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Parts of a previously sealed document released Friday from the Brittany Zimmermann homicide investigation shows the 911 call she made on the day she was killed lasted 57 seconds, but sounds heard on the recording were not clear enough at the time for the dispatcher to hear anything indicating an emergency.
The report from an internal investigation into the 911 call by the Dane County Public Safety Communications Center says no evidence has been found that dispatcher Rita Gahagan heard but “chose not to react to sounds possibly indicating an emergency.”
The report says the location of the call was determined 24 seconds into the 57-second phone call and the given latitude and longitude coincides with Zimmermann’s address on West Doty Street, where she was strangled and stabbed to death April 2.
Inspection of computer-aided dispatch logs show that Zimmermann’s call was received at 12:20 p.m., 48 minutes before police were dispatched at 1:08 p.m. A landline call from Middleton was also received shortly thereafter, at 12:21 p.m.
Gahagan returned the landline call and not the wireless call from Zimmermann “due to an unintentional oversight likely due to her quickly moving on to handle subsequent calls.”
The call from Zimmermann’s phone was not documented either, violating policy.
Last week, several previously sealed search warrants pertaining to the Zimmermann homicide investigation were made public after officials failed to make a request to extend their seals.
In one of the warrants, a Madison police detective incorrectly stated on April 5 that the dispatcher called back immediately after the line went dead and a male with an accent answered who said he did not make the call.
The internal investigation report filed on May 5 corrects the detective’s statement with details from the CAD log that indicate the call back was actually to the abandoned landline call from Middleton.
The report says it is not able to determine which end of the first wireless call hung up first, but added there is no evidence indicating Gahagan ended the call.
The audio of the Zimmermann call has not been released, but the Wisconsin State Journal and several other media companies have a pending lawsuit against the Dane County Safety Communications Center to release it.
Media lawyer April Barker said the county should release the audio now that a statement by the previously mentioned Madison police detective was made public, saying the call “started with the sound of a woman screaming and … background sounds of a struggle for a short period of time.”
Madison Police Department investigators have also said the information contained in the recently unsealed warrants is dated and will likely not have any impact on the investigation.
The lawsuit also calls for the release of the full report from the county, including redacted portions, and information regarding why Gahagan failed to dispatch police.
A public court hearing is set for this Wednesday to determine if the audio will be released, but city district attorney Brian Blanchard sent a letter to the presiding judge to allow the city of Madison to intervene.
The Wisconsin State Journal reported during Blanchard’s motion he stated, “Given the graphic content of this tape, it is likely to inflame the passions of the ordinary citizen as to complicate the ability of the criminal courts to pick a jury once a suspect is brought to trial.”
Blanchard’s motion also says the release of the call will victimize not only the Zimmermann family, but any person who lost a loved one or friend in a homicide.
This article should have made clear that although the Dane County 911 Center received a call from University of Wisconsin student Brittany Zimmermann’s cell phone the day she was killed, it has not been confirmed if Zimmermann herself was the one who placed the call.
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Maybe Rita Gahagan should be strangled for 57 seconds while we all listen over a phone.
Along with the murderer, I hope this dispatcher is held accountable for not doing her job correctly. If she had, the girl may still be alive. I’m tired of seeing these things happen in this country and not having any accountability.
I just finished reading this article and the one from May and all the posts. I am not from your area but I have been dispatching since 1995, it is safe to assume that the biggest majority of responders you have are not 911 dispatchers and have no idea how the system works. Who’s to say that Brittany would have answered the phone when the call back was made? suppose the killer answered the phone…and said it was an accidental dial…then what? Who’s to say that the police would have been able to respond immediately….I know that here there could be as long a an hour for response times if they are tied up on something else. THe unfortunate fact is that too many people make prank calls and the dispatchers (though they shouldn’t) and the police get lax about responding back. Unless there is concrete evidence on the tape that required a response then all we can all do is speculate what should have happened. Just remember to pray for the family and be assured that the dispatcher is feeling crappy about this whole situation.
I am a 911 supervisor from another part of the country. What most people don’t realize is that even if the wireless call pinpointed the area it came from, it was an apartment complex….the phase II location is only going to be in longitude and latitude coordinates which would indicate the call came from somewhere within 300 yards of that location. So which apartment do you search? Or do you search the parking lot, or the field next door? When you get a wireless call it’s not like we know the name of the caller, all we have is the callback number. Yes, I can fill-out a form, fax it to the wireless provider and they will in turn fax me back the subscriber information on the phone…..about a hour later….so that doesn’t help. Now if there are distinct screams on the tape, then hell yes I will have officers search the entire area around the apartments, but if it was a standard open line cellphone call, like the hundreds we get a week, then no, I would not have the area searched. Our policy would be to call the phone back and try to make contact, if no contact is made then you log the call and the attempt and move on.
Well said above (anonymous), I agree 100%. Not the dispatchers fault at all. I truely believe that the majority of the general public thinks their lifes history is sent to 911 when they use their cell phone. Education is a must.