Kids sleep outside in 0-degree weather next to furnace vent, WI cops say. Mom charged
A mother is facing charges after Wisconsin authorities said she fled police with her young children and kept them outside for hours in sub-zero degree windchill temperatures.
Ozaukee County prosecutors charged the 47-year-old Thiensville mother with two counts of child abuse, two counts of child neglect, battery, and bail jumping in connection with the Feb. 19 incident, court records show.
Prosecutors said the incident began when the woman repeatedly hit her boyfriend in the face, cutting his lip and causing him to temporarily lose vision in one eye, WISN reported, citing the prosecutor’s office.
With the feels-like temperature at minus-19 degrees that night, the woman fled on foot with her 5-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son after the man’s father called the police, the outlet reported, citing police.
A good Samaritan called police and said she let the woman and two children into her home that morning after the mother told her they’d been outside all night, when the temperature was around 0 degrees, TMJ4 reported.
Police saw that the children were wet and shivering uncontrollably, and the mother told cops they’d been outside for 10 hours, hiding until she no longer heard the police, the outlet reported, citing a criminal complaint.
The mother and children spent the night sleeping next to a home’s furnace vent, WITI reported.
The children were taken to a hospital to be treated for carbon monoxide poisoning and low body temperature, the outlet reported.
McClatchy News is not naming the woman to protect the identities of her children.
Thiensville is about a 20-mile drive north from Milwaukee.
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Kids sleep outside in 0-degree weather next to furnace vent, WI cops say. Mom charged."
