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Chilling details in Brents case

Suspected sexual predator to stand trial on 72 counts of rape, attempted murder

Sue Lindsay, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 3, 2005 at midnight

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A 27-year-old woman was repeatedly shot up with heroin and stuffed in a closet between a string of sexual assaults in an abandoned apartment.

An apartment manager whose head was bashed in with a two-by-four had to have part of her brain removed to save her life.

A grade-school student clung to her purple stuffed hippopotamus while she was sexually assaulted on Valentine's Day.

These are some of the details of allegations against accused serial rapist Brent J. Brents - disturbing new accounts that emerged during a daylong preliminary hearing Monday.

Brents, 35, was ordered to stand trial on 72 charges of rape and attempted murder in one of Denver's most vicious sexual rampages.

"The sad thing about this case is that Mr. Brents recognizes exactly what he is - a sexual predator," Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said during the hearing. "He knows exactly what he is, and he continues to choose to do those things."

Six women and two girls were victimized in the knifepoint assaults in three Denver neighborhoods between October and February. Investigators say the cases were linked to Brents by DNA evidence, witness accounts and Brents' admissions to police.

Brents has claimed to have committed dozens of other sexual assaults.

On Monday, the defendant, a convicted child molester who was released from prison last summer, was formally advised of charges in two additional cases involving sexual assaults that took place in January.

Brents sat handcuffed in a jail uniform, quietly observing the testimony and occasionally conferring with his public defender, Carrie Thompson.

He hung his head, hunched at the shoulders, as he was led through the hallways to the courtroom during breaks in the hearing.

Thompson indicated she is pursuing a mental health defense.

The day Brents was arrested, he said he hadn't slept in a week and referred to himself as a "sociopath" in an interview with Denver homicide Lt. Jon Priest.

"I'm tired of what's going on in my head," he told Priest.

Brents described how he would "just flip out. There's this thing in my brain that just goes f------ stupid. It's just this weird thing in my head. It's not even sexual. It's more like this animalistic s---."

Denver detectives testified that in all the attacks, Brents threatened to kill the women with a knife if they screamed or resisted.

Brents was arrested Feb. 18 in Glenwood Springs after one of the most intensive manhunts in Denver history.

He fled in a stolen car with a 27-year-old woman he is accused of repeatedly raping in a vacant Denver apartment near East 10th Avenue and Marion Street where he was hiding out.

That woman, Aida Bergfeld, later died of a drug overdose. She told police Brents raped her "more times than she can count" during a 121/2 hour period ending Feb. 18, Detective Martin Vigil said.

Brents told police he shot Bergfeld up with heroin to make her more compliant, Priest said. He then tied her up and put her in the closet when he left the apartment to get cigarettes, according to Priest's testimony.

Apartment manager Tiffany Engle was choked and beaten with a board when she went to check on the apartment and surprised a naked Brents in the middle of a sexual assault, Priest said.

Brents said he began choking Engle and hit her over the head because she wouldn't stop screaming, Priest said.

"He said she kicked him and he just lost it," Priest said.

"He said he felt he strangled her enough that she was within seconds of dying," Priest said. "He said he had studied martial arts and knew how to shut off the blood flow for a quicker reaction. He said he had strangled a number of people until they turned blue and passed out. He said he used it as a control."

Engle, who had been tied up, was able to crawl out of the apartment for help after Brents fled in her car.

She nearly died and had to undergo a lobotomy to relieve swelling in her brain, Vigil said.

Four days earlier, on Feb. 14, police allege, Brents sexually assaulted two girls and their 67-year-old grandmother in the 800 block of Vine Street.

Brents allegedly forced the grandmother into the basement, where he raped her and left her tied up on a mattress.

One of the girls told police she hugged her stuffed hippopotamus while Brents raped her in her bed, said Detective Larry Black.

"She said she had to stand there while he took her sister and sexually assaulted her," Black said. "She said she just closed her eyes during that assault."

The grandmother was able to escape and run for help while the girls were being attacked.

Brents told police he simply planned to rob the 44-year-old owner of a pet store on East Sixth Avenue at knifepoint, but decided to rape her Feb. 11 after she cut her finger on his blade and bled all over the money she was removing from the cash register, Priest said.

The woman told police Brents took her to a back bathroom and bent her head over a toilet where she watched blood from her thumb dripping into the water while he raped her, said Detective Tamara Molyneaux.

In another attack Feb. 11, a 29-year-old woman said Brents attacked her in her apartment in the 1100 block of Adams Street when she came home from work.

The woman said Brents held a knife to her throat during the rape and choked her almost to the point of unconsciousness, threatening to impregnate her, said Detective Gilbert Lucio.

Brents also is charged with raping a 25-year-old woman at knifepoint behind a dumpster near Colfax Avenue.

At one point during the Oct. 20 attack, the woman said they heard police sirens, prompting Brents to remark, "Isn't it crazy that I'm raping you right next to Colfax?" said Detective Mylous Yearling.

Brents, who was charged with sexually assaulting two children in 1988, said he "manipulated" the system then so he would go to the state hospital instead of prison.

He was released July 12, 2004, after serving a split sentence of two years at the state hospital and 15 years in prison.

But he told Priest that sexually assaulting children "just didn't do it for him anymore."

Brents told Priest, according to testimony Monday, that he now got a thrill raping women who fought back and whom he strangled until they passed out.

"He stated he's the kind of sex offender where treatment is not going to work," Priest said.

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