MARINETTE, Wis. (Court TV) — A woman is facing charges in the death of her fiancé’s young son after investigators say they discovered disturbing text messages on her phone.
Samantha Wishman is charged with reckless homicide and neglect in the death of her fiancé’s 3-year-old son. (Marinette Police Department)
Samantha Wishman, 32, was charged with first-degree reckless homicide and neglecting a child resulting in death last week, months after the 3-year-old child, identified only as CT, died at the home where they both lived.
Wishman lived with her fiancé, identified in court documents as DT, in Marinette with six children. She and DT each came into the relationship with two children, and then the couple shared two more. The children ranged in age from one to seven, with the victim being the youngest child to whom Wishman was not related.
Police were called to Wishman’s home on June 15, 2023, at 11:42 a.m. after she called 911 to report that CT was unresponsive and not breathing. When officers arrived, they found DT doing CPR on his son, who was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Wishman told officers that the child had fallen down the stairs the night prior and in the morning he had been unresponsive in bed, prompting the call to 911.
But investigators said that her story didn’t match the injuries on CT’s body, which included “significant bruising” on his head, a distended abdomen, bruising to his neck, and nails on his fingers and toes that “appeared to have been cut so low that at one point they were bleeding.”
Officers who pulled cell phone data from Wishman’s phone were further concerned after seeing a series of texts that she sent to DT while he was at work on the evening on June 14.
“I’m ready to hurt these (expletive) kids nobody (expletive) understands I can’t breathe so this is so much harder n now I’m having more problems breathing.”
“[Victim and sibling] r not allowed to move or get up from where (expletive) they r until I GET UP I am not playing.”
“I hate my life s00000 much… What else can go wrong tonight… as I’m changing [infant] here comes [CT] down the (expletive) stairs so one side of his face will probably b bruised when he wakes up.”
A report authored by a social worker who looked into the case attached to the criminal complaint notes that details in CT’s case “raise concern for a neglected child.… His oral hygiene was noted to be poor.… Additionally, there is no record of [CT]’s caregivers seeking any medical care for him in the last 20 months of his life.” The same report noted that some of the bruising on CT’s chest was consistent with pinch marks.
Wishman is separately facing stalking charges for allegedly harassing DT in the months after CT’s death, including leaving not a note “expressing her love for [DT] and their family” on his vehicle.
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