Judge hands 50-year sentence to man who stabbed woman, daughter

This story will be updated

By Brandi Makuski

A 21-year-old Stevens Point man was sentenced on Wednesday to 30 years in prison, followed by 20 years of extended supervision, for stabbing a woman and her daughter during a 2022 home invasion.

Elier D. Bravo, 21, appeared in an orange jail uniform and shackled at the wrists and ankles for his sentencing hearing before Judge Michael Zell on Sept. 13. He was accompanied by two Spanish translators and his attorneys, Anne Renc and Kat Druery.

Bravo pleaded guilty in April on two counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, with 20 years of extended supervision. Several other counts of mayhem, aggravated battery, and burglary, were dismissed but read-in for sentencing.

Bravo has been in custody on a $5 million cash bond since being arrested on Dec. 20.

The criminal complaint outlined the attack, as described by the 32-year-old female victim from her hospital bed in a Marshfield trauma center, where she and her daughter were both being treated for extensive injuries.

The woman called 911 shortly before 2 a.m. and told dispatchers that a man, who she identified as “a neighbor who wore all-black clothing” had repeatedly stabbed her. When officers arrived, they entered the home with their weapons drawn and “followed a blood trail to the basement where they located [the woman] on a bed in a basement bedroom,” according to District Attorney Cass Cousins. “She stated her daughter was also in bed with her and that the intruder had stabbed her daughter, as well.”

Police found the girl in a neighbor’s home, where she’d fled after her mother told her to run, Cousins said. The girl suffered “numerous slash wounds” on her arms, stomach, and hand.

Police found Bravo hiding in an exterior stairwell, clad in black clothing and “covered in blood,” Cousins said.

The woman said she awoke that morning to find Bravo standing over her with a knife and he began to stab her. As the woman attempted to fight him off, her daughter awakened, and Bravo then “leaned over her and started stabbing her daughter,” Cousins said.

The woman received “a very extensive and deep laceration running from her nose down through her mouth to her chin,” with other “significant lacerations on her hands, arms, and thigh.”

The woman sustained 32 separate injuries including a collapsed lung. Her daughter was stabbed seven times.

The daughter was able to flee but not before receiving several wounds requiring staples and stitches on her arms, chest, and shoulder blade, and has thus far received two blood transfusions due to “extensive blood loss,” Cousins said.

The woman struggled with Bravo until he broke off the attack and left the home.

The woman told officers that in the weeks leading up to the attack, she believed Bravo had been entering her home without her knowledge or permission, moving various items, and looking through her drawers. She had installed a video surveillance system not long before the attack, on which police observed Bravo leaving the home “covered in blood,” at about the same time as the 911 call was made.

“We all know this could easily have been a homicide case here today,” Zell said, adding that in his 25-plus years in the legal profession, “This is one of the most horrific cases I’ve ever seen.”