Kenosha child neglect, animal cruelty investigation; women charged

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Tiffany Boose and Akiaya Boose

KENOSHA, Wis. - Two Kenosha women face a slew of charges after an animal cruelty call earlier this month led investigators to several children and pets living in "squalor."

Women charged

In court:

Court records show 37-year-old Tiffany Boose, charged with felony animal mistreatment and nine misdemeanors, appeared in court on Tuesday. She's being held in the Kenosha County Jail on $5,000 cash bond.

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Akiaya Boose, 27, is charged with felony animal mistreatment and 10 misdemeanors. She appeared in court on Wednesday and is being held in jail on $2,500 cash bond.

WARNING: The information below may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is advised.

Kenosha County Courthouse

Animal cruelty call

The backstory:

On May 2, Kenosha police responded to an animal cruelty call at a home near Sheridan Road and 44th Street. A criminal complaint said the house had an "overwhelming smell of urine and feces" that "made it hard to breathe." There was a dog in a crate with no food or water, and turtles in a tank with water that "smelled like sewage." 

Another room smelled "overwhelmingly with cat urine and dirty cat boxes," the complaint said, and a dog ran out of the room with numerous scars, open wounds and "what appeared to be tumors" hanging off its body. A second dog and two cats were also in that room.

Court filings said, in the basement, police found what looked like raw sewage near a floor drain and mold growing on items that were sitting in an unknown liquid. There were makeshift bedrooms made out of sheets and blankets and another dog in a crate "full of urine and feces" that had no food or water. 

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There were seven children, who ranged in age from 6 to 17 years old at the time of the investigation, living in the house "in the same squalor" as the animals, according to the complaint.

Prosecutors said a dog that had died in mid-February was found in a storage tote in the garage. Tiffany Boose said one of the children had started to dig a hole to bury the dog, but the shovel broke, and she was "in the process" of getting a new shovel.

While at the scene, investigators said a child approached them and said Akaiya Boose had poured bleach in the turtles' tank "to try and kill them." A woman who was at the home said a child told her that blood in the home must have been from another dog, who died in 2024.

Defendant statements

What they're saying:

Tiffany Boose said she believed the dog in the garage died of parvo, per the complaint, but investigators said the dog did not look like it'd had parvo – but did have deep puncture wounds to its face and throat. She then said, "the dogs fight here and there, but that isn't what killed" the dog. She repeatedly denied that she fought her dogs.

Akiaya Boose said her children were in the garage to get some toys when they smelled a foul odor and found the dead dog, court filings said. She said the dog was killed during a fight with two pit bulls months earlier and thought Tiffany Boose had the dog cremated – "shocked" that it was in the garage "after all this time."

Only one of the dogs had ever been to a veterinarian, Tiffany Boose said, according to court filings, because she didn't have the money. Investigators noted in the complaint that she was "constantly smoking a nicotine vape pen" while making statements.

Tiffany Boose also said she was unwilling to surrender the animals because "she looks at her animals like her children," according to prosecutors. She was then informed that her animals would be seized.

Prosecutors said Akiaya Boose also told investigators that six people lived in the basement of the home.

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