Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Brittany Zimmermann and 48 Minutes

New details regarding the murder of Brittany Zimmermann have become public.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Forty-eight minutes.

That's how much time passed between the mishandled 911 call from Brittany Zimmermann's phone and when Madison police were sent to her West Doty Street apartment to find her brutally murdered on April 2, investigators reveal in previously sealed court documents obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal.

The length of the delay wasn't publicly known before because officials have refused to provide specifics.

The new details focus the spotlight once again on the questions Dane County officials haven't answered, despite months of controversy over errors at the 911 center.

Why didn't the 911 operator hear the screams and struggle on the other end of the phone call, and what has been done to prevent a repeat?

County officials have apologized for center errors that delayed the police response and later sent them chasing a false lead.

But they have withheld the time and content of the call, saying that disclosures could make it more difficult for police to catch the killer.

In their public statements, county officials haven't explained why the operator didn't react as though an emergency was in progress. They said there were no "outside distractions" at the operator's desk then, yet the 20-year veteran "reacted visibly" when a supervisor played her the tape later.

"It is not useful to armchair quarterback after a tragedy, but knowing what we know now about that call, the dispatcher made a mistake," Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk concluded in May.

The document obtained Monday is the first sworn statement describing the call made public.

In May, after it was revealed the center had mishandled the Zimmermann call, Police Chief Noble Wray said there was "evidence contained in the call." Former 911 director Joe Norwick maintained the dispatcher heard nothing.

On May 6, Falk said a review of the call found "sounds that would have significance to a (911) communicator, but were not heard by the communicator." A union spokeswoman who listened to the tape later said all she could hear was a faint background noise like a soft rustling.

County and union officials wouldn't respond Monday evening to questions about the police description of the call's content that was revealed in the new court documents.

According to the county's internal investigation, the operator moved on to a second call, which was a hang-up from the caller's end, and later called back that number. A supervisor reviewing calls at the request of Madison police mistakenly thought that callback was related to the Zimmermann call.

The unsealed search warrants reveal more.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

The notorious 911 call from Brittany Zimmermann's cell phone the day she died carried the sounds of a woman's screams and a struggle, according to long-sealed search warrants obtained by the Wisconsin State Journal.

Madison police and Dane County officials have for months refused to disclose the content of the call, which has been at the center of a public controversy over operations, management and staffing at the county 911 center.

The case has drawn intense public interest because police said a stranger with an unknown motive may have killed Zimmermann and because the center mishandled the call, significantly delaying the police response.

...The six search warrants unsealed in Dane County Circuit Court give the public glimpses for the first time into secrets long held by investigators who have been trying — without success — to find Zimmermann's killer.

The warrants include police statements describing the 911 call from the UW-Madison student's phone.

"The disconnect call started with the sound of a woman screaming and the line remains active and open picking up the background sounds of a struggle for a short period of time," according to a description of the call by Madison Police Detective Marion Morgan.

An autopsy report in one of the warrants said that Zimmermann died from "complex homicidal violence including multiple stab wounds and strangulation." Reports in other warrants noted she had also been beaten, and nearly half of the knife wounds that killed Zimmermann were to her heart.

The stab wounds were inflicted with a knife that was 2 to 5 inches long with a width of about three-quarters of an inch. The weapon had not been found as of the April 10 search warrant.

The warrants also detail the gathering of evidence, including DNA, from potential suspects who have since been ruled out.

The warrants, most of them filed in April with one in June, have been sealed and resealed by judges at the request of police and Dane County prosecutors. The latest seal on all of the warrants, however, expired last week and no request was made to extend them.

Police and prosecutors didn't intend to unseal the warrants and intended to seek a judge's order to extend the seals, District Attorney Brian Blanchard said. The failure to request an extension was an "oversight," he said.

...Along with the public, members of the Zimmermann family had been kept in the dark about details of the homicide, including how Brittany was killed, and had been bracing themselves for when they would learn more.

A State Journal reporter called Kim Heeg, Zimmermann's aunt, Monday afternoon after the search warrants had been released and at her request shared some of the details they contained — news Heeg said Zimmermann's parents had expected to hear from detectives before it was made public.

Schauf said detectives called the Zimmermann family after the State Journal call.

Reporters knew the details before the family did. As soon as the warrants were unsealed, detectives should have notified the Zimmermanns.

I can't believe that Brittany Zimmermann's family weren't at least told how she was killed.

All this time not knowing must have been terribly painful, and knowing that the day was hanging out there when they would eventually learn how their beloved Brittany died must have added to their pain.

...[Jean Zimmermann], said that when she learned how her daughter was killed, it would be as if she died all over again. "It's finally going to seem like it's actually real," she said.

"Until we have justice for Brittany, there is absolutely no healing that can start," Jean Zimmermann said.

...Newly uncovered court documents reveal:
---Screaming and a struggle could be heard during a 911 call made from Brittany

---Zimmermann's cell phone before she was found dead.


---Forty-eight minutes elapsed from the time of the mishandled 911 cell-phone call until the time police were sent to Zimmermann's apartment.

---Zimmermann had been stabbed in the heart repeatedly, beaten and strangled.
Police did not find a weapon at the scene.

---Valuables were left behind in her apartment, calling into question whether robbery could be a motive.

My heart breaks for the Zimmermann family.

Others can remain detached. They can focus on the murder details and the mishandling of the 911 call as abstractions. But for the Zimmermanns, this about a family member.

Grieving the death of a loved one is difficult enough. Add to that the criminal circumstances and violence of Brittany's death. Then, throw in the botched 911 call.

It's horrible.

I think it's important to remember that for the Zimmermanns these unsealed warrants and their details can't be shrugged off as just another story in the news.

They're the agonizing accounts of the murder of someone they love.

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