A trip to the store ended in two confrontations, serious injuries and a felony charge after a dispute at a shared Milwaukee duplex.

MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — What began with a shared front door being locked at a Milwaukee duplex escalated into two confrontations that left 35-year-old Kiera Hennings with two stab wounds, a collapsed lung and a liver injury, according to a criminal complaint and local reporting. Her downstairs neighbor, 51-year-old Tawanna Gant, was later charged with first-degree reckless injury, while police said they were still seeking other known people connected to the attack.

The Aug. 19 episode unfolded in stages, according to accounts reviewed by Law&Crime and FOX6 Milwaukee. Hennings said she accidentally locked the duplex’s front door as she left to go shopping, leaving Gant and others outside. But the complaint described tension before that moment: Hennings’ brother told police he heard Gant threaten to beat Hennings while the siblings were still upstairs. Investigators also were told that the neighbors had a history of conflict, including an altercation about a month earlier. Those details made the locked door part of a wider dispute rather than the only issue investigators were examining.

Hennings and her brother eventually went downstairs after believing it was safe to leave, the complaint said. Gant and four other people, including Gant’s 15-year-old son, were outside. Doorbell-camera footage obtained by FOX6 captured a verbal argument near the duplex. Hennings told the station that Gant grabbed her by the wig and attacked her, and she said she defended herself. Police accounts cited in the complaint say the confrontation expanded beyond the two women, with Gant, her sons and the girlfriend of one son allegedly becoming involved. Hennings’ brother also became involved as he tried to separate his sister from the fight.

The first confrontation did not end the danger, according to the complaint. Hennings and her brother made it back to the upstairs unit, and the brother’s girlfriend called police. When Hennings later saw emergency lights outside, she started downstairs, apparently intending to speak with officers. The complaint says a male neighbor grabbed her when she was partway down and dragged her the rest of the way. A second altercation followed. Prosecutors allege Gant stabbed Hennings during that confrontation. Hennings later told FOX6 she believed more than one person stabbed her, while the criminal charge reported against Gant focused on Gant’s alleged role.

Hennings suffered two stab wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen, according to Law&Crime’s account of the complaint. She told FOX6 that her liver was bleeding and one lung collapsed, and she said she underwent two major surgeries. FOX6 reported that she was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The injuries are central to the felony case, but the available reporting does not establish every detail of who caused each wound. Hennings identified Gant to police at the scene, according to the complaint, while Gant later denied stabbing her. Those competing accounts remain allegations to be tested through the criminal process.

Hennings’ brother carried her back upstairs after the second confrontation, the complaint said. Hennings told FOX6 that her brother had wrestled with another person after seeing a gun and that, once he realized she had been stabbed, he carried her inside. She said people from the downstairs group then forced the upstairs door off its hinges. Law&Crime reported that police arrived while Hennings was inside and people associated with the downstairs unit were trying to break through her door. The reporting does not identify who possessed the gun Hennings referenced or whether any firearm-related charge resulted, so that part of her account remains separate from the charge publicly reported against Gant.

When officers entered the scene shortly after 8:30 p.m., Hennings was wrapped in a sheet and badly injured, according to the complaint as summarized by Law&Crime. Her 9-year-old son had brought her the sheet at her request while the family waited for help. Hennings told FOX6 that the child’s response helped her while paramedics were on the way. An officer asked who had attacked her, and Hennings identified Gant. The child’s role is one of the starkest details in the record because it shows how quickly the dispute moved from an argument among adults to a medical emergency inside a home where children were present.

Investigators received conflicting accounts after the attack. Law&Crime reported that Gant acknowledged fighting with Hennings but denied stabbing her. The outlet said Gant blamed the girlfriend of one of her sons. FOX6 reported a different detail from prosecutors: Gant placed blame on her 15-year-old son, and the teenager initially told detectives Hennings had stabbed herself before changing his story. Law&Crime also reported that the teen offered to take responsibility for his mother. Because the publicly available reports summarize statements from different stages of the investigation, the discrepancies are important. They do not by themselves establish which account is true, and Gant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

The complaint also placed the attack in the context of earlier friction between the households. Hennings told FOX6 she had reported the neighbors as a nuisance about a month before the stabbing and said that complaint was followed by a physical altercation. She also said doorbell-camera footage showed members of the same group damaging her vehicle while she was upstairs waiting for first responders after the Aug. 19 attack. Law&Crime separately cited the brother’s statement that he heard a threat before Hennings left the upstairs apartment that evening. The available reports do not describe any separate charges tied to the vehicle or provide the full history of calls for service between the neighbors.

After leaving the hospital, Hennings told FOX6 she was afraid to remain at the duplex. She said she did not want people to know she had returned home. She also told the station that Berrada Properties, which she identified as the property manager, told her the locks could not be changed and that she had not lived there long enough to transfer to another unit. FOX6 said it contacted the company but had not received a response before publication. The property-management issue is distinct from the criminal allegations, and the available reports do not establish whether those housing circumstances later changed.

Gant was booked in Milwaukee County and charged with first-degree reckless injury with a dangerous-weapon allegation, according to the reports reviewed. Law&Crime said she was being held on a $20,000 cash bond when its story was published Sept. 3 and that a court appearance was scheduled for Sept. 8. Those were time-specific details, not a statement of her present custody status. A search for later reliable public reporting did not produce a verified disposition of the criminal case or an account of what occurred at that scheduled hearing, so it would be inaccurate to describe the charge as resolved.

FOX6 reported that Milwaukee police were still looking for additional known suspects after Hennings’ hospitalization and that she said more than one person had stabbed her. No later reliable source located for this report established whether additional arrests or charges were filed. For now, the clearest verified sequence remains the one described in the complaint and contemporaneous reporting: a long-running neighbor dispute, a locked shared entrance, an initial fight, a second confrontation as police were arriving, serious injuries to Hennings and a felony charge against Gant.

Author note: Last updated October 19, 2026.