Man who shot wife, fired on officers gets 15 years
Port Washington —A Grafton man was sentenced Thursday to 15 years in prison for shooting at two police officers who responded to a domestic violence call more than a year ago, and for seriously wounding his wife with gunfire during the incident.
Joseph W. Damrow, 33, pleaded guilty last month to attempted first-degree intentional homicide and seconddegree reckless injury. Four other felony counts were dismissed. Last year he had entered an insanity plea, but experts’ evaluations did not support the finding.
“We are so lucky it wasn’t worse, and you are lucky you are alive,” Circuit Judge Sandy Williams told Damrow.
She imposed 11 years for the attempted homicide of an officer and four years for the injury to his wife, plus six years of extended supervision. Damrow got credit for 419 days he’s been in jail since his arrest.
Krista Damrow, 32, told Williams she came home from work as a waitress the night of Feb. 7, 2015, and her husband “just went nuts” and held her hostage while counting down to zero and then firing shots from his 9mm handgun around the house, before finally shooting her once in the leg.
He continued firing after Grafton police Sgt. Eric Sutherland broke down the door to find the victim bleeding heavily from a leg wound.
She described the pain of three surgeries, constant rehab, the prospect of another surgery, and how she went from a wheelchair to a walker to crutches to the limp revealed in court.
“I’ll never be the person I once was,” she said.
Joseph Damrow’s attorney, David Geraghty, pointed out that until very recently, Krista Damrow never said her husband had held a gun to her head. He suggested that his client, who had known his wife since high school, had a child with her 12 years ago and married last year, was a hardworking husband and father who became paranoid because of drug use, and his impending testimony against two men who had come to his home with a gun weeks before.
Geraghty characterized the shooting of Krista Damrow as an accident, something done while Joseph Damrow feared for his and his wife’s safety while suffering from drug-fueled delusions.
District Attorney Adam Gerol, like Williams, lauded the police officers and deputies who rushed into the Damrows’ house and whose immediate attention to Krista Damrow’s wounds likely saved her life, as she was bleeding heavily.
Gerol also disputed that Joseph Damrow was anything but “fully under control” during the incident, and played a video of him “demonstrating evil character” by spitting and screaming when he was first arrested, “raging and playing it to maximum effect.”