Winona Woman Faces Child Torture Charge Over Snapchat Videos

Winona, MN (KROC-AM News) - A judge today set conditional bail at $10,000 for a Winona woman accused of child torture.

A felony criminal complaint states that Winona police responded to a business on July 29 after receiving a report that 20-year-old Joseline Puente Gunderson had shown a video to coworkers depicting a child with duct tape wrapped around his wrists and ankles. The responding officer spoke with a witness who said Gunderson had offered to share the video, thinking the coworker would find it funny.

The court document says the witness described seeing an approximately 3-year-old African-American child with duct tape binding his wrists and ankles together, and duct tape covering his mouth. The child in the video was sitting in a recliner, screaming, while a woman could be heard laughing in the background. The witness identified the laugh as coming from Gunderson.

The witness also viewed two other videos. One showed the victim still bound with duct tape and another person covered in a blanket and wearing a clown mask, scaring the victim. The criminal complaint says the third video showed the bound child being placed in a closet.

A second coworker told the officer that they had also viewed the videos and identified the laugh in the video as Gunderson’s.

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According to the criminal complaint, Winona police spoke with Gunderson, who confirmed recording the videos on Snapchat and showing them to coworkers. She provided police with her Snapchat username after stating that she had deleted the videos.

The charges say investigators obtained a search warrant for Gunderson’s Snapchat account and viewed the videos she had shown her coworkers. All three videos depicted the child, the son of a friend of Gunderson, with his wrists bound to his ankles and his mouth completely covered by duct tape, screaming and crying in fear.

The court document says that in the first video, the child is sitting in a reclining chair, while the other videos show him being removed from a closet and being terrified by a male covered in a throw blanket and wearing a “full-faced, scary/creepy clown, Halloween-type mask.” The child, still bound with duct tape, is seen in the videos screaming, kicking, and flailing in an attempt to escape from the person wearing the mask.

The criminal complaint states investigators recognized the location where the videos were recorded as Gunderson’s apartment. It also says that Gunderson told police she knew the two other men in the videos only by the names Jalil and Zay, and that they had come to her apartment to “party.” She did not know their real names and told investigators she believed they were from La Crosse.

Gunderson is charged with a single count of child torture. Her next court appearance is scheduled later this month.

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