lawyer, Craig Powell, filed a motion asking Judge Gary Sharpe to acquit Brantner of the murder charge. Powell says trying Brantner a second time would be double jeopardy. In June a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict in Brantner’s murder trial and was dismissed. A motion hearing is set for September 6th, which could determine if there will be a second jury trial. Eighteen-year-old Berit Beck was murdered in July of 1990. Her van was found in a parking lot in Fond du Lac. Six weeks later her badly decomposed body was found in a ditch outside of Waupun.