Former Plainfield Man Sentenced in Murder of Alisha Bromfield

A former Plainfield man who strangled his pregnant friend, killing her and her unborn child, will spend the rest of his life in prison.

According to the Green Bay Press Gazette, a Door County judge last week sentenced Brian Cooper, 37, to two consecutive life sentences without parole in the murders of 21-year-old Alisha Bromfield, also of Plainfield, and her daughter, whom she planned to name Ava Lucille.

Cooper was convicted in May of two counts of intentional homicide in the August 2012 murders. Bromfield, a Joliet Catholic Academy graduate, was killed after accompanying Cooper to his sister’s wedding in Door County, Wisconsin.

According to prosecutors, Cooper flew into a rage after Bromfield refused to rekindle a romantic relationship with him, strangling her as she slept before sexually assaulting her.

In June 2013, a jury found Cooper guilty of third-degree sexual assault, but could not come to a decision on the homicide charges. Cooper had cited a “voluntary intoxication” statute in his defense, saying he was too drunk to form intent when he killed Bromfield.

The statute has since been struck down, thanks to the efforts of Bromfield’s family and friends, including her mother, Sherry Anicich.

In addition to the two life sentences, Cooper was sentenced to two years for the sex assault conviction and ordered to pay more than $8,000 in restitution, according to the Gazette.

Judge D. Todd Ehlers spoke about the lack of an apology to Bromfield’s family in Cooper’s statement to the court on Thursday, as well as the fact that the convicted killer had placed cameras in both the Door County hotel room and at his Plainfield home to record Bromfield.

According to the Gazette, Ehlers played a video used in the trial which showed Cooper hiding a camera in a bathroom garbage can in the hotel room prior to the murder.

“What I realized as I watched that during the first trial and I watched during the second trial, is that that’s the last view that Alisha Bromfield had ... as you were strangling the life out of her,” Ehlers said, according to the Gazette. “She looked up into your eyes just like you were looking into that garbage can. And that just sends chills to me to the point that that is the last thing she saw.”

Read the full article here.