MANITOWOC, Wis. (Court TV) — Dressed in orange prison attire, a witness testified on Wednesday about the day he killed his 7-year-old cousin by burying him in snow.
Damian Hauschultz testifies in court on Oct. 14, 2026. (Court TV)
Damian Hauschultz, 22, is serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree reckless homicide in the death of Ethan Hauschultz. Damian Hauschultz was 14 when, he said, he was tasked with supervising discipline at the family home — discipline that ended with Ethan’s death.
Damian Hauschultz testified on Wednesday as his stepfather, Timothy Hauschultz, stands trial on several charges, including neglect of a child resulting in death and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, in connection with Ethan’s death. Prosecutors say that Timothy Hauschultz may not have been present for the abuse that killed the victim, but that he did direct it.
On April 20, 2018, the day of Ethan’s death, the 7-year-old, his twin brother and their little sister had been living with their great-uncle, Timothy Hauschultz, and his family. Prosecutors told the jury that discipline in that household often involved carrying wood: Each child was assigned a log to carry along a path around the backyard. Ethan, who weighed 62 pounds at the time of his death, was assigned a log that weighed approximately 44 pounds.
That day, Timothy Hauschultz and his wife had gone to run errands and left Damian Hauschultz in charge of the children at the house. “He told me to make sure we went out there [to carry wood], and we did,” Damian Hauschultz testified. The children were assigned to carry the wood for two hours; after 45 minutes, Ethan and his twin began to struggle. “I pushed them around, tried to encourage them to keep going,” Damian Hauschultz said.
Damian Hauschultz testified that to “encourage” the boys, he hit them with a branch, kicked them and slapped them. Despite his efforts, Damian Hauschultz said that Ethan was “struggling to do anything, really. Eventually, he just sat down. He lay [the log] down and he just lay there and wouldn’t move.”
Timothy Hauschultz sits in court on Oct. 14, 2026. (Court TV)
Damian Hauschultz testified that he then called his stepfather. “Because Ethan was not doing anything and acting weird. I think my wording was that he was just lying there not doing anything,” he said. “They said they were going to be home in a bit. That’s about the most I can remember about it.”
Damian Hauschultz said that he went back outside, where Ethan remained, and began to cover the child with snow, thinking that might make the child move. He started with handfuls, then got a shovel and used it to cover Ethan more fully from head to toe. “I believe I left a little spot for his head or something,” he said. In interviews with police after Ethan’s death, Damian Hauschultz described the snow pack as a “snow coffin.”
Ethan lay buried under snow for 20 minutes. Then, Damian Hauschultz said, “I realized that he had probably should have gotten out by now. Frankly, when I remembered he was in there, I tried to take him out and see what was going on with him, and I realized something was wrong.”
Now frantic, Damian Hauschultz said he called his mother and stepfather and urged them to come home quickly. He said that his cousin appeared “stiff” when he tried to pull him out of the snow. Timothy Hauschultz and his wife arrived at the house 10 to 15 minutes after the second phone call and first tried to warm Ethan by putting him into a bath and warm clothes. When that didn’t work, they drove him to a hospital.
In her opening statement to the jury, Timothy Hauschultz’s attorney, Donna Keuchler, said that her client had nothing to do with Ethan’s death and that Damian Hauschultz had acted on his own that day. Keuchler told the jury that in the first phone call with Damian Hauschultz, Timothy Hauschultz told his stepson to “leave it alone” and not press Ethan further. “But Damian didn’t leave it alone,” Keuchler said. “He didn’t listen to what Tim told him and continued to poke and prod, apparently, this poor child.”
