A 33-year-old Buffalo mom of five is accused of assaulting two of her children with a knife, another with a hammer and telling them she wishes they were dead.
Alyssa Wegner faces 12 criminal charges, including two counts of aggravated assault and battery for allegedly threatening her kids with a knife, repeatedly beating her oldest two children and neglecting all five.
She was bound over to Johnson County District Court after a preliminary hearing Thursday on allegations she neglected all her children while focusing more targeted abuse on her oldest two kids, ages 10 and 9, according to a lengthy affidavit of probable cause written by Buffalo Police Department Officer James Kozisek.
Her repeated expressions of hatred toward her oldest, a 10-year-old boy, were summed up by the child when asked by an investigator what was important for them to know.
“She’s the devil and you can’t trust her,” he answered, according to the affidavit.
He described a violent and chaotic household living with Wegner and his four younger siblings, marked by her hatred for the two oldest children while treating the younger kids — referred to as “the babies” — with more care, Kozisek wrote.
The investigation, which began in December and culminated in Wegner’s Feb. 4 arrest, included extensive interviews over more than a month with her children, the affidavit outlines.
The oldest described how Wegner would allegedly leave him alone to watch the younger children for hours at a time before returning home intoxicated, then beat him.
“Wegner regularly makes threats to strangle and stab them,” the boy said, according to the affidavit. He “also described how he takes care of the babies, to include feeding and bathing them, and ‘keeping them alive.’”
Singles Out Older Boys
When Wegner is home, he described his mother constantly being “aggressive” and telling the oldest two boys that “we deserve to be dead, that they ruined her life and they would never love her,” the affidavit says.
She also would “regularly make threats to strangle and stab them,” the document continues. “She singles (the older boys) out from the other children by physical abuse, preferential treatment during mealtimes, and verbally telling them that she wished they weren’t alive.”
The boy recalled one night that Wegner got mad at him.
His mom “came after me, threw me to the ground and started smacking me, saying, ‘You think you’re tough?’” the affidavit says. She then “hopped on me and started hitting me.”
The most serious allegations outlined in Kozisek’s affidavit include multiple times pulling a knife on the oldest and other children, including putting a knife to the throat of the middle child on at least two occasions.
That child also described being hit in the back of the head with a hammer, creating a dent in his skull. When taken for medical care, he said he told the doctor he fell out of a car and hit his head on a rock.
Wegner would also threaten to stab the oldest with a knife if he didn’t behave, he told investigators. Asked if he ever thought she was joking, the boy said, “No, she never jokes,” according to the affidavit.
“Asked if he and his brothers were treated the same or different, (the boy) replied, ‘Me and (the 9-year-old) get treated like trash and the babies get treated nicely,” Kozisek says in the affidavit. “Yeah, we barely even get some food.”
The Blowout
Both of the older boys reported telling officials at their schools about the abuse and the Department of Family Services was notified, the affidavit says, but the kids remained in the home until a blowout late Dec. 28 and early Dec. 29, according to the affidavit.
The father of all but the youngest child, who is no longer with Wegner, went to the Buffalo Police Department at 1:39 a.m. to report, “My wife tried to kill my kid,” the affidavit says.
An investigation revealed that less than 30 minutes after the father dropped the oldest two boys off at Wegner’s house following his visitation time, she left the children home alone and went to a bar.
She returned about three hours later allegedly intoxicated, then grew enraged when the 10-year-old told her “no” to something, the affidavit says.
“She was crazy,” the boy told police. “She lost her mind and was all over.”
He said Wegner “threw me to the ground, started hitting me, started twisting my neck, twisting my head, covering my mouth, bit me, and then kept slamming my head onto the ground,” Kozisek wrote.
He said he was bleeding from his head, but his mom was holding his head back in a way that caused the blood to flow back down his throat, choking him.
“We deserve to be dead,” he said she told the kids, according to the affidavit. “That they ruined her life and they would never love her.”
After telling police about that attack that night, an officer observed injuries consistent with his story, including a bite mark on the boy’s forehead.
Listening In
While the 10-year-old was allegedly being beaten on Dec. 28, a friend of Wegner’s from Sheridan was on the phone and heard it all, the affidavit says.
The boy had called her for help, scared of what his mother might do, she told police. She then talked to Wegner, who sounded like she was under the influence of something.
Then Wegner put the phone down but didn’t hang up, and the friend described feeling scared and desperate hearing the assault. She rushed to her car to get to the house, she told police.
She said she has “tried to be a positive influence for (Wegner),” but suspected something was wrong, the affidavit says. That night was the deal-breaker.
“I couldn’t do it anymore,” she said, according to the affidavit. “I heard her say some things that had me shaking to my core, crying to where I took it upon myself to drive over to Buffalo. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”
In an interview with the 9-year-old more than a week after being removed from the home in January, he said Wegner would throw him around by the arm and make him clean the house every night.
If it wasn’t clean, she would yank him out of bed, the affidavit says.
“She throws me into my room, and she likes to pick me up and throws me, and she always makes me hit my arm,” he said, according to the affidavit. “She doesn’t care about us. … She always says she doesn’t love us and hopes we die.”
On two occasions, he said his mother put a knife to his throat, with one time resulting in a cut to his hand when he tried to push the blade away, the affidavit says.
He also corroborated the 10-year-old’s story about that night of the blowout, saying she “tried to kill him,” Kozisek wrote.
Asked how he knew she was trying to kill him, the boy answered, “Well, she said she was going to kill him” and that he thought he was going to be next “because she said she was going to do it to both of us.”
About The Hammer
The middle child told a DFS investigator about a time his mother allegedly hit him in the head with a hammer.
“My mom has hit me with a hammer in the head while at my mom’s house,” he said, according to the affidavit.
He described the hammer as having a purple handle with a metal head, and that after the assault there was a hole in his head that was bleeding.
“When describing the bleeding, (the child) pointed at his forehead, then traced his finger down his nose,” the affidavit says. He also “recalled it was taking a while to heal, and he couldn’t go to school that day.”
Other interviews also helped establish an alleged pattern of abuse, Kozisek wrote, including one with a physician who examined the oldest child.
He found the injuries “completely consistent with the story (the 10-year-old) provided, which was Wegner was on her knees on top of (another child) and hitting/smacking him,” the affidavit says.
The doctor said that he was concerned the children “would not be safe if they were returned to Wegner until she participates in services to address her abusive parenting style,” the document adds.
A trial date hasn’t been set for Wegner, who faces:
• Two felony counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
• Three counts of child abuse.
• Two counts of simple battery.
• Five counts of child endangerment.
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
