The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In 2018, Sharon Windey was accused of abusing and neglecting her adopted children. Her husband, Donald, and their biological son Steven, were also charged for their part in the abuse.
A De Pere woman and former Wisconsin State Trooper has been charged with several counts of child abuse and neglect of her adopted children. The abuse allegedly went on for over a decade despite reports to police and officials.
Sharon Windey, 54, appeared in Brown County court Thursday on charges of physical abuse of a child; strangulation and suffocation; battery; child neglect; and mental harm to a child.
A 42-page criminal complaint obtained by Action 2 News details years of emotional, physical, and mental abuse inside the Windey home.
The complaint states the investigation found “overwhelming” confirmation that since 2006, there have been Child Protective Services referrals, police contacts and reports from school officials about the three children being victims of physical abuse, mental abuse, child neglect and inappropriate sexual contact in the home on Sullivan Street.
On Feb. 12, 2018, De Pere Police assigned a sergeant to investigate reports of possible abuse at the home where the children lived with Sharon Windey, her husband Donald Windey, and the couple’s 25-year-old son Steven Windey. One of the kids described Steven as a “third parent.”
Investigators started interviewing the three adopted children–a girl aged 15; a girl aged 14; and a boy aged 15.
The kids described being punched, choked, spanked, thrown against a wall, hair pulling, food punishment and exercise punishment.
Both girls said the parents used “excessive feedings of oatmeal” as a punishment. The boy once threw up the oatmeal and the father “made him eat his own vomit and the oatmeal,” reads the complaint. The father told the boy “people were dying in Africa and he needed to eat the puke and oatmeal.”
One of the girls described locks on the freezer, cabinet and pantry.
One girl told investigators that her dad would make her sit on his lap and he would kiss her on the lips. She said he would also touch or grab the girls in other places on their bodies.
She also talked about a punishment in which the kids were forced to strip down to their underwear and kneel in front of a fireplace.
The kids described a shower punishment. If they took a shower longer than seven minutes, they would have to pay money for every minute they go over.
One of the girls said the parents are “very careful” to try not to leave visible marks on them.
The boy described the parents as “delusional … religious freaks.” The boy said his dad hears his guardian angel who tells him what to do.
“They are outgoing and they try to put up the facade of being the perfect family outside of our house,” the boy told investigators. “They will scare us with punishments. They will take things out of our room. For being disrespectful, they will hit them; slap them across the face and stuff. The hitting has happened multiple times.”
The boy described the day of Feb. 11, 2018. He said Donald wanted the kids to go to church but they refused. The father told them to clean everything out of their rooms. One of the girls was denied medicine for not going to church. He said the mom started struggling with one of the girls. During the struggle, the mother was pushed down the stairs. The boy said Steven heard the commotion and charged at him and started to punch him in the head.
The police arrived at the home. The boy said the officers told Sharon and Steven to call the police earlier so it doesn’t escalate to this point. The officers left.
Later there was another fight when when of the girls wanted medicine. After the fight, the kids went to a friend’s home. The man at the home called police to report the abuse.
….
Neither Donald Windey or Steven Windey have been charged. They are identified by name in Sharon Windey’s criminal complaint.
In 2020, Sharon Windey was sentenced to four years in prison for abusing four children over twelve years.
The Green Bay Gazette reported:
A De Pere woman was sentenced to four years in prison Wednesday for abusing her adopted children.
A jury found Sharon M. Windey, 56, guilty on eight counts of abusing four children over a span of 12 years.
Her sentencing came a day after Brown County Circuit Court Judge John Zakowski found her husband, Donald A. Windey, 53, guilty of multiple counts of physical, mental, and sexual abuse of the children.
Their biological son, Steven D. Windey, is scheduled for a plea hearing on Feb. 7 in connection to charges related to his role in the abuse.
One of the three children told investigators that police officers who visited the home on Feb. 11, 2018, did not seem to believe the children’s statements that they’d been hit and choked because their home didn’t appear to be a “typical house for abuse,” according to court documents, because the children appeared to be well-fed and went to a good school.
