Charges: Hastings man put gun to woman's head and pulled the trigger, but no bullet fired
The woman called 911 around noon Tuesday and reported she had barricaded herself in a second-floor bedroom of a Ravenna Township home to get away from Martin Frederick Branshaw, who was pounding on the door, trying to get inside. When Dakota County sheriff's deputies arrived, they used a ladder to rescue her through a window.
Branshaw, 51, was still inside the home and yelled that he had a gun and that he would shoot, according to Thursday's criminal complaint. South Metro SWAT was called and eventually breached the house and found him in a second-floor bedroom with an apparent self-inflicted injury to his neck.
Branshaw was transported to an area hospital for treatment, where he remains in custody and facing second-degree attempted murder and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon charges.
The woman told an investigator the two had been drinking alcohol the night before and gotten into an argument. She went upstairs to go to bed, but Branshaw repeatedly screamed at her from the first floor. She eventually fell asleep, but was awakened when Branshaw entered the room.
He unlocked a gun safe next to the bed, grabbed her by the hair and put the barrel of a black pistol to her temple. He pulled the trigger and the she heard a 'click,' but it did not fire, the complaint says.
She told the investigator, 'I shouldn't be alive… if he had one in the gun, I'd be dead.'
During the investigation, a .45-caliber pistol was found under a couch cushion. It was loaded with a magazine that contained 10 rounds, however, no bullet was in the chamber.
Branshaw was unable to appear at a first hearing in Dakota County District Court on Thursday due to his hospitalization; it was continued to June 12. Judge Dannia Edwards set his interim bail at $1 million and issued a domestic abuse no-contact order.
Court records show Branshaw completed one year of supervised probation on May 2 as part of a sentence for a DWI conviction out of Goodhue County.
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