Background: Tina Beauprey (left) and her attorney during her court appearance on Jan. 28 (WLUK). Inset: Tina Beauprey (Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office).
A Wisconsin woman claimed that her 12-year-old son experienced rapid weight loss due to a terminal illness, but prosecutors alleged that she never fed him.
Tina Beauprey, 51, is being held at the Fond du Lac County Jail on $500,000 bond after she was arrested on a recommended charge of child neglect resulting in death. According to reporting by local Fox affiliate WLUK, police began investigating Beauprey in December 2025 when her 12-year-old son died after being brought to the emergency room.
A formal criminal complaint has not been filed, but a probable cause affidavit obtained by WLUK stated that the boy weighed just 56 pounds at his time of death. An autopsy listed the cause of his death as starvation, citing the manner of death as homicide.
According to court documents, which were read in court on Wednesday by Judge Laura Lavey, the boy weighed 80 pounds in November 2024 and dropped to 56 pounds in the year that followed. The documents stated that 15% of his total weight loss occurred in the last five weeks of the boy’s life.
Fond du Lac County Assistant District Attorney Kristin Menzl told the court that “care [was] not being provided to the child, including a lack of food.” She said the boy’s health became significantly worse in the two days leading up to his death on Dec. 5, 2025, but Beauprey “did not seek out any medical care for the victim, even though it was obvious he was declining.”
Beauprey’s defense attorney Michael Queensland said the family expected the boy to lose a large amount of weight because he had been diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Queensland told the court, “The family had been informed that the child was terminally ill. He was going to lose weight. And soon, was going to need a feeding tube.”
Formal charges have not yet been filed against Beauprey. Lavey ordered bail to be set at $500,000, and Beauprey remains in custody at Fond du Lac County Jail. Her next court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 2.
