Background: Courtroom footage of Tylor Birch during a court appearance (WBAY). Inset: Jakob Bowerman (Bowerman Funeral Home).
A Wisconsin man who allegedly caused a teenager with autism to drown now claims he did not know that what he was doing was wrong at the time.
Tylor Birch, 22, is charged with reckless homicide in connection with the death of 13-year-old Jakob Bowerman, who died three days after Birch and 17-year-old Peyton Carnot allegedly threw him into a lake. Birch was declared competent to stand trial in April, and during a status conference on Tuesday, he entered a plea of not guilty by mental disease.
As Law&Crime previously reported, police said Birch and Carnot picked Bowerman up by his feet and hands and swung him into the lake off a pier. Bowerman told both suspects that he could not swim.
According to a criminal complaint obtained by local Fox affiliate WLUK, Bowerman was at the Government Pier in Marinette, Wisconsin, on the afternoon of Aug. 20, 2025, when he encountered Birch and Carnot. Both Birch and Carnot told police that they and Bowerman jumped into the water off the pier together. They said that when they noticed that Bowerman could not swim, they tried to help him get back to land. Carnot told police that he got out of the water to call 911. The complaint said that "while they were in the air, leaping from the break wall is when Bowerman allegedly told them that he could not swim."
But as the investigation progressed, police determined that Birch and Carnot's story was not true. According to the complaint, Carnot eventually told police that he and Birch "had actually thrown the victim into the water after the victim has expressed he didn't want to go in."
The complaint read, "Carnot told [police] that he grabbed Bowerman's hands and [Birch] grabbed Bowerman's feet and they swung him off the edge, into the water."
Bowerman died as a result of drowning three days later.
During a previous hearing covered by WLUK, Marinette County District Attorney DeShea Morrow acknowledged that Birch and Carnot attempted to get Bowerman out of the water but said, "That doesn't change what they did to start this process, which resulted in the death of the victim."
Carnot, who was 16 years old when he was arrested, is being charged as an adult. He is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 7.
During Birch's hearing on Tuesday, a judge ordered three psychiatric evaluations to determine whether he was suffering from a mental disease at the time of the alleged crime. Birch's next court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 9.