Police, prosecutors and witnesses described competing versions of who used a knife during an Aug. 19 fight that seriously injured Kiera Hennings.
MILWAUKEE, Wis. — The criminal case stemming from a violent Aug. 19 dispute at a Milwaukee duplex is built around a point the people involved do not agree on: who stabbed Kiera Hennings. Hennings identified downstairs neighbor Tawanna Gant to police, while Gant denied using the knife and accounts attributed blame to others. Gant was charged with first-degree reckless injury, but public reporting also shows investigators were still looking at other participants.
The disagreement over responsibility is not a minor detail in the case. Law&Crime, citing the criminal complaint, reported that Hennings told an officer at the scene that Gant stabbed her. FOX6 later reported that Hennings believed more than one person had stabbed her. Gant, meanwhile, acknowledged fighting with Hennings but denied the stabbing, according to Law&Crime. Reports also described changing or inconsistent statements involving Gant’s 15-year-old son and the girlfriend of another son. None of those statements by themselves resolves what happened, and Gant is presumed innocent unless the state proves the charge against her.
What is less disputed in the available reporting is the severity of Hennings’ injuries. The 35-year-old suffered two stab wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen, Law&Crime reported from the complaint. Hennings told FOX6 that one lung collapsed and her liver was bleeding, and she said she required two major surgeries. FOX6 reported that she remained hospitalized for nearly two weeks. When police reached the duplex shortly after 8:30 p.m., the complaint says Hennings was wrapped in a sheet and told officers she believed she was dying.
The criminal complaint describes a sequence with two separate confrontations rather than one continuous fight. Before either encounter, Hennings and her brother were upstairs preparing to leave. Her brother told police he heard Gant threaten to beat Hennings. Hennings said she was headed out to shop and accidentally locked the shared front door of the duplex. Gant, who was outside with her dogs, and others associated with the downstairs unit were then locked out, according to the reports. Police said prior problems already existed between the neighbors, including a physical altercation about a month earlier.
After waiting upstairs, Hennings and her brother went down when they thought it was safe to leave. Gant and four other people were outside, including her 15-year-old son, according to the complaint as reported by Law&Crime. FOX6 obtained doorbell-camera footage that captured a verbal dispute. Hennings told the station that Gant grabbed her by the wig and attacked her. She said she defended herself. The complaint says multiple people became involved, including Gant, her two sons and the girlfriend of one son. Hennings’ brother tried to pull her away, and the siblings eventually made it back upstairs.
A call to police had already been made by the girlfriend of Hennings’ brother. The complaint says Hennings later saw flashing police lights and went downstairs to speak with officers. She made it only partway down. A male neighbor allegedly grabbed her and dragged her the rest of the way, setting off the second confrontation. Prosecutors allege that Gant stabbed Hennings during that fight. Hennings’ later statement that more than one person stabbed her is one reason the public reporting cannot be read as a complete account of every alleged assailant’s role.
Hennings’ brother carried her back into the upstairs unit after the stabbing, the reports say. Hennings told FOX6 that her brother had seen a gun during the attack and wrestled with one of the people involved. She said members of the other group then kicked the upstairs door off its hinges. Law&Crime reported that people associated with the downstairs unit were breaking at the door when officers arrived. The sources reviewed do not identify who allegedly possessed a firearm, whether police recovered one or whether any firearm-related charge was filed, so those questions remain outside the verified charge against Gant.
Inside the apartment, Hennings relied on her 9-year-old son while waiting for emergency help. She told FOX6 she asked him to bring her a sheet, which she used while waiting for paramedics. The complaint described her as wrapped in a blood-soaked sheet when officers arrived. An officer attending to her wounds asked who had attacked her, and Hennings named Gant, according to Law&Crime’s account of the complaint. That statement is important because it was made near the scene and became part of the prosecution narrative, but it remains one piece of evidence rather than a court finding.
Investigators then confronted sharply different explanations. Law&Crime reported that Gant denied stabbing Hennings and said the girlfriend of one of her sons was responsible. FOX6, citing prosecutors, said Gant blamed her 15-year-old son. The station reported that the teenager first told detectives Hennings stabbed herself, then changed his story. Law&Crime also said the teen offered to take the blame for his mother. The public reports do not reproduce full recorded interviews or the complete complaint, so the exact sequence and context of every statement cannot be independently reconstructed from news accounts alone.
Physical and video evidence may also matter as the case proceeds. FOX6 reported that doorbell-camera footage recorded the argument outside the duplex. Hennings also told the station that the same camera system captured people from the group damaging her vehicle while she was upstairs awaiting first responders. The available reporting does not say whether the stabbing itself was captured on video, whether police recovered a knife for forensic testing or whether any laboratory analysis tied a weapon to a particular person. Those are significant evidentiary questions, and the absence of public answers is a reason to avoid treating any allegation as established fact.
The case also contains evidence of prior tension that prosecutors could view as context but that does not itself prove who caused Hennings’ wounds. Hennings told FOX6 she had reported her neighbors as a nuisance about a month earlier and said that episode led to another physical altercation. Her brother’s claim that he heard a threat before the Aug. 19 fight adds to that history. At the same time, the reports do not provide a complete account from Gant about earlier disputes, nor do they establish whether authorities substantiated earlier complaints. The current charge must therefore stand on evidence from the Aug. 19 incident, not assumptions drawn from past conflict.
Gant, 51, was charged with first-degree reckless injury, with reporting also identifying a dangerous-weapon allegation. Law&Crime said she was held on $20,000 cash bond when its story was published Sept. 3, with a court date set for Sept. 8. That hearing date has passed, but the reliable sources located for this update did not establish what occurred at the hearing or whether the case later reached a plea, trial or other disposition. The lack of a verified later result means the charge should still be described as an allegation rather than a conviction.
The investigation was broader than Gant alone in the most recent verified reporting. FOX6 said Milwaukee police were looking for additional known suspects, and Hennings said multiple people participated in the attack. No later reliable report located for this story confirmed additional arrests or charges. The unresolved case therefore turns on two parallel questions: whether prosecutors can prove Gant’s alleged role beyond a reasonable doubt, and whether investigators can establish criminal responsibility for other people who were allegedly involved in the two confrontations.
Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.