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After disappearance, search for Dawn Brossard yields no clues

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Dawn Brossard's sister testifies

Dawn Brossard's sister reads a letter from 1997 written by David Brossard. In it, he writes that Dawn "is still up to her lying and cheating ways." David Brossard is on trial, accused of killing his wife. Click to play

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David Brossard trial, Aug. 19, 2009

A co-worker testifies about the last day she saw Dawn Brossard alive. David Brossard is charged in his wife's killing. Click to play

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David Brossard trial

David Brossard is on trial, accused of killing his wife in 1997 and dumping her bound body in Geneva Lake. He was found not guilty Aug. 31, 2009 after a two-week trial.

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Christine Jensen, Dawn Brossard's sister, testifies Aug. 20, 2009 in the trial of Dawn's husband, David, who is charged with Dawn's killing.

ELKHORN -- A woman murdered 12 years ago was a very private person, her family said, which fed their hope for years that she had just walked away from a bad marriage.

Dawn Brossard disappeared on Oct. 24, 1997. Her body was found at the bottom of Geneva Lake six years later. Her husband, David Brossard, 40, was charged with the crime last year. He is now on trial for the murder in Walworth County Circuit Court and the trial is expected to last at least through next week. The couple lived in Burlington when Dawn disappeared; David Brossard still resides there.

"She was very independent and liked to solve her own problems," testified Judith Marcell, Dawn Brossard's mother. "When Dawn didn't come home, we thought she'd had enough and left."

The family put up posters and made a plea on television for information about Dawn Brossard's whereabouts. They even gave something of Dawn Brossard's to a psychic, Marcell said. The family also stood at the gates of Chicago's Soldier Field during a memorial service for Walter Payton. He was a favorite football player of Dawn Brossard's, Marcell said.

"I thought if she was anywhere around she would go to that event," Marcell testified. "We gathered some people together. I had called the security at Soldier Field. They said they would let us man the gates to look for her. ... We did that and of course didn't see her."

One possible reason for their belief that Dawn Brossard left her life willingly was that David Brossard reportedly refused to agree to a divorce. Marcell testified that the family liked David Brossard, and hoped that the couple would go to counseling. Dawn Brossard was apparently the one unwilling to do so.

Her sister and mother also testified about a pregnancy Dawn Brossard hid from them for about seven years.

"That Dawn had had a baby, was that news to you?" defense attorney Charles Blumenfield asked Dawn Brossard's sister.

"Yes and no," Christine Jensen answered. "At the time she was pregnant she was living home with my parents. ... I confronted her, specifically confronted her that she looked pregnant, to make sure she was getting medical attention and that her and the baby were healthy. She vehemently denied being pregnant. She told me it was an ovarian cyst. I found out shortly thereafter, in pharmacy school, found out that if she had one that size and it ruptured, she would be dead. I knew she was lying. I confronted her with it and she would not admit she'd had a child."

That Dawn Brossard had given birth was confirmed when her body was autopsied, Jensen said.

Judith Marcell, Dawn Brossard's mother, said she picked her daughter up from the hospital the day the family believes she had the baby. At the time, she also had been told that her daughter had an ovarian cyst. The family had no idea who the father was, Marcell testified, and has never contacted the child.

"I believe my husband found out the name of the baby," she said, when questioned by David Brossard's attorney.