Man sentenced to prison for killing Hopkins woman after abusive relationship

Leticia Guadarrama, Bergeson's mother, said she was outraged when she heard Brenneman's version of events at last month's guilty plea hearing and read how his lawyers portrayed her daughter's murder as a situation between “two imperfect people.”

“I'm not saying Danicka is perfect; that's just God,” Guadarrama said. “She was in an extremely vulnerable state; she was a damaged human being who had fallen into unfortunate circumstances; she was in desperate need of protection.”

Then Guadarrama cried.

The cruelty of the murder and the history of abuse led Moreno to give Brenneman a harsher sentence.

The state argued that leaving the home was justified by two Blakely aggravating factors – when prosecutors seek a sentence that exceeds state law – that are associated with the murder charge. Those factors were that Brenneman murdered Bergeson in the privacy of her own home – her bedroom – and treated her particularly cruelly by leaving her body to decompose.

Just days before the murder, Brenneman had been released from prison after pleading guilty to two counts of domestic violence related to incidents in April and May 2023. In the first incident, Brenneman had punched Bergeson, giving her a black eye. In the second incident, he had strangled her, threatened to kill her, and caused what the prosecution called “significant bruising to her body and marks to her neck.”