October 6, 2022 at 11:06 a.m.
Defendant in Woodruff child abuse case to change plea
Defendant in Woodruff child abuse case to change plea
During a pretrial conference Tuesday afternoon, public defender Elizabeth Svehlek told Oneida County circuit judge Mike Bloom that a defense examiner has evaluated Clayton T. Kuehl and found that he meets the required standards to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect and thus he intends to change his plea.
He previously entered a not guilty plea.
Oneida County district attorney Mike Schiek indicated the state intends to arrange for a second evaluation of Kuehl.
A status conference was scheduled for Dec. 13 to allow time for the second evaluation.
In Wisconsin, an NGI plea is used when a defendant is suffering from a mental illness or issue that either makes them unaware they are committing a crime or causes them to be unable to conform to the law they are accused of violating. Persons found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect are committed to mental health facilities rather than prison.
Kuehl was charged Feb. 22 with physical abuse of a child (intentionally cause great bodily harm), physical abuse of a child (repeated acts causing great bodily harm) and strangulation and suffocation.
According to the report of a Woodruff police detective, Minocqua Dispatch received a 9-1-1 call from Kuehl at 9:14 p.m. Feb. 19 reporting his three-month-old son was not breathing. After police and EMS arrived on scene, the child was transported to Howard Young Medical Center and then to Marshfield Medical Center (MMC) in Marshfield. The next day the detective was contacted by a social worker at MMC with a list of the injuries the child had sustained, including severe ischemia (hemorrhage) of the brain, bruising of the body and multiple rib fractures. The detective was also informed that the MMC child abuse specialist felt the injuries were consistent with child abuse, the report states.
An agent from the Wisconsin Department of Justice Department of Criminal Investigation interviewed the primary doctor treating the child, who confirmed that the child "had several significant injuries from different periods of time, some believed to be from two to four weeks prior," the detective wrote in his report. "The injuries were believed, by doctors, to be consistent with non-accidental trauma."
A CT/MRI scan revealed an "anoxic brain injury believed to be from within the last week," the report said. "Doctors believed that injury to be from a lack of oxygen or asphyxiation." The doctor also reported that the child had a "partial skull fracture that showed significant signs of healing" and was estimated to be between two and four weeks old.
In an interview with an Oneida County sheriff's detective and a DCI agent, Kuehl allegedly confessed that he believed the injuries were the result of the way he had handled the child.
"Clayton stated, 'I can say I'm too rough, I've been too rough,'" the officer wrote in his report.
According to the report, during the interview, Kuehl demonstrated actions he referred to as the "routine" for calming the child down when he was crying or fussy. He told the detectives he had been using the "routine" for about five weeks.
"Clayton told investigators he had taken it too far in squeezing (the child) and stated that he had done it in 'a combination of love and frustration,' due to the frustration because (the child) would not calm down. Clayton described feeling rage due to this frustration," the officer wrote.
Kuehl told the investigator that when he performed the "routine" on the child on Feb. 19, the child's arms and legs flailed and then went limp. There was no update on the child's condition during Tuesday's hearing.
Kuehl remains in the Oneida County jail in lieu of $100,000 cash bail.
Each of the child abuse charges is a Class C felony carrying a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.
Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].
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