By Jason Stein, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Dane County, Wis., has agreed to pay $118,000 to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and three other media outlets to settle a legal battle over records in the case of a murdered University of Wisconsin-Madison student.

The amount owed took more than a year to determine and will cover attorney fees for the outlets, which sought the release of 9-1-1 tapes and other records in the case of Brittany Zimmermann, 21. A Dane County judge ruled last year in favor of the media groups in their suit, and most of the records were released.

Zimmermann was found stabbed to death in her Madison apartment on April 2, 2008. It remains unsolved.

In May 2008, the Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin State Journal, WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) and Madison-based WISC-TV sued to get records related to the 9-1-1 call from Zimmermann’s cell phone around the time she was killed.

The compromise settlement did not cover the full costs put forward by the media groups. A May affidavit by their attorney said that as of April 30, 2010, the outlets had spent $193,246 on the case.

Dane County Corporation Counsel Marcia MacKenzie said that she could not comment on the settlement because it has not yet been signed and made final.

Dane County refused to release audio of the call and other records because they said they would hamper the hunt for Zimmermann’s killer. The news media argued that releasing the records would not harm the investigation and that under the state’s open records law the public has to a right to records that would show whether the Dane County 911 center was properly responding to calls from citizens facing life-or-death emergencies.

Judge Richard Niess later ordered the release of many of the records, included e-mails; a report on how Zimmermann’s call was handled; all other documents; and a heavily edited recording of a 911 call made by Zimmermann’s fiance, Jordan Gonnering, after he found Zimmermann stabbed. But Niess did not order the release of the recording of the 911 call made by Zimmermann, though lawyers for the media were allowed to listen to it.

Police have said the call from Zimmermann’s phone includes a scream and the sound of a struggle, but 9-1-1 operator Rita Gahagan did not recognize any sounds of distress, did not call back and did not dispatch police.

“When tragedies like this happen, the public needs to know how officials are doing their jobs so that they can demand changes — that’s how dispatch operations improve so that the next victim’s call isn’t ignored,” said Journal Sentinel Managing Editor George Stanley. “That’s the reason we all fought to get these records.”

Dennis Gonnering of Marshfield, the father of Jordan Gonnering, has said the media were seeking to profit from his family’s pain in seeking the records, which both the Gonnering family and the Zimmermann family sought to block.

Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders said the news media had an obligation to be sensitive to families but also to hold public officials accountable.

“It’s appropriate that the people who fought to keep things secret and were rebuked by a judge should have to pay the cost of the action,” he said.

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