Judge denies restitution request in Grafton murder

A young woman who according to her lawyer was treated as a sex slave by the 34-year-old Grafton man she stabbed to death in May 2019 does not have to pay restitution to the man’s family, an Ozaukee County judge said Tuesday.

Judge Paul Malloy denied a motion filed by District Attorney Adam Gerol, noting that restitution is a means by which victims are compensated by those responsible for committing crimes against them. Crystal Gutierrez was not punished criminally for the death of Brent Fitch, but rather committed to a mental health institution.

“You have to recognize that Ms. Gutierrez is not suffering a criminal penalty,” Malloy said, adding that there is little if any case law that pertains to this case. “I don’t want to penalize (the victim’s family) twice, but I have to have the authority to order restitution, and I don’t think I do.”

Gutierrez, who was an 18-year-old high school senior when she was brought from her home in California to Grafton by Fitch, who she met via the internet, pleaded no contest to second-degree intentional homicide in June 2020, but consistent with the opinion of several experts, Malloy ruled she was not guilty by reason of mental disease.

Because she is not legally responsible for her crime, Gutierrez did not face time in prison, but Malloy ordered her confined to Mendota Mental Health Institute in Madison for 15 years. He noted she is able to ask a judge to review that sentence at various times during her commitment.

Gutierrez was arrested after police found  her running down a street near Fitch’s house wearing only a T-shirt, covered in blood and screaming for help around 2:30 a.m. the day of the murder — Friday, May 3, 2019. Officers began searching for her after Gutierrez’s mother received a text message from her daughter pleading for help and called authorities.

The bizarre case began to unfold when authorities reviewed video from cameras Fitch installed throughout his house.  Gutierrez’s lawyer, public defender Rachel Boaz, said during her sentencing hearing in September 2020 that those videos showed Fitch abused Gutierrez physically and sexually while controlling her psychologically.

The abuse stopped when Gutierrez picked up a knife, walked into Fitch’s bedroom and stabbed him between 80 and 100 times in what Gerol described during the sentencing hearing as a horrific murder.

“The medical examiner stopped counting,” Gerol said of the number of stab wounds. 

Gerol said the attack lasted nearly eight minutes.

“It took him a long time to die,” he said. “It was horrible.”

So too was the abuse Gutierrez suffered at the hands of Fitch, Malloy said. 

Describing video footage that showed a violent sexual encounter between Fitch and Gutierrez the day before his murder, Malloy said, “He just slammed her down. I thought she was out cold. Then he slapped her as hard as anyone could.

“This court has seen a lot of things, and this made me extremely uncomfortable.”

By all accounts, Gutierrez was a fairly normal high school student who lived in a suburb of Los Angeles, was looking forward to prom and was planning on attending college, although she struggled with mental health issues including post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative disorder, which is characterized by an involuntary disconnection from reality.

“It’s very clear that Crystal Gutierrez had mental health issues before she met Brent Fitch, but he exploited them,” Boaz said. “He preyed on her vulnerability.”

Fitch wooed Gutierrez with attention and a promise to pay for her college education, Boaz said.

“In Crystal’s mind, it was a fairy tale,” she said. 

But at Fitch’s house, the fairy tale more closely resembled a nightmare. Boaz said Gutierrez was expected to be sexually submissive at all times, was allowed to wear only a T-shirt and had to ask permission to do the simplest of things.

“She must do exactly what he wanted or she would be punished,” Boaz said.

But Gerol said Fitch was professionally successful, loved by his family and liked by his co-workers.

Gerol did, however, concede, “The victim’s sex interests were not conventional, but they were part of his life.”