New Details and Images Emerge in Wisconsin Deer Poaching, Torture Case

Police reports and other documents obtained by MeatEater make the case against 36-year-old Jessica Kroening, her 16-year-old son, and two of his male friends of the same age. The boys would routinely drive around at night in Kroening’s car, looking for deer to spotlight and shoot from the road. Kroening’s son estimates that they went out over 50 times and, on many occasions, killed more than one deer.

During one of these outings, wardens say, Kroening admitted to holding the spotlight from the rear driver’s side seat so her son could shoot a deer from the driver’s seat. She has pleaded not guilty to “illegal shining of deer” along with “contributing to the delinquency of a child” and “resisting a conservation warden.”

Mugshot of Jessica Kroening via Washington County Jail.

Wardens claim the trio of 16-year-olds usually left the does to rot and only sometimes cut the heads off the bucks with a steak knife found in the trunk of Kroening’s car. Ironically, it was some of these buck heads that first caught the attention of Wisconsin wildlife officials.

Kroening’s neighbors reported a foul odor coming from the back of the woman’s house. Conservation Warden Zachery Feest went to investigate and noticed deer heads in black plastic garbage bags.

“Jessica claimed to have no idea where the bag came from and said she did not know if it was hers,” Feest said in his report. “Jessica said she could not smell the bag and claimed to know nothing about it even though it was just feet from her door. I could visibly see a deer’s velvet antler sticking through the bag.”

Kroening allegedly lied to Feest about her son’s whereabouts, but it didn’t take long for wardens to catch up with all three suspects, who they interviewed alongside their parents. One of the boys told Feest in a July 2024 interview that they had been driving around shooting deer at night “for about a year.”

When they first started doing it, they used a .22LR with a scratched-off serial number. Subsequent interviews uncovered other rifles as well. One, a scoped rifle chambered in 7mm, also had the serial number scratched off. Feest believes the serial numbers had been destroyed not long before the guns were confiscated.

The juvenile suspect also showed Feest photos from his phone that documented an array of wildlife crimes.

“[Redacted] was willing to show me photographs of multiple occurrences where they would take wild animals, such as geese, raccoons, possums, snapping turtles, and deer into their vehicle, ‘mess with them’ and release them,” Feest writes. “[Redacted] also had photographs of a goose with eggs that he said they were ‘just f##king with it.’ [Redacted] had photos of a baby goose from May 27th that could not walk, and they released it.”

This same 16-year-old suspect showed Feest videos of the deer torture MeatEater reported previously.

“[Redacted] had photographs showing when they took a baby deer near Dundee on May 29th at 2:30am and brought it home. [Redacted] said they released it after Jessica and her boyfriend told them to,” Feest wrote in his report. “[Redacted] also had photos and videos of a deer they hit on January 15th, 2024, while out poaching in Jessica’s car. The deer was still alive, so they put it in the back seat and messed with it until it died. There were photos and videos of [redacted] and [redacted] talking to, feeding, and recording the injured deer.”

Not all the boys were as forthcoming as this one. Feest interviewed Kroening’s son, who allegedly said he did not know the answers to most of Feest’s questions and “did not seem forthcoming with information,” Feest reports. He would not say who else had been in the vehicle during the poaching sprees and “laughed multiple times during the interview.”

Though he did admit to going out and shooting deer at night “around 50 times,” he also, according to Feest, tried to blame another of the juvenile suspects for the illegal activity.

The teen opened up a bit more to another game warden in a later interview. His story matched what the other suspects had said, but he also added a detail about their meat harvesting habits. When asked if they ever took any meat, the teen “laughed” and said that “they took home one deer, cut off one chunk of meat, did not like the looks of the meat, so he took the rest of the deer and threw it in the ditch.”

Kroening admitted to taking part in the poaching activities at least once, but she’s also being charged with “resisting a conservation warden” for refusing to turn over her son’s phone. Feest had obtained a warrant to search her son’s phone, but when he asked where it was, Kroening said she’d smashed it and thrown it in the Milwaukee River.

During the interview, Kroening made the following statements, according to Feest:

• “You’re not getting phone, that’s not happening.”
• “The phone is long gone.”
• “If you want it go dig it out of the river.”
• “The minute warned us that you guys had warrants for phones, phone was gone.”
• “I threw it in the river. I am not lying.”

Kroening was, in fact, lying, which is likely why she’s being charged with “resisting a conservation officer” instead of destroying evidence.

Wisconsin law prohibits the Department of Natural Resources from releasing the names of the minor suspects, and a public records official requested that MeatEater not publish their names in any media reports. If they are charged as juveniles, those cases will not be made public.

However, redacted citation documents obtained by MeatEater reveal that the three boys were cited for the following:

• Discharging a firearm from a motorized vehicle
• Hunting within 50 feet of a road’s center
• Hunting with ammunition not reasonably capable of killing a deer

These citations carry fines between $20 and $60, and it appears that each boy received multiple of each. They may be subject to additional penalties as the result of their criminal trials in juvenile court, but those may never be known.

Images via Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.