The lonesome death of Ethan Hauschultz

Publication date: 18 November 2019

The boy dropped the log as he finished another lap, earning five seconds of rest as he made his way through the yard “carrying wood.”

He fought his way through mud and slush left over from a late-season storm that had dumped nearly a foot of snow on his tiny eastern Wisconsin town. Each step was a struggle.

Five minutes of trudging. Then 10. Fifteen.

Every five minutes or so, he fell as he labored along a trail that ran a little longer than a football field. Sometimes he landed on his back, causing the wood he was carrying, a 44½-pound tree trunk weighing almost as much as he did, to force the breath from his chest.

Twenty minutes. Twenty-five. Thirty.

Kicks, curses and lashes from a belt punctuated each fall. When a metal piece broke off, the belt was replaced with a long stick.

Thirty-five minutes. Forty. Forty-five.

The whacks continued. Dozens became a hundred. The boy endured countless jabs, pokes and other blows.

Fifty minutes passed. Fifty-five.

The taunts came from his tormentor, Damian Hauschultz, the 14-year-old adopted son of his guardian.

Sixty minutes.

The other children in the family said Damian was particularly angry and frustrated that day while supervising the boy's punishment for talking back to a teacher.

Damian ordered the child to lie in a puddle, shoving him face-down into the water when he balked. He pulled off the boy’s coat and boots and stood on his back — then grabbed a shovel and buried him beneath an estimated 80 pounds of snow, in what he would later call the boy's “little coffin.”

When the guardian returned from an errand in Manitowoc, the boy was slumped over a log in the yard, not moving. He was carried into the house, then driven to Holy Family Memorial Medical Center.

At 9:22 p.m. on April 20, 2018, a doctor pronounced Ethan Hauschultz dead.

He was 7 years old.

‘We may have made him a bit cold'

Damian Hauschultz told deputies that Timothy, his adoptive father, sometimes punished him, too.

Damian said Timothy had recently made him carry wood for hours, though with a lighter log than the one Ethan carried. Carrying wood meant walking a lap, dropping the wood, resting for five seconds and then continuing.

Damian's offense: failing to memorize 13 Bible verses.

That wasn’t the first prophecy of deep troubles inside the five-bedroom, wood-and-stone house on Clover Road in rural Newton, southwest of Manitowoc.

There, Damian and his mother had lived with Timothy and Timothy’s daughter from a previous relationship. When Ethan, his brother and a sister arrived, the family of four became a family of seven.

Timothy's daughter and Damian were sometimes expected to act like parents to the new arrivals.

Damian’s mother stayed in Green Bay during the week to attend community college. Timothy often left the house early to run his barn-whitewashing business. Timothy’s daughter was tasked with getting Ethan and his siblings ready for school.

Damian enforced the younger children’s punishments. If Ethan or his brother had been ordered outside for two hours, Damian had to be out for two hours, too.

“It is his responsibility to monitor the children who are carrying wood when (Timothy) is gone,” wrote a detective investigating Ethan’s death. “Damian said he doesn’t say no to Timothy. It is not worth arguing with Timothy.”

Life on Clover Road, Damian told deputies, became “boring” and “prison-like” after the younger kids arrived.

The teen acknowledged feeling a “burning anger inside,” telling detectives he sometimes punched inanimate objects. In other court papers, he acknowledged significant anger problems as early as first and second grade, and nearly being expelled for breaking the nose of an older student.

“He was very physical,” a detective wrote. He “stated it helped if people feared him.”

Ethan, on the final day of his life, did not appear to fear Damian — at least initially. Court documents describe a boy who tried to stick up for himself against the punishment, though their differences weren't limited to their ages.

Ethan stood 4-feet 8-inches tall, weighing 60 to 62 pounds. Damian stood 5-feet-11 and weighed 168.

To detectives, Damian admitted striking Ethan nearly 100 times, saying he was annoyed because he had to be outside.

When Ethan didn’t rise, the older boy — along with the children in the yard that day — buried him beneath the snow.

Ethan wasn't saying words, Damian told detectives, instead making slight moans or whines. His eyes were “hazy,” and he was twitching. Eventually, he stopped moving.

Detectives said Damian told them, “We may have made him a bit cold.”

All told, Damian estimated, Ethan was buried for 20 to 30 minutes. When he was unburied — two children told detectives Damian removed him at their insistence — Ethan was stiff and unresponsive.

Clipping from the criminal complaint

JORDAN TILKENS/USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN

Damian realized something might be wrong, he told detectives, and called Timothy to say Ethan was “playing or acting like he’s dead.”

The doctor who completed Ethan’s autopsy said the boy suffered hypothermia, a medical emergency in which a person’s body loses heat faster than it can produce it. The boy also suffered blunt-force injuries to his head, neck, chest and abdomen. His 11th rib was broken.

And the doctor found something else: an impression of a boot on Ethan's back.

Damian Hauschultz, now 16, is charged as an adult with reckless homicide, three counts of child abuse and three lesser felonies.

