GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) – A self-admitted crack cocaine addict was convicted today in the strangulation death of a retired restaurtanteur, whose body was found Dec. 30 inside a low-budget motel room in Walker.
Jurors deliberated about 2 ½ hours before finding 29-year-old Matthew Brunn guilty of felony murder for the late December death of Casey Wybenga.
Jurors did not buy the argument that Brunn, a paroled felon, didn't intend to kill Wybenga while giving the elderly man a massage at America's Best Value Inn on Three Mile Road and Alpine Avenue NW.
Brunn faces mandatory life in prison when sentenced Aug. 12. He was returned to the Kent County Jail without bond.
An autopsy determined Wybenga died from strangulation sometime Dec. 29 or 30. His body was found Dec. 30 by a cleaning crew entering the motel room.
Police initially treated it as a natural death, but began investigating it as a suspicious death after determining Wybenga's 2005 Ford Freestyle was missing and transactions were made with Wybenga's ATM-debit card.
Walker police say Brunn drove to Detroit. He was arrested Jan. 3 at a Coney Island restaurant near Gratiot and Cadillac avenues on the east side of Detroit after fleeing assailants at a crack house.
Defense attorney Christopher Dennie asked jurors to consider lesser charges of second degree murder or involuntary manslaughter. Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Bramble said evidence supported a felony murder conviction.
"When you choke somebody out, break his back, it's very clear what his intent was,'' Bramble said in closing statements Wednesday. "He broke Casey Wybenga's back, fractured his ribs, fractured four bones in his neck. His actions prove his intent.''
Brunn and Wybenga met when Wybenga ran the former Casey's restaurant in the Herkimer Hotel on South Division Avenue in the city's Heartside district.
Brunn was with Wybenga Dec. 29 when he removed an electronic ankle tether at a CVS Pharmacy in Wyoming.
It was placed on his ankle earlier in the day so the Department of Corrections could monitor Brunn's movements while on parole for a 2007 armed robbery conviction in Kent County. Brunn was paroled to Grand Rapids in December 2013.
