A Wisconsin dad is accused of leaving his three kids to die in a Thanksgiving house fire while he rushed outside because he “panicked.”
Joshua Kannin, 39, was charged Tuesday with child neglect over the deaths of Rylee, 10; Connor, 9; and 7-year-old Alena following the blaze at his Kenosha home on Nov. 27 — with the kids’ mom saying she’s living her “worst nightmare,” TMJ4 reported.
Kenosha police swooped on Kannin’s home after receiving calls that the home was “fully engulfed,” according to a criminal complaint.
He was in his underwear when he charged over to the police, begging for help.
Alena was found on the second floor, while Connor and Rylee were on the first floor.
The brothers were pronounced dead, while Alena was hospitalized with burns covering 80% of her body – before she later died.
Kannin, who was hospitalized, admitted to having a cigarette before bed and was woken up during the night. But he wasn’t sure if it was because of his “cat making noise or due to the smoke.”
He then saw a “little fire on the kitchen floor” before he “panicked and walked out the front door.”
“At that moment, he thought to himself ‘I have to get help,’” cops said.
Kannin urged his kids to leave his burning home – and told police he tried to go back inside, “but smoke just came at me and I couldn’t see.”
“I barely got two steps in and I had to turn back around,” he told police. “When I opened the door, I made it worse.”
Fire officials searched his home and realized there were no smoke detectors.
Kannin said he had taken down one alarm because it “started to malfunction or make sounds.” He claimed the alarm would “randomly go off” and described the noise as an “annoyance.”
Jourdan Feasby, the kids’ mom, said she had warned her ex about the lack of alarms.
“I was on him about not having the smoke detectors, I let his mother know who cleaned his house once a week that there were no smoke detectors, I let the landlord know there were no smoke detectors,” she told CBS58.
Feasby described her ex’s apartment as “disgusting” and said it was “fend for yourself in a sense.”
She described his charges as “bittersweet” and said she’s “just a shell” — nearly five months after the fire.
“I died with them that day,” she said.
“It’s just been pure hell for myself and my family. I’m literally living my worst nightmare.”
The kids’ deaths were ruled as accidental — but Feasby says she’s fighting for justice, saying there needs to be “serious repercussions.”
Kannin is due to appear in court on May 14.
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