Marshfield man faces reckless homicide charges

MARSHFIELD – A Marshfield man is facing multiple charges, including first-degree reckless homicide, after police say he attacked his neighbor.

Police say Cyril J. Granahan, 60, assaulted his 61-year-old neighbor and cut her with a knife on April 25 at the neighbor’s apartment on Veterans Parkway in Marshfield. That assault put her in the hospital, where she died two weeks later.

Granahan appeared virtually for his initial appearance in Wood County Court today, May 27, where Judge Timothy Gebert said there was probable cause to move forward with the case.

Granahan is charged with three counts:

• First-degree reckless homicide, a felony that carries a sentence of up to 60 years in prison if convicted
• Physical abuse of an elder person, intentionally causing bodily harm and use of a dangerous weapon, a felony that carries a sentence of 12 years, with an additional five years possible because of the weapon
• Disorderly conduct, with an increased penalty for elder-person victim and use of a dangerous weapon, a misdemeanor that carries a 90-day sentence with an additional two years possible because of the victim’s age

Gebert set a $250,000 cash bond for Granahan and also ordered him not to possess any dangerous weapons and to take all his prescribed medications.

According to court records, Granahan went to his neighbor’s house in the early morning hours of April 25 looking for his cigarette case. She told him she didn’t know where it was, and Granahan got upset and said he was going to break her neck. He threw her to the ground and stomped on her chest, which left a “large” area of bruising on her left side. She also had bruises on the left side of her face.

Granahan then took a “big, long steak knife” and started cutting at the back of her neck, leaving a single large cut, the neighbor said in a statement to police. She tried to stop him, and her thumb also was cut.

She told officers he was sawing at her neck and told her he was “going to cut (her) head off.” She said he stopped when he realized he couldn’t cut through the bone, put the knife down, then started looking for his cigarette case again.

He left the apartment, and his neighbor’s caretaker found her later that afternoon. The caretaker took her to the emergency department, where she was treated for her injuries.

On April 29, the neighbor’s daughter told police her mother had to have emergency brain surgery and that her “health declined extremely fast.” They were doing surgery to try to stop bleeding on her brain and she entered a “coma-like” state.

She died on May 8, and a forensic autopsy found the preliminary cause of death was blunt-force traumatic head injury.

Court records show this wasn’t the first time Granahan and his neighbor had a run-in. A few weeks before, Granahan told officers he had hit her in the head with a cigarette rolling machine, leaving a large bruise on the left side of her face. And in 2023, the two had dated.

After the April 25 incident, officials said Granahan was committed to the Winnebago Mental Health Institute, a psychiatric hospital near Oshkosh, for at least six months. There, doctors prescribed medications that Granahan’s attorney said in court have “stabilized” him.

His next court date has not yet been set.