FOND DU LAC, Wis. (WHBL-KFIZ) — Testimony at a cold case murder trial in Fond Du Lac turned to the coroner’s report yesterday.
Former Fond du Lac County Coroner Sue testified on Thursday about the shape that the body of 18-year-old Berit Beck was in when it was found in 1990. Casper said it isn’t surprising how badly decomposed the body was given the weather conditions that summer. “It had been in that location for quite a while. Fond Du Lac county had a very wet, hot, rainy season that summer, so I could not estimate time of death.” She also said that the area that the body was found showed that Beck had been there for some time. “The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, with the plant life growing up around it. Casper says some of that grass was three feet in height.
Among the others testifying at the trial was the former employer of defendant Dennis Brantner. 71-year-old Walter Riel of Waupun owned an appliance store in the city in the later half of the 1970s. He employed Brantner as a deliveryman. Brantner claims he had never been out in the area where Beck’s body was discovered, but Riel says some of his customers lived out in that area. The prosecution hopes to establish that he knew the area well.
