A Plainfield man will appear before a Door County, Wis., judge this afternoon on a first-degree murder charge for the suffocation death of his pregnant girlfriend Sunday in the quiet resort community where the couple was attending a wedding.
An autopsy performed Monday determined the victim, who was six and a half months pregnant, died of suffocation, Door County Sheriff Terry Vogel said.
The suspect, Brian M. Cooper, 35, of the 2400 block of Oak Tree Lane in Plainfield, is being held in the Door County Jail in the city of Sturgeon Bay on a first-degree murder charge. He may face two murder charges because the victim was with child, said Vogel, indicating that it will be up to the Door County District Attorney whether Cooper will be charged with two counts of murder.
"He goes before the judge this afternoon," Vogel said. "He will be formally charged in about a week."
An autopsy performed Monday determined Alisha N. Bromfield, 21, also of Plainfield, died of suffocation, Vogel said.
The motive for the crime remains unclear this afternoon.
"That's the part we're still investigating," Vogel said.
Cooper called the sheriff's department about noon Sunday from Sister Bay and said he had killed his girlfriend. Officers went to the location where the call was placed and took Cooper into custody without incident. He directed police to where the body was, and officers found her inside a motel room at the Sand Bay Beach Resort about 35 miles from where he was arrested, police said.
Bromfield and Cooper were in town attending a wedding at the time of the killing, police said.
"Violent crime is quite rare up here," said Vogel. The last murder in the county was on Christmas Eve, 2001, when a man plunged a samurai sword into another man's heart during an argument, said Vogel.
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