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A 26-year-old man accused in the brutal rape and beating of a University of Wisconsin-Madison student last week told police he “went into a rage” and doesn’t recall the rape but afterward pretended to have stumbled across the victim while taking a “high walk.”
Brandon Thompson is charged with sexual assault causing great bodily harm, reckless injury, and strangulation and suffocation. The criminal complaint says the woman, in her 20s, was found naked, covered in blood, and unconscious. She has been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and had multiple cuts and broken teeth, a broken jaw, and two swolen eyes, The Wisconsin State Journal said.
She is “on a feeding tube and unable to provide a statement as she shows extreme signs of confusion when awake,” the complaint says.
In court on Thursday, Dane County Deputy District Attorney William Brown said that Thompson “was simply driving down the street and saw the victim, had no prior interaction with the victim, and spontaneously decided to pull his car over, most of this occurring on camera, follow her for some distance around the Downtown area, and then attack her.
According to the complaint, the victim had been at a friend’s from about 8 p.m. until 2:15 a.m. on Sunday. The friend told police that the victim did not respond when she texted to see if she’d gotten home about a half hour later.
Thirty minutes later, another woman called police and reported that Thompson and called to her from outside her apartment, saying he was taking a “high walk” and found the victim on the street. When the woman saw the victim’s condition, she called police, which she said made Thompson “antsy,” saying he didn’t want to be around police while he was high. He left before officers arrived.
A responding officer described the scene as “one of the most horrifying things I’ve seen,” TMJ4 reported.
Police collected videos from both public and private surveillance cameras and saw the victim walking along the street, the State Journal said. They also saw a man matching Thompson’s description watching her from across the street after he parked his car in a nearby parking lot.
Investigators said they did not recover video showing the attack, but video showed Thompson’s vehicle leaving the parking lot just after 3 a.m. Police also said he had been pulled over in Fitchburg at about 1:15 a.m. — before the attack — and was wearing similar clothing to the man seen in the video. The vehicle matched as well.
Police also said that DNA left on the victim was “consistent with the profile of Brandon Thompson,” according to the state crime lab’s analysis.
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Thompson was arrested on Wednesday at the hospital seeking treatment for undisclosed injuries.
“This case will not be complete until this cowardly attacker receives the justice he deserves,” Chief Shon Barnes said at a press conference announcing the arrest, according to the New York Post.
When interviewed later by police, Thompson, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said that he was angry before the attack and wanted to “hit something” and “saw red” when he saw the woman, who he said “came across as a monster.”
“I went into a rage, when I came to, she was on the ground,” Thompson said, Channel 3000 reported. “The only thing I remember is just hitting.”
He said he didn’t remember raping her but admitted, “I could have.”
In court on Thursday, prosecutors asked for a $2 million bail while Thompson’s attorney requested $10,000. In the end, he was held on a $1 million bail.
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[Featured image: Brandon Thompson/Dane County Sheriff’s Office]
