A 50-year-old man is accused of trying to kill his ex-girlfriend and four police officers over a period of two days that included a 10-hour armed standoff with law enforcement officers.
Thomas Benser has been charged with five counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and faces a total of 14 charges in the Saturday incident that caused a major highway to be shut down. Benser’s home is near U.S. 141.
Authorities say he tried to kill his former girlfriend at her home by choking her. She passed out and when she came to, he began to attack her again. The victim was able to throw Benser’s glasses outside. When he left, she called police.
Later, Benser called the victim and made many threats to himself as well as law enforcement. Telling her he didn’t want to go back to jail. When officers surrounded his house he fired several shots — two of them near-misses. Officials called in the Brown County SWAT team for assistance. Nobody was injured and Benser was eventually taken into custody.