Two roommates had left their Water Street home for about an hour before returning to a confrontation prosecutors later described in felony charges.
MENASHA, Wis. — Two roommates walked away from a tense night at their Menasha home for about an hour, then returned and locked themselves inside an upstairs bedroom. According to a criminal complaint, the separation did not end the dispute. Authorities said two other men came to the door, made threats, forced their way into the room and attacked the people inside.
That sequence became the core of a criminal case against Fernando Alejo-Tiburcio and Alberto Castillo-Serrano, who were arrested after the Dec. 20, 2025, confrontation and initially accused of attempted first-degree intentional homicide and three other felonies. Eight months later, each entered a no-contest plea to first-degree recklessly endangering safety, aggravated battery and substantial battery. Prosecutors dismissed the attempted homicide charge under the plea resolution, though the dismissed allegation was to be read into the record for sentencing.
The confrontation began hours before police entered the Water Street residence. According to the complaints, several people who lived together had been drinking. A disagreement developed over the kinds of subjects that can create friction in a shared home: household chores, the thermostat and access to the internet. The public court account does not say that any single one of those issues caused the later violence. Instead, they form the background to a broader dispute among the roommates that continued after two of them tried to put physical distance between themselves and the argument.
Those two roommates, referred to in the criminal complaint as V1 and V2, went outside for a walk that lasted roughly an hour. After they came back, they went into a bedroom upstairs and locked the door. The decision to retreat behind the locked door is an important dividing point in the reported chronology. The complaint said Alejo-Tiburcio and Castillo-Serrano then yelled from outside the room and threatened to kill V1. Authorities alleged that the two men eventually forced the door open rather than leaving the occupants inside alone.
The complaint said both defendants entered the room and attacked V1 and V2. V1 sustained severe injuries to his head. At some point, he was able to get away and run into another roommate’s room, where he reported that he had been stabbed. He was transported to a hospital, where 19 cuts to his head were documented. He needed stitches and staples and was held for treatment of head trauma, according to WBAY’s reporting on the complaint. V2 had multiple cuts that authorities said were suffered while he tried to defend himself.
Responding officers entered a home that, according to investigators, contained physical signs of the violence. Police reported seeing blood as well as tools and a knife with blood on it. Alejo-Tiburcio and Castillo-Serrano were located in a barricaded bedroom, authorities said. Officers took them into custody. The available public reports do not provide a complete forensic reconstruction of the attack, identify which weapon caused a particular injury or state that every object found in the house was used. Those limits matter because the complaint described the government’s allegations at the beginning of the case, not a final trial finding about every disputed detail.
The legal consequences were immediate. Six days after the attack, both men appeared from the Winnebago County Jail for a hearing at which prosecutors described the victim’s injuries and the threats alleged during the assault. NBC 26 reported that prosecutor Anthony Prekop told the court the victim was stabbed multiple times in the head while threats to kill him were made. Judge Michael D. Rust ordered $250,000 cash bond for each defendant. The judge cited the violent nature of the allegations and the significant prison terms the men could face if convicted.
The court imposed restrictions that extended beyond the cash bond. Both men were ordered to remain sober, avoid dangerous weapons and stay in Wisconsin if released. They were prohibited from contacting the two victims. They also were barred from contacting each other while the prosecution was pending, even though they faced the case together. If either man needed to return to the Menasha residence for his belongings, the court allowed only a one-time visit accompanied by police. Those orders were preventive court conditions and did not amount to a determination that the allegations had been proven at that stage.
The original charging structure showed why the case was treated so seriously from the outset. Each defendant faced attempted first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree recklessly endangering safety, aggravated battery with intent to cause great bodily harm and substantial battery, all with party-to-a-crime allegations. The attempted homicide count carried the greatest possible punishment. The other offenses also exposed the men to substantial prison terms. At the time of the December hearing, NBC 26 reported maximum penalties of 12 years and six months for reckless endangerment, 15 years for aggravated battery and three years and six months for substantial battery.
By August, the case shifted away from the prospect of a trial. Alejo-Tiburcio and Castillo-Serrano appeared in court Aug. 17 and pleaded no contest to the reckless-endangerment and battery counts. The attempted homicide charge was dismissed. Under the reported agreement, however, that count was to be read in at sentencing, allowing the judge to consider the conduct associated with it even though neither defendant was convicted of attempted homicide. The distinction is significant: a dismissed read-in charge is not the same as a conviction on that charge, and the defendants’ criminal judgments should be described by the offenses to which their no-contest pleas were accepted.
The pleas also changed the evidentiary posture of the case. A trial would have required prosecutors to present evidence and prove the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt while giving the defense the opportunity to challenge witnesses and evidence in open court. The no-contest pleas avoided that trial. As a result, much of the detailed public narrative continues to come from the criminal complaints and early hearings rather than from trial testimony tested before a jury. The convictions establish the offenses resolved by the pleas, but not every narrative detail reported in the initial complaint should automatically be treated as a separately adjudicated fact.
The reported injuries provide the clearest measure of the confrontation’s seriousness. V1 was hospitalized after authorities documented 19 cuts to his head, while V2 was also hurt. Yet public reporting has preserved the victims’ anonymity, referring to them only through the labels used in the complaint. There also has been no detailed public update in the sources reviewed here describing the long-term medical condition of either victim. The record therefore supports reporting the injuries documented at the time without assuming lasting effects that have not been publicly established.
Likewise, the fact that alcohol preceded the argument is part of the reported chronology but should not be transformed into an unsupported explanation for the attack. The complaints said the roommates had been drinking together before tensions developed. They did not establish that alcohol alone caused the violence, nor did the available reports describe toxicology results, quantities consumed or a formal finding that either defendant was intoxicated to a particular degree. The same restraint applies to the household disputes: chores, internet access and thermostat settings were reported topics of disagreement, not a proven complete motive.
The two defendants were placed on separate sentencing schedules after their pleas. Castillo-Serrano was set for sentencing Sept. 2, while Alejo-Tiburcio was scheduled to appear Sept. 23. Both dates have now passed. The reliable published material located for this report did not provide confirmed results from those hearings, so no prison term, supervision period or other final penalty can be stated here. Until a sentencing judgment or reliable report establishes those outcomes, the confirmed endpoint remains the August pleas and the convictions on the three felony counts.
The case therefore traces a sharp change in setting and legal posture: from a shared home and disagreements among roommates, to a locked bedroom and serious injuries, to high cash bonds and attempted homicide allegations, and finally to negotiated pleas on three felonies. What remains publicly unresolved in the material reviewed is not the existence of the pleas, but the punishment ultimately imposed after them. The available record supports that distinction without requiring assumptions about either defendant’s final sentence.
Author note: Last updated September 28, 2026.