A 16-year-old father faces homicide charges after he allegedly placed his newborn daughter in a tree and shot her twice in the head.
Logan Kruckenberg-Anderson who was arrested Sunday, was charged Tuesday with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse, and will be tried as an adult under state law.
Green County Circuit Judge Thomas Vale ordered that Kruckenberg-Anderson be jailed on $1 million bail, citing that the seriousness of the charge and the likelihood that the suspect could decide to flee rather than face a mandatory life prison sentence if convicted.
The infant girl, who was named Harper, was born on January 5 in a bathtub at her mother’s home in Albany.
Kruckenberg-Anderson went to his girlfriend’s home and saw his infant daughter, but they decided that they could not keep the girl and “needed to do something not to have the child in their life.”
He initially said he had given the baby to his friend, Tyler, and gave him $60 to take the baby to an adoption agency in Madison.
Later on, he told authorities that he placed the newborn baby naked in a snow-filled tree in the woods, and claimed to have covered her with snow and walked away.
He reportedly continued, saying he could still hear Harper crying as he left, causing him to break down, dropping to his knees and crying – knowing that the child would likely die of exposure.
However, the criminal complaint states a member of the Wisconsin State Crime lab found the infant had been shot and surmised the baby was likely alive – or recently alive – when she was placed in the tree.
Kruckenberg-Anderson admitted in an interview following the discovery of the infant’s body and bullet wounds that he shot her twice in the head.
An autopsy determined that the baby was alive when she was shot, while two bullets were found at the scene where she was discovered.