‘Make sure you don't get anyone else in trouble’

From a recent real estate prospectus, the home where Ethan would be fatally injured seems an ideal place for a large, energetic young family.

“Spacious rural property with over 3,600 square feet. 5 Bedrooms and 3 full baths, large eat-in kitchen with island and tiled floors, living room with fireplace, first floor laundry and formal dining room make for comfortable living. All of this on 1.8-acre lot just minutes south of the city limits.”

For Ethan and his siblings, it was meant to be a safe haven offering a fresh start. Six weeks after he turned 3, he suffered physical abuse at the hands of his mother’s then-boyfriend, records from the state Department of Children and Families show.

Clipping from the criminal complaint

JORDAN TILKENS/USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN

From July 2014 to March 2016, after caseworkers confirmed three allegations of neglect against Ethan’s mother, and one against his father, Manitowoc County Human Services officials decided Ethan and his siblings could not remain in the custody of either parent.

“The children,” a report says, “were deemed unsafe.” Ethan and two of his siblings were placed with their great uncle, Timothy, in 2016. The fourth was placed elsewhere.

An investigation began almost immediately after Ethan, clinging to life, was brought to Holy Family. In interviews with members of the Hauschultz family, deputies learned more about Timothy's role in delegating and delivering punishment to the children. They noted similarities in the children's stories about discipline.

They also learned Damian called Timothy for advice several times during the afternoon Ethan was killed.

In an interview with deputies, Damian recounted a conversation as the family drove Ethan to the hospital that afternoon: Timothy told him to say Ethan fell out of a tree, or that “nothing happened.”

“Make sure," he said, "you don’t get anyone else in trouble."

Ethan Hauschultz, his brother and two sisters were removed from this home at 1413 N. Sixth St., Manitowoc, in March 2016 and placed with relatives after Manitowoc County Human Services officials confirmed multiple cases of neglect and decided the children were unsafe.

WM. GLASHEEN/USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN

'I put memories of darkness in people's minds'

Timothy's first recorded run-in with the law was at age 15, when he whacked a man with a tire iron in a bar fight involving older members of his family.

At 18, he helped acquaintances beat a man until the victim required three days of intensive care, joining in when someone said the man had stolen one of Timothy's cassette tapes.

A year later, Timothy grabbed a clerk at a Two Rivers convenience store, flashed a long-bladed butcher knife and made her empty the cash register of $211.

Clipping from the criminal complaint

JORDAN TILKENS/USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN

He seemed to enjoy himself, the clerk told police, smirking while pulling the knife.

Before he was sentenced, he asked a judge for help with anger and psychiatric issues, and for alcoholism. He warned he might become violent again.

“I put memories of darkness in people’s minds,” he said. “I hurt people physically. … If I don’t change my life, they’ll have to always be afraid of me or wonder if I’ll attack them or anyone else again.”

E. James FitzGerald, Manitowoc County's district attorney at the time, told the judge: “The only thing this court can do to protect society from him is to put him in prison."

Timothy was sentenced to 5 ½ years in prison for the robbery and 18 months for issuing bad checks. Judge Fred Hazlewood issued a stern warning to Timothy, who was then a father of one with another child on the way, that he had “no business fathering children.”

In 1999, when Timothy was 29, he was in trouble again. Inside the Golden Flame, a Manitowoc family restaurant, he and another man exchanged words. As the argument grew heated, Timothy dove across the man’s table, breaking dishes and glassware, and held a steak knife to the man’s throat.

When social workers, attorneys and judges went through the process of placing Ethan and his siblings with Timothy, records of those cases were readily available in the Manitowoc County Courthouse.

So too was a file on a 2009 case — nine years before Ethan’s death — involving Timothy, violence and children.

The 2009 incident began with an act of youthful defiance. Two boys had taken food into the living room. One had listened to music without asking.

Timothy whacked the older boy, 14, across the arm with a 6-foot carpenter's level, then used it to crack the 12-year-old in the side.

He then grabbed a 3-foot-long piece of wood, backed the older boy into a hallway and hit him on the shoulders and head. Later, he went back to the kitchen and smashed the wood on a table, threw it at one of the boys and broke a window. Pacing, he demanded they clean up the mess.

Prosecutors charged him?with felony child abuse.

Timothy insisted he'd done nothing wrong. His then-wife, though, wrote to a judge before sentencing that “his mental status concerns me,” regarding "the mind-control tactics he uses with the boys.”

The younger boy filled out a form about what he wanted the judge to include in Timothy's sentence, circling “get help from a doctor or a counselor,” “stay away from me” and “stay away from other kids.”

On a court form asking how he felt, the boy drew faces labeled “sad” and “scared.”

'The abuser's record didn't matter'

A record listing Timothy's no-contest plea to felony child abuse remains in a file at the courthouse, showing he chose not to contest the allegations. But when it came time for county social workers to decide if he’d be a suitable guardian for Ethan and his siblings, authorities were barred from considering the abuse.

