Former Notre Dame assistant football coach Corwin Brown on Thursday pleaded guilty but mentally ill to charges that he struck his wife and held her hostage with a handgun in a seven-hour standoff with police. In a plea agreement, prosecutors agreed to drop a class B felony confinement charge against Brown in the August 2011 incident at his home in Granger, just northeast of South Bend. With his house surrounded by police, Brown eventually released his wife, Melissa, then shot himself in the stomach. Brown, 42, pleaded guilty but mentally ill to class D felony confinement and domestic battery charges.
