A verbal argument between an engaged couple at their home on Route 213 in Esopus turned physical just before 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, ending with 33-year-old Brianna S. Wittl shot and later pronounced dead at a Kingston hospital. Her fiancé, 47-year-old William F. Dearden, is now charged with second-degree murder and remains jailed without bail.
Ulster County Sheriff's deputies and New York State Police responded to the home and found Wittl unconscious and unresponsive with a gunshot wound, according to Daily Voice. She was rushed to HealthAlliance Hospital in Kingston, where she died from her injuries. Investigators allege Dearden shot Wittl with a handgun after their dispute escalated, and he has since been charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon in addition to the murder count, the outlet reports.
The response to the shooting drew a wide swath of Ulster County's emergency and investigative apparatus. According to Newport Dispatch, the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation, its Forensic Identification Unit and Crash Reconstruction Unit all responded alongside the Ulster County District Attorney's Office, the Town of Esopus Volunteer Ambulance Squad, the City of Kingston Fire Department, Empress EMS and the Ulster County Medical Examiner's Office.
Couple From Ulster Park Was Engaged
Dearden and Wittl were both from Ulster Park and were engaged to be married, the same report notes. Wittl had shared photos online describing outings together, including one captioned “a beautiful day on the water with captain Bill” and another calling an evening out “great drinks, fantastic food, & the best company.” Commercial registration records list Dearden as a key contact for Catskills Tradesmen LLC, a carrier business registered at 1437 State Route 213 in Ulster Park, per BrokerSnapshot — the same rural corridor where the shooting took place.
Route 213 is a two-lane east-west roadway that links the hamlets of the Town of Esopus to major Hudson Valley routes including U.S. 9W and the New York State Thruway, according to background compiled from Wikipedia. Esopus itself spans roughly 42 square miles along the Hudson River and includes the unincorporated hamlets of Ulster Park, Rifton and Port Ewen, with a total population of about 9,600 residents, per the Benjamin Goldman Law Office.
Arraigned Without Bail in Off-Hours Court
Dearden was arraigned in Ulster County's Centralized Arraignment Part Court, an off-hours judicial facility housed at the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center in Kingston, Newport Dispatch reports. He was ordered held without bail at the Ulster County jail following the arraignment. The investigation remains active and ongoing, and it is not yet known when Dearden will next appear in Ulster County Court.
Second-degree murder in New York is a Class A-I felony under Penal Law § 125.25, carrying a mandatory minimum of 15 to 25 years in state prison and up to life imprisonment, according to FindLaw. The weapon count Dearden faces, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon under Penal Law § 265.03, is a Class C violent felony that carries a non-discretionary mandatory minimum of 3.5 years and a maximum of 15 years, per Saland Law.
Part of a Troubling Pattern in Ulster County
The case echoes another recent Ulster County prosecution: in April, authorities extradited a suspect from Florida to face second-degree murder charges in the killing of a mother in Ellenville, as Hoodline previously reported. Nationally, intimate partners commit roughly 50 percent of female homicides in the United States, according to federal crime data cited by PubMed Central. Ulster County's District Attorney's Office created the Intimate Partner Violence Intervention framework in 2017 to build tiered offender accountability and streamline victim support services, according to county records.
Whether there was any documented history of domestic violence complaints or protective orders between Dearden and Wittl has not been disclosed. It also remains unclear whether the handgun involved was legally owned or permitted. Investigators have not released further details as the case continues.
