Lawyers in a Harford County murder case want to suppress the tearful confession of a Joppatowne librarian accused of stabbing her husband during a drunken argument, insisting she was too impaired for her statements to be admissible in court.
Eveline Anna Maria Bergmann is charged with killing her husband Jeffrey as the result of an argument last December, and defense attorney Timothy Gunning argued during pretrial motions Wednesday that her confessions to deputies and detectives from the Harford County Sheriff’s Office should be excluded from her trial.
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Deputies who first arrived at the scene around Dec. 15 say they found Bergmann with blood in her hair and on her clothes and hands, with her husband unconscious in a den toward the back of their house. They testified that she appeared slightly intoxicated and distraught, but not to the point of being incoherent.
“She?d been drinking, that?s for sure,” said Sgt. Robert Royster, who trains other officers in administering sobriety tests. “She was intoxicated, but not overly.”
Before being advised of her rights or being asked any questions beyond “What happened here?,” Bergmann reportedly told officers she “hit him with a knife” and was heard telling her two dogs that “Daddy will be OK.”
Bergmann, a part-time librarian at Harford Community College, appeared in court wearing a suit beneath her shackles. She was released from her handcuffs to take notes, but wept and sniffled through much of the officers? recounting of that night.
Assistant State?s Attorney Tracy Delp played a recording of Bergmann?s interview with a detective from the Sheriff’s Office, in which she recounted how a night of drinking had ended with her husband?s confession that he once had a relationship with another man, and had been turned down by the same male friend they had been drinking with that night.
