The morning after Kyle Rittenhouse killed Joseph Rosenbaum, the dead man’s fiancee visited the used car lot where he was shot and located the spot where he struggled to take his final breaths.
“There was the mark where Joe had been laying,” Kariann Swart said. “I put my hand in it, and my hand was wet with his blood and that’s when, again, I collapsed on the ground.”
After a week of frenetic video evidence, prosecutors ended the trial’s first week with emotional testimony from the families of the two men Rittenhouse killed in August 2020. The defense made headlines when it announced plans to portray the men as “rioters, looters and arsonists” as part of Rittenhouse’s self-defense claim, but jurors were sent home Friday with stories from people who loved them.
Rittenhouse — a then-17-year-old from north suburban Antioch — crossed state lines and volunteered to patrol downtown Kenosha amid turmoil surrounding the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a white police officer. Carrying an AR-15-style rifle that police say a friend illegally purchased for him, Rittenhouse fatally shot Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injured Gaige Grosskreutz.
Huber’s great-aunt Susan Hughes recalled a close relationship with her nephew, going back in testimony Friday to his childhood when he loved art, music, computers and Star Wars. As an adult, he called her regularly and often stopped by her Kenosha home.
Hughes lent him money when he got into a pinch and helped him practice for his driver’s license, which he obtained just a few days before his death.
“Even when he was a child we had a special connection,” she testified, telling jurors his 26th birthday was two days before he died.
After shooting Rosenbaum, Rittenhouse tripped while trying to flee the scene and fell to the pavement. While Rittenhouse was on the ground, Huber hit him with his skateboard and touched his AR-15-style rifle. Rittenhouse responded by firing a fatal bullet into his chest.
The defense contends Huber was trying to take Rittenhouse’s gun, while the prosecution says he risked his life to stop an active shooter.
“He’s a hero to the state,” Assistant District Attorney James Kraus said.
Huber’s great-aunt told jurors he loved his skateboard and dreamed of building an indoor skate park in Kenosha someday. He brought his board with him everywhere as a child, including a Christmas dinner at her house where he very mistakenly thought he would be allowed to roll around her linoleum floors.
“The skateboard, I must confess, was always an annoyance to me,” Hughes said, with a sad, ironic laugh.
Hughes began to tell jurors a story about a time when Huber risked his safety to put out a fire at a family gathering, but the defense thwarted the plan by threatening to introduce evidence of Huber’s past arrests if the prosecution had someone vouch for his character. Kraus withdrew his question about the family party after the discussion, which took place outside the jury’s presence.
Kenosha court records show Huber was twice arrested for domestic violence incidents, including one in 2012 where he threatened his brother with a knife and demanded he help clean the house. The judge has barred the defense from mentioning Huber’s criminal record, which includes a felony conviction for the incident with his brother, unless the prosecution somehow opens the door to the topic.
Likewise, the judge issued a pretrial ruling preventing Rittenhouse’s team from telling jurors Rosenbaum was a convicted child sex offender who had been released from a psychiatric facility on the day of the shooting. Kenosha County Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled it would be too prejudicial for the jury to hear.
“There is a lot in Joe’s past that wasn’t great. But that wasn’t him,” Swart told the Tribune after her testimony. “That wasn’t his heart.”
The defense, however, is allowed to present evidence, if it exists, of the three men engaging in violence that night. Though no witnesses have linked Huber or Grosskreutz to violent acts before the shooting, several have portrayed Rosenbaum as behaving erratically, lighting a dumpster on fire and swinging a chain at various points.
One of Rittenhouse’s fellow self-appointed armed security told the jury Rosenbaum was “hyper-aggressive,” while another said he was a “babbling idiot” with whom nobody at the protest wanted to be associated.
Swart, however, described him as someone who made her laugh, even in tough times. The two were both homeless at the start of their relationship and lived in a tent in southeast Wisconsin, she said.
On the day of the shooting, Rosenbaum, who took medication for bipolar disorder, stopped by the motel where Swart was staying to see her. They talked for a while, but she told him he couldn’t stay. The jury wasn’t given a reason for why Rosenbaum had to leave because the judge has barred evidence that Rosenbaum was under an order of protection preventing him from contacting his fiancee.
Swart said they parted amicably, with Rosenbaum happy about the possibility of a future together.
“It was really good,” she said. “We were talking about things we were going to work on in the relationship. He was extremely excited to work on himself, work on some of the things he needed to work on. When he left, he said he would see me in the morning.”
Several hours later, she received a phone call from the medical examiner’s office informing her of Rosenbaum’s death. She looked online and saw a video of him bleeding and struggling to breathe after being shot.
![Voter turnout in Lake and Porter counties was low in Tuesday’s primary, which local Democratic and Republican officials said was disappointing. In Lake County, there were 41,510 ballots cast out of 362,561 registered voters in Tuesday’s primary, which resulted in a 11.45% voter turnout, according to Lake County Board of Elections and Registration data. Voter turnout in Porter County for Tuesday’s primary election came in slightly better than Lake County at 13.87%. There were 18,983 votes cast for Tuesday’s election out of the 136,874 voters registered. Lake County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Wieser said he and other party members anticipated […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/PTB-L-ELEX-DAY-0507-2.jpg?w=525 "Voter turnout in Lake and Porter counties was low in Tuesday’s primary, which local Democratic and Republican officials said was disappointing. In Lake County, there were 41,510 ballots cast out of 362,561 registered voters in Tuesday’s primary, which resulted in a 11.45% voter turnout, according to Lake County Board of Elections and Registration data. Voter turnout in Porter County for Tuesday’s primary election came in slightly better than Lake County at 13.87%. There were 18,983 votes cast for Tuesday’s election out of the 136,874 voters registered. Lake County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Wieser said he and other party members anticipated […]")
