Marshfield Man Enters Plea for Killing a Marshfield Woman

Friday, October 10th, 2025 -- 12:01 PM

(Karen Madden, Marshfield News-Herald) A 60-year-old Marshfield man pleaded no contest Oct. 9 to killing a Marshfield woman and trying to cut off her head.

According to Karen Madden with the Marshfield News-Herald, Cyril J. Granahan, 60, of Marshfield, entered the no contest plea to the charge of first-degree reckless homicide. A no contest plea means Granahan admitted there was enough evidence to convict him but did not admit to committing the crime.

As part of a plea agreement, additional charges of physical abuse of an elderly person and disorderly conduct were dismissed but will be considered at sentencing. Wood County Circuit Judge Timothy Gebert found Granahan guilty of the charge and ordered a presentence investigation. Gebert scheduled Granahan's sentencing for Dec. 5.

Granahan faces a maximum sentence of 40 years initial confinement and 20 years of extended supervision. According to the criminal complaint, on April 24, Granahan was in the apartment of a 61-year-old woman, who he had dated off and on.

The woman said Granahan, who lived in an apartment below her, had stayed until about 1 a.m. April 25, according to the complaint. The woman said Granahan came back about 4:15 a.m. April 25 and asked about his cigarette case.

The woman said she didn't know where it was and Granahan entered the apartment and pushed the woman to the floor, according to the complaint. The woman told police Granahan stomped on her several times. Granahan went to the kitchen and got a knife, according to the complaint.

The woman first told officers she thought it was a serrated knife, but during a second interview a few days later, she told them she thought it was a 6-inch chef's knife. The woman said Granahan told her he was going to cut off her head and began a sawing motion with the knife on the back of her neck, according to the complaint.

The woman said she reached behind her to grab the knife and stop him but he cut her on the thumb, according to the complaint. During the first interview, which took place the evening of April 25 at a hospital, the woman said she thought Granahan's sawing motion with the knife on her neck lasted about 45 minutes.

During a second interview done on April 28, the woman said the sawing motion with the knife lasted no more than 10 minutes, according to the complaint. Officials saw a large cut on the woman's neck, a cut on her hand by her thumb that looked like a defensive wound and a lot of bruises on the woman's face and chest.

The woman said she got up and went to bed after Granahan stopped cutting her, went to look for his cigarette rolls and left the apartment, according to the complaint. The woman's caretaker told police she got to the apartment about 3 p.m. April 25 and found the apartment "trashed," according to the complaint.

She said she picked up the living room. The caretaker came back to the apartment with a friend at 7 p.m. and saw blood around the woman's shoulders. They then took her to Marshfield Medical Center, according to the complaint.

Police talked with Granahan, who said he had been at the woman's apartment that morning but then said he didn't know. Granahan said he left when he got angry with something the woman said about killing babies, according to the complaint.

Granahan said he had hit the woman in the face a few week earlier with the cigarette roller, according to the complaint. Police looked at surveillance footage from the apartment building where the woman and Granahan lived.

They saw video of Granahan going in and out of the building and in and out of a door that led to the second floor, according to the complaint. At one point, Granahan seemed very agitated and yelled toward the area where the surveillance monitors were kept.

The woman's daughter contacted police about the investigation. She told officers the woman had some tumors in the frontal lobe of her brain in the past that would account for some of the conflicts in the story the woman told police, according to the complaint.

On April 29, the daughter notified police that doctors were performing emergency surgery on the woman. The daughter said the woman's health had declined quickly and they found bleeding on the left side of her brain, according to police.

The woman died May 8, according to the complaint. An autopsy determined the preliminary cause of the death was blunt force trauma to the head, according to the complaint.

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