Posted on 08/29/2002 6:18:57 AM PDT by hobbes1
Homeschool killings
By CAROLYNN BRIGHT, IR Staff Writer - 08/29/02
Officials try to squelch attempts to explain murder of 2 children.
As officials investigating the alleged murder of two Augusta youths by their mother earlier this week clamp down on details of the case, area residents have developed their own explanations for the tragedy.
Some newspaper reports quote sources who point accusatory fingers at the anti-depressant Paxil — a drug Jeanette Swanson’s mother said her daughter started taking only weeks before she called 911 stating that she shot her 10-year-old daughter Louisa, and her 14-year-old son, Swen.
Other conjecture circulates about the possible significance of an argument Swanson and her husband, Gene, are believed to have had the previous week over whether the two youngest of their four children should continue to be schooled at home or attend classes at public school as their mother wanted.
However, Undersheriff Cheryl Liedle said Wednesday that her office won’t offer up any hard and fast solutions to the questions swirling through the community about Swanson’s motive.
“We’re being very, very careful not to speculate until we have something solid — which we don’t,” she said. “If we did that, we’d be doing the same thing as the public is doing.”
Carroll College’s Father Jerry Lowney says such speculation on the part of community members shocked by recent events is only natural. Lowney is a professor of sociology with an emphasis in criminology.
“It’s natural to ask why when there is something unexplainable to them,” he said, adding that coping with such devastating news may be harder for residents of smaller communities where violent crime is less common than in larger communities.
After all, the case of a mother accused of shooting her children to death as they slept in their beds is a far cry from that of a 90-year-old man who dies from terminal cancer.
“We constantly pursue truth, but we never reach a total understanding of human behavior,” said Lowney.
For Lowney, understanding and accepting tragedy is a process — one he likens to the journey Americans are currently on after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
“We’ve got some answers and we’re still in the process,” he said.
Lowney said it’s important for area residents — those who know the Swanson family along with those who don’t — to allow themselves to grieve.
He added that it’s also necessary for those people touched by the crime to move from marker to marker on the route that leads to closure in their minds.
For some, it might be the resolution of Swanson’s murder charge. For others it may include the children’s funerals. The family plans to hold a private funeral service, a funeral home spokesperson said Wednesday.
Lowney added that area residents shouldn’t hesitate to look to their friends and neighbors for a helping hand in the process.
“We need to come together as a community to work out the grieving process, realizing there may not be an ultimate answer,” he said. “Sometimes we just need to let go and understand that tragedies happen. And we need to remember we can’t undo what occurred.”
For Lowney, where science abandons him in his search for answers, his faith steps in.
“We don’t know why (these things happen),” he said. “God only has the answers.”
Gotta love that liberal agenda.
Come again?
Hey galt. There really are a lot of wackos up here.
It is absolutely ridiculous and biased to attempt to tie this tragedy into homeschooling...what if these parents had been known to argue over whether one of the kids should be allowed to become a vegetarian or something like that...would it be title "Vegan Killings" ?? (doubt it)
Nawh, then we'd have to feel sorry for her like we had to for whats-her-bucket: the post-partum-psycho-mom killer.
Although, I can envision the day when the media forgets Yates had depression and reminds us that she homeschooled, too. The media will teach us that homeschooling is a function of parental instability/mental illness and we should rescue all of the children endangered by it and place them safely in public schools. Do it for the children!!
LOL- That'd be a story, now wouldn't it!
I didn't know that Bill Clinton's TV show was already on the air
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