According to the criminal complaints and prosecution statements:
The children were required to do a prayer ritual while standing on one foot wearing nothing but underwear, and were beaten with a belt if they lost their balance and put their foot down.
The girls were forced to strip to their underwear and sit on Donald Windey’s lap and kiss him. They were forced to sleep with Donald Windey in bed when Sharon Windey was away, and he would touch and kiss their intimate parts.
Steven Windey was often the designated enforcer of the physical abuse and put his hands around one of the children’s throat during a Feb. 11 incident.
Donald Windey forced a sick child to eat vomit-covered food after they became ill during a meal.
Sharon Windey used food as a form of punishment — often serving oatmeal for all three meals because the children didn’t like it.
Sharon and Donald Windey locked kitchen cupboards so the children didn’t have easy access to food.
Donald Windey told the children he was “seeing demons” and “hearing voices” who were telling him to treat the children in this manner and that by doing so he was doing right by God.
Sharon and Donald Windey told the children they didn’t like them anymore and that they could no longer call them mom and dad.
Sharon and Donald Windey donated all of the children’s belongings to Goodwill in February, leaving each child with a bed and five days’ worth of clothes.
Donald WIndey was sentenced to seventeen years in prison on more than a dozen convictions of physically, mentally, and sexually abusing his adopted children.
A De Pere man convicted of more than a dozen charges of physically, mentally, and sexually abusing his adopted children is now facing 17 years in prison followed by supervision.
Donald Windey was found guilty on felony counts of repeated sexual assault of a child, being party to the crime of physical abuse, strangulation, or suffocation, and four felony counts of causing mental harm to a child.
As Action 2 News has reported, the criminal complaint said children living with Donald and Shirley Windey were inappropriately touched and kissed, as well as physically hurt and given food punishments.
At his sentencing Wednesday, Windey said he was “very sorry for the ways in which I failed as a father.” He said he was sorry for the times he made the children scared, made jokes at their expense, didn’t provide or know the help they needed, and that they didn’t feel the love for him that he felt for them. He said he had to be strict based on their behaviors.
He pointed out he didn’t have a prior criminal record and was involved in his church for years. He said he and his wife have lost everything, including their home, jobs and reputations.
Sharon Windey was sentenced in January to 4 years in prison.
Brown County Judge John Zakowski said at sentencing, “Don, you are a wonderful person, but you can be mean, too. I have seen it.”
He rejected Windey’s claim that the children conspired to tell a story so they could get out of the Windeys’ home, pointing out the kids’ claims went back years.
Zakowski also said he was irritated that the kids were put in this place. He said the Windeys, who believe in corporal punishment, should not have been allowed to foster or adopt these children.
“This should have been red flagged, and then the Windeys wouldn’t have been put in that situation, the kids would have been spared. The system failed. It’s a tragedy of immense proportions,” Judge Zakowski said.
Steven Windey was sentenced to eighteen months probation.
The Green Bay Gazette reported:
A De Pere man will spend 18 months on probation for his role in the abuse of his parents’ adopted children.
Steven D. Windey, 28, was often the designated enforcer during the physical abuse, according to court documents.
In interviews with investigators, the children described a February 2018 incident in which one of the children started arguing with their adoptive mother, former Wisconsin State Trooper Sharon Windey, who tried to push the 15-year-old but the child pushed her away instead.
She called for Steven Windey, who lived at the home, and told him the teen had pushed her down the stairs, according to court documents.
According to the children, Windey chased the child, pushed the child down on the couch, and put his hands around the child’s throat.
One of the children said that although Windey took responsibility for what he did by pleading guilty to battery and disorderly conduct, he should be held to the same standard as his parents, Sharon and Donald Windey.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t be strong enough to resist. I know everyone did what they had to do and your way was to become a puppet,” the child said.
