MANITOWOC, Wis. (Court TV) — The attorney for a man charged in connection with the death of his 7-year-old nephew defended the severe discipline prosecutors said led to the child’s death, blaming the defendant’s teenage son.
Timothy Hauschultz sits in court on Oct. 20, 2026. (Court TV)
Timothy Hauschultz, 56, is facing six charges in connection with alleged abuse at his home that prosecutors say led to the death of a child in his care. At the time of his death in April 2018, 7-year-old Ethan Hauschultz lived with his twin brother, his younger sister, the defendant, the defendant’s wife and their two children. The older of Timothy Hauschultz’s children, Damian, previously pleaded guilty to reckless homicide in Ethan’s death.
Timothy Hauschultz’s defense attorney, Donna Kuchler, conceded at trial that the defendant’s method of disciplining his children relied on physical labor: The children were each assigned a piece of wood and then tasked with carrying it around the backyard for one to two hours at a time. On April 20, 2018, Timothy Hauschultz and his wife were out running errands and left Damian, then 14, in charge of Ethan and Ethan’s twin brother, A.H., while the children carried their assigned pieces of wood.
“Parents discipline children in different ways. Some take away privileges, some assign additional chores, some require physical activity,” Kuchler said. “Tim believed that when children misbehaved, they sometimes had excess energy that could be directed into physical labor. You don’t have to agree with that philosophy; you don’t have to approve of it.”
Prosecutors said that Ethan, who weighed 62 pounds at the time of his death, was assigned a log to carry that weighed 44 pounds. The 44-pound log on which Ethan was found when he died was brought into court and placed on a table for the jury; it sat alongside a 35-pound log that had allegedly been assigned to A.H. to carry. “They’ve made a big show here, bringing in lots of wood, unpacking it, putting it back in bags, unpacking it; it was sitting here in front of you this morning,” Kuchler said. “They want you to think that they have chosen the right pieces of wood, but no child identified a piece of wood as being the one. … There’s an important difference between showing you something that looks terrible and proving something terrible happened with that particular object.”
Two large logs and clothes sit on a table in court during closing statements in Timothy Hauschultz’s trial. (Court TV)
Kuchler repeatedly emphasized in her closing argument Tuesday that Ethan was not killed as a result of the defendant’s punishment. “He didn’t die because he was required to carry wood,” she said. “It was Damian’s violence toward Ethan that caused his death. And there’s nothing in this record whatsoever that Tim instructed Damian to impose physical discipline on Ethan.”
Damian Hauschultz, now 22, testified at his father’s trial that he had repeatedly hit and kicked Ethan when the child collapsed while carrying a large log. Damian Hauschultz testified that when Ethan refused to get up, he covered the child in a layer of snow in what he described as a “snow coffin.”
A.H. testified at the trial, confirming that he told the police in an interview after his brother’s death that Damian Hauschultz would frequently hit him and his brother, and that the defendant knew about it. “Uncle knows Damian does things, but he does nothing about it,” A.H. said in his interview with police.
“Damian’s guilt is not proof of Tim’s guilt,” Kuchler told the jury.
Kuchler also asked the panel to disregard the testimony of two experts, hired by prosecutors, who testified that carrying wood constituted child abuse, not discipline. Referring to one of the experts, Kuchler said, “She’s another hammer and everything looks like a nail, because that’s what she is. She’s a child abuse doctor.”
The jury began its deliberations on Tuesday afternoon.
