Joshua Kannin, 39, was charged with three counts of child neglect resulting in death on Tuesday, according to the Kenosha County District Attorney's Office. The charges stemmed from the deaths of Kannin's three children, 10-year-old Rylee, 9-year-old Connor, and 7-year-old Alena, who died after their father's apartment caught on fire on Nov. 27, 2025. According to a criminal complaint obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Kannin said he and his children went to bed at 9 p.m.
A short time later, Kannin said he woke up and went downstairs, where he saw "a little fire" in the kitchen. He told police that he "panicked" and ran to his neighbor to bang on their door for help, thinking his children were still on the second floor of his apartment.
By the time firefighters and police arrived at the scene around 10:30 p.m., the apartment was "fully engulfed" in flames. Kannin reportedly ran to the first responders to tell them his three children were still inside.
According to the complaint, Kannin told police that after he went to his neighbor's apartment, he returned to his apartment and heard his children inside. Kannin told police, "I tried to go back in, but smoke just came at me and I couldn't see. I barely got two steps in and I had to turn back around."
Connor and Rylee were found dead in the kitchen, where authorities believed the fire started. Alena was taken to a hospital and later died. According to reporting on the complaint by local ABC affiliate WISN, authorities saw evidence that the two boys were making noodles on the stove while their father was asleep upstairs and could have accidentally started the fire. One of the burners on the stove was found in the "on" position.
Read morePolice said Kannin admitted to leaving various items on the stove, including "packs of donuts, his wallet, pack of cigarettes, a toaster, his work bag, napkins and possibly even other items," which authorities believed could have caught fire while the boys were cooking.
According to the complaint, Kannin also admitted that he unhooked the smoke alarms in the apartment because he believed they were malfunctioning and going off at random, which was becoming "an annoyance." Kannin told police that he smoked in the apartment, which was against the property's rules, and boarded up the windows to prevent burglars from breaking in.
Dad left 3 kids to die inside burning apartment while he saved himself, police say
Feasby said she spoke to Kannin at the hospital while he was being treated for smoke inhalation. She said she asked him, "You wouldn't grab the kids first?"
Jourdan Feasby tells PEOPLE she spent Thanksgiving morning with her three children — Rylee, 10, Connor, 9 and Alena, 7 — before she dropped them off at their dad’s two-story apartment. Hours later, she learned her boys had perished in a fire and her daughter had been hospitalized.
In the hospital with their daughter, who later died, Feasby says she asked Kannin, "You wouldn't grab the kids first?"
“Things weren’t adding up," she claims.
On Friday, services were held for the three siblings. Feasby, who spoke about her children during the services, says Kannin attended, but did not speak to the mourners gathered there. A GoFundMe has been established to pay for funeral costs.