Windey was initially charged with intentionally causing bodily harm to a child but that was reduced to the battery charge. A felony charge of attempted strangulation and suffocation was dismissed but read in during his sentencing.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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This is Just Pure Sick Disgusting disturbing and In excusable These Are My Nieces These Poor Children have Suffered While Cps and Police ignored to do a proper Investigation due to the Fact They were Catholic law obiding Good Parents A State trooper and Catholic Worked in the Church
Damn straight
I know Sharon personally. And she’s good people.
I’m not saying I don’t believe what the kids accused them of. But I also know children are just as capable of abusing the parents, however, the law and people don’t want to accept that. I do, I’ve personally witnessed it in many families.
Ongoing fights and disagreements that aren’t resolved can potentially escalate into a family feud. One that continues to escalates with everyone’s emotions taking charge, and it only gets worse.
I’m telling you this from my own experience; watching & living with other families.
This happens when there’s nobody to intervene and say hey you guys this is getting bad. It takes a third party to intervene otherwise things get way out of of control.
I will never believe Sharon purposely wanted to hurt her children.
I won’t comment on anything allegations or accusations made about the older son or Sharon’s husband because I don’t know.
It’s easy for people to jump the bandwagon and say ohh these poor children.
I want to remind anyone who has children; you know how it gets when things start going south. Parents are pissed because the kids won’t listen, kids are pissed because they are at the age where they start making their minds up about religion and dating and kids develop opinions of their own.
Mix that with ongoing resentment on both sides. It’s a recipe for disaster. It can turn kids against parents and without intervention it’s going to escalate.
Kid’s begin to despise the parents & vice versa.
The parents are pissed because they feel disrespected & they cannot control the kids. They find this unacceptable. So it’s a battle where nobody wins & like in this case everything was eventually the parents fault. This is the way society views it, but it’s unrealistic. Only in a perfect world will it be so.
Nobody wants anyone to know how bad it really is. It’s shameful and embarrassing. Who wants people knowing about personal family problems.
Is that unusual?
Is being in denial unusual?
I can relate to this on so many levels.
We are human beings, we are sinners. Sometimes we think we know what’s best but our emotions interfere with our logic and everything is a mess and is even worse than it appears.
My heart goes out to the whole family. I bet these kids still love their parents and wish this all would never had happen.
I have adult children and I’ve hit them and I wish I never did.
But at the time I didn’t know better.
I’m sorry for my mistakes.
Unfortunately this whole ordeal escalated to the point of no return.
I wish people were not so quick to judge and instead try to understand what went wrong, and when and how it could have turned out better. This can happen to any family. Anyone for anyone who says it can’t unless you’re a horrible person, I disagree with you wholeheartedly.
You are very fortunate and lucky.
For the rest of us, I’m not saying this is acceptable, I’m only asking that you try to imagine if it was you.
( I forgot that anyone reading this hasn’t heard Sharon’s side of the story)
Especially when privacy is important. Think about all the details in this case.
Please don’t believe word for word anything that you really don’t know without evidence. That’s all I’m saying.
I’m so sorry for everyone involved. I hope someday you will come together again. Things can be left in the past if you really want to leave them there.
~ Karen Fuentes
Karen,
I updated this post. Your comment does not reflect what the court found. Please quit justifying physical and sexual abuse.
Bruce
Aww those poor adults in their 50’s were just so ignorant and had no idea how to manage things. It’s soooo hard being that age where you just don’t know how to manage your life and emotions and reactions and then to have kids that make it sooo much harder. Sob sob sob
And it’s sooooo sad that these adults reputations and lives are ruined just because of some hard family situations that just got to emotional and hard for the 50 something adults. Why couldn’t the children just keep,their mouths shut and keep it all private, inside the family, like good kids. Soooobbbbbbb sob sob sobbbb
Give me a break. What a bunch of manipulative gaslighting bullshit. Let’s just be clear, these adults are all abusive. They are violent. They physically, mentally, and especially assaulted these children. And they all condoned the abuse of each of the other adults. They abused minors for 12 years. That is hardly rebellious teenagers suddenly acting out against parents wishes.
Clearly the evidence, which you ignore, shows the abuse was there for year, doe a large part of these children’s lives. Even the judge didn’t buy this abusive woman’s story of bad kids so sneaky and manipulative that they wanted out.
