A Lake County judge will rule April 7 on whether potentially key evidence in a Gurnee homicide will be allowed to be used in the defendant’s trial.
David Brocksom, a 45-year-old Kenosha man, is charged with murder in the fatal shooting of his ex-wife, Beata Brocksom, at her Gurnee home in September 2015.
An ongoing, sporadic hearing on a defense motion to suppress evidence in the case concluded with closing arguments Tuesday afternoon before Lake County Circuit Judge Mark Levitt.
The main point of contention between prosecutors and defense attorneys is a spiral notebook, which authorities said police recovered from a laptop bag in his girlfriend’s car in Kenosha on the day of the killing.
Pages from the notebook were published on-screen in court when the hearing began in early November of last year. The notebook includes entries such as directions to the victim’s house, a “things to bring” list included black clothes, and a “things to do” list with notations including clearing all phone history.
One of the pages shown on screen displayed a handwritten list found inside the notebook that reads “Key, Open, Do it, Prints tools and bags, leave, lock doors.”
Defense attorneys Gabe Conroe and John Bailey have acknowledged the notebook belonged to Brocksom, but said it was illegally opened and read by Gurnee police without a proper search warrant, and they are seeking to have the notebook barred as evidence in Brocksom’s pending trial.
Assistant state’s attorneys Jason Humke and John Brown argued throughout the hearing that officers had the permission of Brocksom’s girlfriend to remove the computer case from her car, and had signed a consent allowing the Lake County Major Crime Task Force to search the car and the computer bag.
After hearing closing arguments on the motion from attorneys on Wednesday afternoon, Levitt said he would review his notes, as well as hearing and witness transcripts, and rule on the motion to suppress April 7.
Brocksom allegedly killed his wife in the early morning hours of Sept. 27, 2015, after driving to Gurnee from the Wisconsin Dells, where he was staying at a resort with his children.
According to prosecutors and police reports, Brocksom’s former wife, Beata Brocksom, 43, was shot to death following a confrontation with the defendant at her home around 4 a.m. on that date.
Police said Brocksom claimed his wife answered the door and the couple argued, and as the argument escalated, his wife struck him with an object and knocked him unconscious.
Authorities have said Brocksom has claimed that when he regained consciousness, his ex-wife was standing over him with a gun, and the two began to struggle over the weapon.
Brocksom allegedly told investigators that the gun went off during the struggle, striking Beata Brocksom in the chin, according to police.
Authorities said David Brocksom said that she then fled through a window, he followed and the fight continued in the yard, where he said held his former wife by the wrists and then the throat as they struggled over the gun until he heard her make a gurgling sound and realized she had stopped breathing.
He said he then dragged her behind a bush, fled the home with the gun and contacted his girlfriend, who was still at the Wisconsin Dells, police said.
On Wednesday afternoon, Conroe argued that police did not have a search warrant to examine the items inside the computer bag that was seized, and that, nonetheless, a Gurnee Police officer on Oct. 9, 2015, opened the notebook during an “inventory search,” read passages in it and then photographed the pages inside it.
He and Bailey said police did not seek and obtain a search warrant for the notebook until Oct. 15, 2015. Conroe also said Brocksom’s girlfriend did not have the authority to give officers permission to look through the bag or the notebook.
“It was an impermissible evidentiary search,” Conroe said. “The search of the notebook was unlawful and should be suppressed.”
Humke argued that Brocksom’s girlfriend did have authority to give police access to the computer bag, which police said she recovered from a Wisconsin Dells hotel room at Brocksom’s request.
“He told her to get it, to take it,’ Humke said. “He in no way told her ‘get my stuff, but you can’t look at it.'”
A trial date for Brocksom has not yet been scheduled, and he remains in custody of the Lake County Jail with bail set at $3 million.
Twitter @jimnewton5
