A Lake County Circuit Court judge refused to reduce the bond Friday for a Kenosha man charged with killing his ex-wife in Gurnee, stating that it is too early in the investigation for her to make such a determination.
“I’m not changing his bond,” Judge Christen Bishop said in response to a request to lower the $3 million bond for David Brocksom, 43, who is being held in Lake County Jail.
Bishop told defense attorney Douglas Zeit she is not precluding future bond review hearings for Brocksom but said that considering the charge involved is first-degree murder and the investigation is still fluid, she felt lowering the bond would be inappropriate at this time.
Bishop did note that, in his favor, Brocksom has no prior felony or misdemeanor convictions.
Zeit, citing reports that Brocksom’s former wife, Beata Brocksom, 43, was shot during a struggle between her and the defendant, asked for a reduction in bond to a range between $100,000 and $150,000.
Zeit said based on circumstances, he does not feel his client should be charged with first-degree murder. He noted that both David Brocksom and a Gurnee neighbor of Beata Brocksom had filed orders of protection against her in the past.
Zeit also referred to a struggle over a gun that was described in an initial bond court hearing, but Assistant State’s Attorney Lauren Callinan said the claims of a struggle were based on statements made by the defendant, not investigators.
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Callinan also said that the investigation has contradicted claims by Brocksom that one of his two children, a daughter, had told him she had been inappropriately touched by her mother, Beata Brocksom.
Callinan said the girl denied to investigators that her mother had touched her inappropriately.
But Zeit said he is aware of, and plans to obtain, a tape related to the couple’s divorce proceedings, in which the girl makes a similar accusation.
With concurrence from Zeit and Callinan, Bishop set a preliminary court hearing for Brocksom on Oct. 22 before Judge Mark Levitt.
Brocksom told authorities his former wife had pulled a gun on him and that the two struggled over it when he realized that she had been shot.
Brocksom also told investigators that he had driven to Gurnee from the Wisconsin Dells in the middle of the night, leaving the couple’s two children behind, to confront his ex-wife after his daughter had told him she had been abused, according to police.
Prosecutors said Brocksom claimed his former wife answered the door at her Gurnee home about 4 a.m. Sept. 2, the couple argued, and as the argument escalated, she struck him with an object and knocked him unconscious. When he regained consciousness, she was standing over him with a gun, according to the initial bond court narrative based on Brocksom’s statements.
The two began to struggle over the gun, the defendant told authorities, and he pulled her by her hair and pushed her onto the bed, at which point the gun went off, striking Beata Brocksom in the chin. Authorities said Brocksom recounted that she then fled through a window, he followed, and the struggle continued in the yard, where he said he held his former wife by the wrists, heard her make a gurgling sound, realized she had stopped breathing and dragged her behind a bush.
Brocksom texted his girlfriend, telling her to pick up his children at their hotel in the Wisconsin Dells, and then he fled with the gun and two cellphones, officials said.
He was stopped and arrested later as he was apparently driving toward the parking lot of the Gurnee Police Department, where he said he planned to surrender.
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