Karen says “ Things can be left in the past if you really want to leave them there.”
I don’t know if you suffered abuse as a child. If you did and this works for you then consider yourself lucky. But I can assure you that for the majority of people, the abuse is them the rest of their lives. It impacts how they live their and how they interact with others. You can’t just wish it away or pray it away.
You can defend this abuser all you want, but she still remains a convicted child abuser who abused children in the worst way possible.
Karen, you say
“ Please don’t believe word for word anything that you really don’t know without evidence. That’s all I’m saying.”
I agree. Thing is we do know the evidence. It’s in the court record. It’s been painstakingly obtained, sifted, reviewed, cross examined, and ultimately judged by a jury. If evidence is weak, or poorly obtained then it’s up to the judge to refuse to allow it if he sees fit, but evidence includes the demeanour and credibility of those giving the evidence. The jury were not convinced by Sharon.
Did you read some of the actions that took place? Forcing kids to eat vomit. Sexual abuse. Torture. I know we can all of us lose our cool with our kids at times but these ‘guardians’ went way outside what any reasonable person might regard as acceptable and I wouldn’t be wasting my time in trying to defend them for one moment. You’d be better trying to change them.
After reading the details I’m sitting here scratching my head as I reflect back on mine and Sharon’s conversation.
My jaw was hanging down as I read everything. What the heck were these people thinking.
I have a tendency to look at people and situations with rose colored glasses. Because the thoughts and images that come to me are something I avoid dealing with.
And this is how the police let Dahmer go when before he murdered the teenage boy,
the cops believed him.
Sharon was a religious person and yea her kid was on point when he said religious freaks.
I agree but I figured that’s the life some people choose to live and to each is own.
There’s some common denominators with people who abuse their own children.
Abusing any child is unacceptable but it takes it to another level when the parents adopt children and abuse them.
I could be way off but I’m wondering if Sharon was aware that her husband was doing stuff like this. She’s so immersed with praying and her relationship with God that she either turned a blind eye, or did know and decided the kid deserved it so never said anything.
If that were the case it makes it even worse, but nobody will ever know.
I hope these kids have people in their corner who will inspire them with determination to never let these experiences interfere with the quality of their lives moving forward.
I do believe it’s very likely they can put this to rest.
Hopefully they will have the mindset they enables them prosper in spite of what they endured.💗
~ Karen
You will find that many readers are intimately familiar with Sharon’s extreme religious beliefs, having come from Evangelical/Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) backgrounds. So we understand how and why abuse happens.
I hope the children recover and prosper too. That said, such religious environments can and do leave deep, lasting scars. I hope all of them are receiving secular therapy. They deserve much better than they have received so far.
Ms. Fuentes, the only way that these children will be able to prosper,is if they are getting trauma therapy, as by now they have PTSD, if not before while with that couple! I can’t fathom how anyone who has read the New Testament can justify the behavior like the kinds recounted in the court session that is described by the kids. It’s not as if they had to lie !
Karen—Would you tell an amputee to “put” the incident that caused them to lose their limb “in the past?”
Would you someone to “put” their fight against cancer “in the past?”
Someone who has survived sexual abuse and assault has wounds—psychological and sometimes physical—that cut just as deeply and last as long—as those of people who have suffered the more visible physical damage amputees, cancer survivors and others live with.
I know. I have survived childhood sexual abuse by a priest and sexual assault by an adult family friend.
Nobody had to tell me to “keep quiet” about it. When that priest abused me as a child, in the late 1960s, there was no language for it and nobody—especially in the insular Catholic community in which I grew up—questioned the authority of priests.
When I finally talked and wrote about it—decades later—I had a failed marriage, substance abuse issues and job lost because I couldn’t trust or get along with co-workers. And I was excoriated for “causing trouble” and besmirching the good name of a “holy” man.
Oh, and I had beseeched the Lord to whom I had given my life to heal me—and deliver me from my “conflict “ over my gender identity and sexuality. I got as much help from him as I did from my human dismissers, detractors and tormentors.
