WARNING: This incident may be disturbing to some readers.
GREEN COUNTY -- A 16-year-old father is facing homicide charges after prosecutors say he placed his nude child inside a snow-covered fallen tree and fired two gunshots into the baby's head.
Logan T. Kruckenberg-Anderson, 16 years old of Albany, Wis., was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and felony Move/Hide/Bury Corpse of Child in Green County Court Tuesday. If found guilty, Kruckenberg-Anderson could spend the rest of his life behind bars. He will be charged as an adult in court, according to the Department of Justice.
Investigators wrote in a criminal complaint released Tuesdaythat they received word from an Albany resident that his daughter had just given birth in a bathtub on Jan. 5, and that the child hadn't been seen from since.
Under questioning, the father, Logan Kruckenberg-Anderson, first told investigators that he had given the child to his friend, the complaint states. The mother of the child told deputies that after giving birth, they had decided to give the child to an adoptive agency in Madison.
In a second interview, Kruckenberg-Anderson told investigators said they had decided they could not keep the child and needed to do something "to not have the child in their life." They discussed several options, including dropping the child off at a fire department or an adoption "place," according to the complaint.
Kruckenberg-Anderson finally told agents they decided he would get rid of the infant by dropping the child off "somewhere," investigators say.
Kruckenberg-Anderson said to the detectives that he placed the child in his backpack and walked to his mother's home, where he placed the child in a larger backpack and left again.
He walked to a remote wooded area in Albany, where he placed the infant into a small, snow-covered area inside a fallen tree, according to the complaint. He placed more snow over the infant's entire body, and walked away, investigators say.
He told investigators he could still hear the baby crying as he walked, "which caused him to emotionally break down, fall to his knees and cry," according to detectives.
"Kruckenberg-Anderson stated that he knew that by leaving a nude infant child exposed and covered in the elements would likely cause the baby to die," the complaint states.
Kruckenberg-Anderson later directed law enforcement to where he left the child.
The local medical examiner's office soon discovered a bullet hole in the child and a casing nearby.
In a follow-up interview, Kruckenberg-Anderson admitted that he had in fact fired two shots into the baby's head after placing the child into the tree, according to the criminal complaint.
He is slated to be back in court on Jan. 20 for his preliminary hearing. A judge handed down a $1 million bond at his court appearance Tuesday.
