FOND DU LAC, Wis. (WHBL-KFIZ) — Jury selection begins today in Fond Du Lac in the cold case murder of a woman who was killed in 1990.
62-year old Dennis Brantner faces a count of first degree homicide in the death of Berit Beck.
Beck went missing in July of 1990 on her way to a computer seminar. A massive search was done but she couldn’t be located. Her body was eventually found six weeks later in a ditch outside of Waupun. The case would remain cold until 2013, when the State Crime Lab matched some fingerprints inside the vehicle to Brantner.
Brantner was arrested last year on the charges, and prosecutors say he was a truck driver who frequented the area and would have had the opportunity to commit the murder. They also say former coworkers identified a photo he kept with him as that of Beck.
The defense argues that the state’s case is flimsy, and that evidence has been lost in the time since Beck’s disappearance. Both sides have been under a gag order not to talk to the media.
This past January a jury found Brantner guilty of drug possession charges stemming from drugs that were found in his boot when he was being booked into the jail for Beck’s murder.
The trial is scheduled to take about three weeks.
