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Brittany Zimmermann, a 21-year-old University of Wisconsin student, was found beaten, strangled and stabbed to death in her Madison apartment about 48 minutes after a 911 call placed while she was being attacked brought no police response, according to authorities and court records.

Zimmermann was killed on April 2, 2008, in the apartment she shared on the 500 block of West Doty Street, a few blocks from the state Capitol. Dane County dispatcher Rita Gahagan, who answered the call, later said she heard nothing that sounded like an emergency and hung up after getting no response.

According to a county disciplinary report, Gahagan did not call the number back or send an officer, both steps the center's policy required. The report suggested she may have confused the call with one from an abandoned landline that reached the center moments afterward, a number she did dial back. She received a three-day unpaid suspension and was reassigned out of the 911 center.

Zimmermann's fiance, Jordan Gonnering, returned to the apartment, found the door forced open and called 911 himself. In January 2009 authorities released an edited recording of that second call. A judge ordered the earlier call kept confidential and blocked its release to the news media. The case triggered a broad review of Dane County's emergency dispatch operation.

Zimmermann's parents and Gonnering sued Dane County, the dispatcher and county officials, arguing that the mishandled call cost the family time and answers. The homicide went unsolved for more than a decade.

Investigators later matched genetic material recovered from Zimmermann's clothing to David Kahl, a registered sex offender who was already in prison on his seventh drunken-driving conviction. Kahl was charged with first-degree intentional homicide in March 2020, pleaded guilty in October 2022, and on January 20, 2023, Dane County Circuit Judge Chris Taylor sentenced him to life in prison with no chance of release, saying he remained a danger to the public. Kahl died at the Dodge Correctional Institution in May 2025 at age 59.