By Ania Boutin and Zoe Lewis

Kyan Higgins Jr. was like most 10-year-old boys in West Louisville, Kentucky; in the morning, he’d go to school to learn and spend time with friends, and in the afternoon, he’d go home to his family. But unlike most Kentucky children, Kyan was one of the 1.23% suffering from child abuse at home. One day in April 2021, Kyan came home from school for the last time. 

Kyan was tragically killed by his mother Kaitlyn Higgins who attempted to cut out her son’s tongue before shooting him and attempting to hide his body in her car. This was not Higgins’s first act of cruelty; officers from Louisville Metro Animal Services had been to the house investigating reports of animal abuse 24 times in the 18 months leading up to Kyan’s murder.

Kyan’s Law, officially known as Kentucky House Bill 194 aims to prevent another tragedy like this from ever occurring. The bill reads:

“Create a new section of KRS 258.095 to 258.500 to require animal control officers to receive training on recognizing child abuse; amend KRS 620.030 to add animal control officers to the list of people with a duty to report dependency, neglect, or abuse of a child.”

HB 194 could require animal control officers to be trained in and recognize the signs of child abuse by adding animal control officers to the list of professions that are required to report dependency, neglect or child abuse. Currently, people who are required to report child abuse are healthcare professionals, teachers and childcare personnel, social workers and peace officers. 

Although animal control officers could officially be required to report child abuse if the bill passes, Kentucky law states it is the duty of anyone who has reasonable cause to report if a child may be dependent, neglected or abused to report it. 

HB 194 is motivated by research from the National Link Coalition, a nonprofit that researches the link between animal abuse and human violence. Joye Keeley, the founder of the Kentucky Link Coalition, filed the open records request with Louisville Metro Animal Services, revealing Higgins’ history of abuse.

Keeley said she filed the request after seeing a news video covering the case in which a neighbor said she should have known Kyan was being abused after seeing how Higgins treated the family dog. As a former lieutenant at the Louisville Metro Police Department, Keeley said the link between animal abuse and human violence is one that she was familiar with even before founding the Kentucky coalition.

“(There) is the Graduation Theory which states people first abuse animals and then ‘graduate’ on to abuse humans. However, I found in my law enforcement career that the General Deviance Theory (was) more applicable,” Keeley said. “The General Deviance Theory posits that people who commit one form of deviancy are more likely to commit other forms of deviancy. Anti-social behaviors (are) closely linked to all forms of abuse of humans and animals, and are manifestations of the same underlying violent, controlling behaviors.”

While no one theory can apply to all abusers, the correlation has been strong enough to inspire widespread research into the overlap of animal abuse and human violence. Keeley said the coalition’s findings have revealed numerous links between interpersonal violence and animal abuse. She said 82% of animal abusers commit other crimes, the top three being domestic assault, assault and child and elder abuse.

She said there are also many commonalities of neglect between human and animal victims, including poor grooming, dehydration, living in filth, lack of care, abandonment, lack of appropriate clothing or shelter, and being left alone in hot cars.

In addition, she said the underlying conditions that create opportunities for animal cruelty to occur, such as stress, deprivation, aggression, mental illness, prior victimization and drug and alcohol use, mirror the risk factors for interpersonal violence.

Keeley also drew attention to the similar statistics between child abuse and animal abuse: 74.9% of abused children are neglected while 84% of abused animals are neglected; similarly, 18.3% of abused children experience physical abuse while 16% of abused animals experience physical abuse.

Alexis Richie is a social worker at Marshall County’s Department for Community Based Services Office. She said HB 194 could instill confidence in animal control officers and prevent further abuse of children. 

“This could benefit children by having someone say something sooner, especially young children who are not in school or childcare yet and may not be able to communicate what is happening in the home,” Richie said. “Sometimes a report submitted to Child Protective Services does not meet criteria, but if it did, then the sooner families have the availability to work services to be a healthy, functioning unit.”

This correlation is also seen in abuse of the elderly. Keeley said in an Adult Protective Services (APS) social workers report, 35% of their senior clients reported their pets being injured, killed, denied care or threatened, often to gain access to assets, by caretakers.

Overall, Keeley said the factor that links animal abuse and interpersonal violence is the abusive nature of the perpetrator.

Richie said in her time as a social worker, she has seen both animal abuse and child abuse occurring in the same home. 

“The odds are possible that the person caring for the animals will also treat children similarly, meaning there could be a correlation in animal control responding to abuse situations that may also have child abuse in the same event,” Richie said. 

In a study Keeley conducted, she found that 30% of animal abusers had co-occurring domestic violence charges placed against them.

This is in line with findings from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to an fbi.gov article, 41% of animal cruelty offenders had been arrested at least once for interpersonal violence.

Keeley has publicly expressed her support for HB 194.

“Critical thinking always starts with identifying the problem(s),” Keeley said. “Child abuse is a huge and tragic problem. Reporting child abuse is mandated by everyone in Kentucky under KRS 620.030. However, it is estimated that only 12-30% of all child abuse is reported. Recognizing the signs of child abuse and reporting it are the first steps. To recognize the link between animal abuse and possible child abuse and know who to report it to and when to report it, we must be educated which is another part of critical thinking.”

Keeley said she believes HB 194’s mandatory education training for animal control officers to help them recognize signs of abuse in children could increase the likelihood of effective intervention.

“That neglected dog outside could very well be an indicator of abuse of human(s) inside as it was with Kyan Higgins, Jr.’s tragic case,” Keeley said. “Too often we focus on the species of the victim when instead we should focus on the abusive nature of the perpetrator and look further to see if anyone else might be abused…It should not take the horrible death of a child to get government agencies to recognize the need for more strategies to end the cycle of violence.”

Kyan’s Law was first introduced as Senate Bill 106 in 2024, and Republican Rep. Susan Witten of Jefferson County sponsored its sister bill House Bill 253. Neither SB 106 nor HB 253 passed. 

HB 194 was introduced at the beginning of the legislative session by Witten. The bill was placed in the Local Government Committee in early February.