Even if I could put the abuse and assault “in the past”—something my current and a past therapist have, in essence, have told me is impossible—people like those who have told me to “put it in the past” or “keep quiet “—or accused me of lying—would not allow it. You, Karen, are among them.
I’m sorry but I really believed Sharon, I guess I was fooled.
Everything I said was what I was told by Sharon herself, she obviously lied to me. I wasn’t aware of all these details. I just see too much good in people and I didn’t want to judge her and decided not to read what the media was accusing her of.
Now I feel like I did something wrong buy commenting in the first place.
You didn’t know Karen. Now you know. You aren’t the first and won’t be the last to be fooled. It’s not common for commenters to come back and say they are sorry. I’m glad you did.
I appreciate your willingness to change your thinking when confronted with the facts. I know it is hard to think that “good” people (whom we think we know) can and do do awful things,
Thanks for sharing this, Karen. You are a brave person to analyze you views based on new information then come back to share as you have.
People like this woman take advantage of people throughout their life. They are experts at hiding their true nature, and gaslighting when people start to see into the facade. Then use extreme fear and abuse to keep their victims terrified and silent. They give pretty smiles to friends and neighbors then turn into monsters behind closed doors.
I won’t be too specific about the religious abuse I endured as a youngster, but suffice to say, whenever I got sick, Mom always prayed in tongues over me and starved me to drive the sickness away. I went without food for 4-5 days once, and started hallucinating.
I’m still traumatized by a night when I was sick in bed and Mom put on some scary Pentecostal hymns to drive the demons away. The more I cried, the louder she turned the record player until I was started screaming. She finally just turned it up to full blast and went to her room to pray for me in tongues. If anyone was walking by our house that night (it was about 2am), they would have thought someone was skinning a live cat. I mentioned it to my wife several years ago, and she angrily said, “That was child abuse!” It’s taken me decades to see that she is right.
Thank you, Ms. Fuentes, for not staying in denial and defending those Windeys. That matters, and yes, they were able to fool people, because they were/ are phonies. Being deceived by them all was an honest mistake. You are the better person for accepting the truth as it happened.
There is absolutely NO SCENARIO where it is ok for adults to abuse a minor. NONE. I don’t care how mad that adult gets, how that minor acts, the ADULT has the responsibility to maintain their composure. If you as an adult cannot manage yourself, call the police to control YOU. A minor is not yet fully developed enough mentally but an ADULT is developed enough to know better and to control themselves. I don’t want to hear “this adult is a good person, it must be the child’s fault.” No, that is patently false.
Karen I quote from GeoffT above:’…..Thing is we do know the evidence. It’s in the court record. It’s been painstakingly obtained, sifted, reviewed, cross examined, and ultimately judged by a jury….’
I have rarely felt so disgusted by a blog comment as by this one of yours defending a sub-human monster who abused children – and I read some pretty rough stuff most weeks about x-tian abuse of minors.
I now quote from a 2017 official UK government report on child abuse in high places. It asked for submissions from adult survivors and got over 1000 responses. They all reported mental health issues, eating disorders, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and self-harm and more. Here’s what one said, ‘I can be at a party, having the time of my life, then one touch or one smell and I’m right back in that childhood abuse. That’s not going to change till the day I die.’
So I truly have got tears in my eyes here, Karen, to imagine the decades of suffering that lie ahead of those abused children and am so repulsed that you believe this grotesque brute and his appaling wife against the concrete evidence presented in court.
I didn’t read all the evidence, I just talked to Sharon and listened to what she said. So I was wrong. Sorry, now I know
Well done Karen. It’s not easy to admit you’re wrong, especially when it’s people you know personally. I guess we’ve all done it at some time!
Note: I’m approving this comment so readers can see the vile stuff a supposedly Evangelical Christian man routinely tries to post to this site. He has an obsession with rape and anal sex. Make of that what you will.
These men should be punished for their crimes. That said, rape, in any circumstance,is morally wrong and repugnant.
Karen,
The two men were in prison for less than ten minutes until they were gang butt raped.
