Dane County settled its lawsuit with the family of murdered UW-Madison student Brittany Zimmermann Wednesday.
Zimmermann was a third-year UW-Madison senior when she was murdered in her West Doty Street Madison apartment in April 2008. There has still not been any arrest made in the case and the case remains open.
The law firm Bell, Moore and Richter, who represented the county, said in a statement the county has agreed to pay $5,000 to the Zimmermann Reward fund and to pay $2,500 in attorney fees.
The settlement is in relation to an emergency phone call from Zimmermann's cell phone to Dane County's 911 center. Dane County maintains in the settlement that it complied with all laws and regulations in its handling of Zimmermann's 911 phone call, according to the statement.
The recording of the 911 phone call itself has not been made public.
According to the statement, the Zimmermann's goal was to make sure this did not happen to anyone else.
""From what I understand from the settlement … their motivation was never to profit from this unspeakable tragedy, but rather to make sure a repeat of this never happens again,"" Ald. Mike Verveer, Dist. 4, said.
The lawsuit was originally scheduled to go to trial Dec. 6.
In early October Dane County agreed to pay $118,000 in order to settle a news media lawsuit concerning the release of the records related to the 911 phone calls in the Zimmermann murder.
