Lily Peters autopsy reveals Chippewa Falls girl dying from blunt force & strangulation homicide death at the hands of her 14 year old cousin.
A 10 year old Wisconsin girl found dead after she vanished while visiting her aunt, died from blunt force trauma and strangulation, a coroner’s report confirmed Thursday.
The preliminary autopsy also determined Iliana Lily Peter‘s cause of death to be homicide. A final report is expected within 4-6 weeks after toxicology testing is complete the Chippewa County Coroner revealed.
Lily Peters who was visiting her aunt just blocks away from her Chippewa Falls home, was ‘probably’ assaulted with a ‘large tree branch’ during the brutal attack, the autopsy report noted according to CNN.
The report noted other damage to the body, yet to be determined, while noting the girl was likely assaulted multiple items.
Arrested and charged with the girl’s death on Tuesday was the victim’s 14 year old cousin. While officials and prosecutors have declined to publicly release the boy’s name, save for his initials, C. P-B, despite him being prosecuted as an adult, social media identified the perpetrator as Carson Peters-Berger.
Lily Peters and Carson Peters Burger: two children of 2 families of dysfunction
14 year old cousin intended to ‘break victim’
‘He punched the victim in the stomach, knocked her to the ground, essentially strangled her, hit her with a stick, before strangling her to the point of death — before he then sexually assaulted her,’ Chippewa County District Attorney Wade Newell told a courtroom on Wednesday.
The teen following a preliminary Wednesday hearing in which police read a confession in which the boy stated he intended to ‘break the girl’ was ordered held on $1 million cash bond.
The teen told investigators he intended to ‘rape and kill the victim from the get-go,’ Newell said.
Of further disquiet, the teen boy’s father has since been revealed to be a convicted sex offender who was arrested in 2016 in possession of illicit child images and drug paraphernalia at his residence following a raid at the man’s Eau Claire residence.
The father, Adam T. Berger continues to remain in prison following a 3 year sentencing in 2017 amid concurrent cases.
The slain girl found dead Monday was a fourth-grader at Parkview Elementary School in Chippewa Falls. All students and staff were invited to wear purple on Friday to honor Lily.
The girl’s murder has left the community deeply shaken and searching for answers.
‘I grew up in this town,’ Chelsea Torgerson of Chippewa Falls told WQOW. ‘I’ve lived here pretty much since I was in kindergarten and I always felt so safe. I know these things happen everywhere all over the world every day, but this is way too close to home.’
Chippewa Falls, with a population of about 13,000, is approximately 100 miles (161 kilometres) east of the Twin Cities.