A Coward woman accused of assaulting her husband, who went missing nearly five years ago, has been arrested on a forgery charge.
Brenda Miles Bratschi, 45, of 100 Lynch Road, Coward was arrested late Thursday morning and is charged with forgery-value $5,000 or more, Florence County Detention Center booking reports show. She was released from the jail in Effingham about four hours later, but bond information wasn’t available Friday.
The suspect is accused of cashing checks belonging to someone else without permission at various locations in Florence County, Florence County Sheriff Kenney Boone said in a press release.
Bratschi previously was arrested April 3, 2008 and charged with 13 counts of forgery. In that case, she was accused of taking two checkbooks from a Lake City resident sometime between February and March and using them to spend $5,200.
Bratschi had been out on bond since October 2004 when she was arrested and charged with assault and battery with intent to kill in connection with the assault of her husband, who later went missing, according to the sheriff’s office.
She’s accused of beating Randy Delyn Bratschi with a wooden club commonly used by truck drivers to strike the tires on 18-wheelers to check air pressure.
Randy Bratschi, 54, disappeared about two months later and is presumed dead by deputies.
Randy Bratschi was last seen leaving his job at Smurfit-Stone Container in Florence on the morning of Nov. 26, 2004. He failed to bring his diabetes medication with him, which cast doubt on the circumstances of his disappearance.
Investigators also became suspicious when they found later Randy Bratschi’s Isuzu Rodeo abandoned at Bluff Landing, off Old River Road in Pamplico, Boone said in a previous interview. Searches of his vehicle, as well as his Old Georgetown Road residence, yielded no clues to his whereabouts.
Several searches have taken place for the missing man, including one in Feburary 2005, when about 100 volunteers took part in an in-depth, acre-by-acre search of two tracts of land in lower Florence County.
Anyone with information on Randy Bratschi’s disappearance is asked the sheriff’s office at (843) 665-2121 or the state Crime Stoppers hotline at (888) CRIME SC (274-6372). Callers need not reveal their identities.
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