Judge Jerome Fox found Timothy guilty. A conviction could have sent him to prison for six years and cost him $10,000 in fines. But it didn’t go on his record as a child-abuse conviction.

Clipping from the criminal complaint

JORDAN TILKENS/ USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN

Fox did not enter the conviction into the record because of a plea agreement between Timothy's lawyer and then-District Attorney Mark Rohrer. The conviction entered a kind of legal limbo. If Timothy avoided further trouble for 18 months, the judge would find him guilty of a lesser offense.

In summer 2011, Fox found Timothy guilty of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. There’s no mention of a child victim in the conviction.

In the eyes of the law, his actions had merely disrupted “good order,” and provoked “a disturbance” to “corrupt the public morals or outrage the sense of public decency.”

If a person is charged with child abuse but convicted of a lesser crime, caseworkers can’t consider the abuse charge, said Tom McCarthy, spokesman for the state Department of Children and Families.

That’s true even if the adult did not contest the allegations, and even if those allegations are documented in a public court file.

But Wisconsin law did allow authorities to consider other convictions while they were trying to find a safe guardian for Ethan and his siblings. Timothy had convictions for armed robbery and for conspiracy to commit battery.

Manitowoc County Human Services officials won’t say what they knew about Timothy's history when they decided he would be a suitable caregiver for Ethan and his siblings. But they said they always check the criminal records of adults they’re considering as guardians or foster parents of vulnerable children.

A state official said that while certain criminal convictions bar adults from becoming foster parents — for example, sexual assault, intentional homicide, kidnapping — lesser convictions may not, particularly if the adult is a relative of the child.

“If you’re in a county that doesn’t have a lot of placement opportunities (for vulnerable children), you’re eventually going to have to start looking at situations where people have a criminal record,” McCarthy said.

Clipping from the criminal complaint

JORDAN TILKENS/USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN

In an email responding to questions from the Herald Times Reporter, Manitowoc County officials said that in assessing adults, the county reviews its own child-abuse case records, court records, a sex-offender registry and records from police and the state's justice department. They also conduct home visits to see if children are safe under the adult’s care.

As Ethan's great uncle, Timothy had a point in his favor: The county also follows a federal guideline that says states must consider placing a child with an adult relative over a non-relative, though they are not required to do so.

“Kinship Care,” as it’s known, helps a child maintain family and community ties while reducing the chance he will later commit crimes or become homeless, Human Services Director Patricia Dodge wrote.

Officials generally don’t speak with prosecutors about previous cases before placing a child in a new home, Dodge said. But she said the department is “aware of all child-abuse convictions,” and would consider “all information,” including whether the abuser “participated in therapy that would adequately address an old child-abuse conviction."

Timothy requested therapy after he was jailed following the convenience-store robbery. Court records from the robbery, the restaurant attack and the child-abuse allegation offer no indication that?he underwent?therapy or counseling.

After a child is in a new home, the county does monthly visits,?speaking with the child and checking for signs of abuse. In Ethan’s case, caseworkers would have checked him monthly from March 2016 until Hauschultz became his legal guardian several months later.

After that, Dodge said, “the department no longer has involvement in the case.”

'No statistics available’

Ten months after Ethan's death, prosecutors?filed felony charges against Damian, Timothy, 49, and Damian's mother, Tina McKeever-Hauschultz, 36.

A criminal complaint alleges all had a role in the case. It?spells out charges that could send each to prison for decades.

Timothy Hauschultz and Tina McKeever-Hauschultz

COURTESY OF MANITOWOC COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE

» Timothy is accused of ordering the punishment. He's charged with murder as party to a crime, three counts of felony child abuse as party to a crime, and four lesser charges. He’s due back in court Jan. 27.

» Damian, accused of delivering the blows that killed Ethan, is charged with first-degree reckless homicide, three counts of felony child abuse and three of felony battery. He's due in court Dec. 2. His attorney has asked a judge to allow him to be tried as a minor.

» Tina is charged with intentionally contributing to delinquency causing death as party to a crime, a felony, and two counts of child abuse/failure to prevent bodily harm. Her next court appearance is Jan. 6.

But as the people charged in connection with Ethan’s killing await their day in court, it's difficult to come by answers from the officials who decided he’d be safe with Timothy.

County Human Services officials won’t discuss the specifics of Ethan’s death, saying state law bars them from doing so.

“It is devastating to learn that a child was abused to the point of death,” Dodge wrote in her letter to the Herald Times Reporter. “Child welfare staff works diligently to protect children from abuse and neglect, and are committed to assisting families to become healthy, (and) well-functioning.”

What’s also unclear: How often the county places a child with an adult who has been found guilty of child abuse.

“There are no statistics available,” she wrote, “to answer your question.”

Of the county’s answers to 14 questions from the Herald Times Reporter, seven begin: “Manitowoc County cannot comment on a specific case.”

”

Countries: United States of America