Sharon was forced into a broom closet by two male guards and they gave it to her in both holes…. 😨
And she was crying 😭
My only question about that asshole said is, were those people really assaulted that way?
Karen, Thank you for your willingness to re-consider what you’d believed.
Sounds like you’re screaming for attention. I’m surprised you don’t have any shame, oh I see you’re anonymous so it doesn’t matter. Ok keep doing what you do best. I’m guessing you’re a correctional officer?
People who make comments like this are entertained by how easily they can provoke the ones who respond with utter disgust.
He’s probably working at Ellsworth Correctional Facility and has nothing better to do because the day is almost done and he’s getting sick of looking at the inmates.
I just wanted to say this for anyone who might be triggered by this nonsense.
Revival Fires 🔥 is a disgusting human being; an Evangelical Christian who lacks morals, ethics, and decency. He routinely lies, using fake names and accounts to comment and harass me on social media. He is one sick 🤢 puppy. But, hey, he “loves” Jesus. I typically delete his comments, but occasionally I approve them so readers can see his sickness and debauchery. And he is not alone. Sadly, I have met a lot of Revival Fires’ over the years,
The incel known by his moniker, Reviled – and – Fired, needs to go upstairs now and help Grandma with taking the garbage bins down to the sidewalk. And put his computer on sleep mode for the night, once all the chores are done. Then over to the small single bed by the wall- by now it’s bedtime. Anyone who’s good at praying should pray that poor old RF gets a short in his computer, so that he will be forced to be outside more. Both yards need to be raked this week!
I think he is probably entertained by himself. Sadly there are too many who think like he does.
People who make comments like this are entertained by how easily they can provoke the ones who respond with utter disgust.
He’s probably working at Ellsworth Correctional Facility and has nothing better to do because the day is almost done and he’s getting sick of looking at the inmates.
I just wanted to say this for anyone who might be triggered by this nonsense.
Karen it has been inspiring to read this conversation. I am a practicing Catholic who internally struggles with the disgusting things priests and “trad-cats” like these people (I thought I read somewhere they are Catholic) do.
Regarding Revival Liars, you are right on the money. He most likely has a job with a lot of down time (probably works night shift),and most likely lives with Mother. I will never defend or minimize abuse, no matter who commits it. Unfortunately I am no longer surprised by the “evil that men (and women) do”, especially when it’s all “for Jesus”.
About that guy . So you think we’re accurate about profiling him? What people do for attention and entertainment
Omg that’s awful. Do you talk to your parents today and do you think they are sorry? And how are you?
My parents were not Catholic, but my mom is a fundamentalist Protestant. She is rather old fashioned about morality, but she would be horrified by what these three did. She loves children and has always cared for us and our children. She could be stern with discipline when I was a kid (sometimes excessive because she lost her temper due to other reasons and took it out on us), but as I got older and had kids myself, I became more understanding and forgiving of my mom.
I was not a perfect parent (my kids are grown), I converted to Catholicism after they were grown.
I know Jesus said “judge not lest ye be judged..by the same standard shall ye be judged”, etc.
However, there’s a vast gulf between my mom’s sternness which at times caused me some childhood trauma but also made me into a more conscientious adult and those who intentionally torture their children. My mom would never in a thousand years make a child eat vomit, pray while standing on one foot, and beat the child when they fell. My dad was non religious and usually only disciplined us when we truly needed it.
As a Catholic, however, I have to acknowledge my own imperfection as a parent. I know I’ve lost my temper with my kids. I raised my voice to the point where they cried. On very rare occasions I spanked them. Usually it was a combination of what was stressing me out at that moment, and them being brats (I.e. normal kids).
Still, this doesn’t prevent me from expressing horror and indignation at these three, and agreement that they deserve harsh consequences for their behavior.
And yes I think it is totally appropriate to profile and ridicule Revival Liars, for the same reasons I can acknowledge my own imperfection as a Christian but still call out someone who only is looking to provoke an argument with Bruce for his own enjoyment. Sadly, he is not alone amongst conservative Christians in this regard.