An Oakdale man who bashed his wife in the head with a sledgehammer while she slept will spend several years in prison for attempted murder.
Brian Thomas Henjum, 32, apologized Friday for his "terrible and horrific act," striking his wife repeatedly early on the morning of Oct. 2, 2014.
Their daughter, then 3, was asleep in their bedroom and witnessed the attack on her mother, who awoke and ran screaming from the house as Henjum swung at her.
"I knew Brian was killing me, and I feared the kids already were dead or would be next," Megan Zeilinger tearfully told Judge Gary Schurrer in Washington County District Court. "I absolutely fought for my life."
Rejecting a defense plea for leniency, Schurrer sentenced Henjum to about 11 years in prison on a charge of second-degree attempted murder, with intent and with a dangerous weapon.
With good behavior, Henjum will serve about seven years behind bars and the rest on supervised release.
Defense attorney Richard Koch argued that Henjum suffered from an underlying pattern of depression that affected his judgment and that he had intended to kill himself with the 4-pound sledgehammer.
"I was a coward and hit her instead," Henjum said Friday before he was sentenced.