MONROE — Though her life was cruelly short, little baby Harper’s mother never stopped wanting her and fearing for her safety, according to testimony in the trial of the father and alleged killer in Green County Circuit Court late last week; and on Monday.

In the prosecution’s version of events, the young teenage mother had reluctantly given Harper up for what she thought was a trip with a friend’s mother to an “adoption center” in Madison. The 14-year-old asked if the baby she had just given birth to had been taken away:

“…I just want to know if I could see her one last time or not,” she said turning away and sobbing at times through gripping testimony about giving birth alone to a child that would live only a matter of days.

The events between Harper’s birth on January 5, 2021, and the discovery of her body days later in snowy woods were recounted by witnesses. Those included the child’s teen mother and others whose role came into view partly via a series of Snapchat social media posts obtained by investigators. 

But also in circuit court on Monday, November 3, Harper’s mother endured a persistent cross-examination in which the defense sought to portray the teen mom as unconcerned for the baby at key times during the 2021 ordeal.

At one point, Defense Attorney Kevin M. Smith sought answers from the emotional witness on whether she had a long list of baby supplies, knowing she was giving birth — a series of pointed questions — to which she responded with a staccato ‘no,’ over and again.

The rapid-fire questions provoked an exasperated and sobbing witness to pause and yell: “Can I take a break?”

At another point in the mother’s cross-examination, she was challenged on why, in the early morning hours of January 5, after giving birth alone and in secret, she did not try to get help, and endured cutting the cord and disposing of the afterbirth herself. The defense sought to establish that she was literally having the baby in a bathroom and tiptoeing around in front of her sleeping father, to and from her bedroom.

“At that point, I hadn’t slept for 24 hours,” she said, and later, added that she managed to breast-feed the newborn twice in those early hours.

The flurry of messages between the teens and a few adults also included haunting details of those frigid nights in early 2021 before the truth about Harper would come out, and images and videos in which everyone is shivering, talking to police and trying to escape the cold and snow.  

But in the days following the life and premature death of Harper, the heat would only turn up on Kruckenberg-Anderson, as the investigators seemed skeptical at the outset that the baby was indeed given to some mystery man named “Tyler” or anyone else to place up for adoption. 

Eventually, when confronted with the rumors and the specter of a trip to the emergency room to determine if she had, in-fact, given birth, the mother broke down to her own mother, according to testimony.

“As we were walking to the truck, she collapsed into my arms,” said the teen’s mother, prior to her daughter’s testimony and cross-examination. “She said Logan took the baby.”

Prosecutors contend that instead of placing baby Harper up for adoption — as he allegedly told the mom he planned to do — the defendant hiked into nearby woods and killed her, burying her in the snow. Ultimately, he was charged as an adult with first degree intentional homicide and transporting, hiding, or burying the child’s body.

While Harper’s mother and grandmother testified, Kruckenberg-Anderson sat about 20 feet away, typically stoic in his dark suit throughout emotional testimony. On Monday, though, his head bowed, and remained pressed nearly to his chest at times as his much younger self confessed to details of the crime in video-clips of police interrogations.

The case has languished for four years, largely due to challenges to a series of confessions to police and investigators, some of which were thrown out due to some complex legal issues surrounding the defendant’s Miranda rights and custody. Those issues surfaced again Monday in complex objections and numerous sidebars on segments of the confessions played in court.

Kruckenberg-Anderson faces a maximum possible sentence of life in state prison if convicted. Testimony was set to continue into the week.