Wisconsin Criminal Justice

Prosecutors in Crawford County, Wisconsin, have charged Casey Cano, 38, and Mary Cano, 35, with multiple felonies for allegedly starving and brutally abusing their six children over several years, forcing them to eat mold, bugs, dog food and grass and beating them with belts from at least January 2018 through April 2022. Court records say the children, then ages 1 to 9, described being denied food for days at a time and suffering repeated physical punishment that left welts and bleeding, with at least one child kept in a soiled diaper for three days as "punishment." The children were removed from the home around April 2022 in connection with a separate sexual-abuse case, and local outlets report the couple were convicted that year of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old. A new investigation opened in December led to the parents’ arrests in March; both have posted bond, and Mary Cano is charged as a "party to a crime," indicating prosecutors allege she allowed the abuse to continue. The case is fueling renewed outrage online over how long severe abuse can persist before authorities intervene and what oversight failures may have allowed six young children to live for years in what prosecutors describe as violent, deliberately depriving conditions.