Posted on 08/27/2002 5:47:49 AM PDT by CholeraJoe
Augusta kids killed
By CAROLYNN BRIGHT, IR Staff Writer - 08/27/02
Swanson faces 2 counts of murder.
A 46-year-old Augusta mother allegedly shot and killed two of her four children as they slept in their beds at the family ranch about 15 miles southwest of Augusta early Monday.
Jeanette Swanson faces two counts of deliberate homicide in connection with the shootings and is being held in the Lewis and Clark County Jail without bond.
Swanson was placed on suicide watch at the jail Monday afternoon while the bodies of her children — a 10-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy — were brought to the State Crime Lab in Missoula, where an autopsy will be conducted, said Undersheriff Cheryl Liedle.
According to Liedle, emergency responders flocked to the Swanson Ranch just before 6 a.m. after Swanson called 911, reporting that she had shot her two children.
Swanson’s other two children — boys, ages 16 and 20 — were in the house at the time of the killing, but were unharmed in the incident.
Swanson’s husband, Gene, was sleeping in a camp trailer outside the residence when the shootings occurred, Liedle said.
According to reports, Swanson was waiting at the door of the residence when emergency crews arrived.
Her children were located in their beds inside — both were dead at the scene, Liedle said.
Liedle said a firearm believed to have been used in the shootings was recovered at the family home, but officials will await the results of the autopsies to determine whether it was, in fact, the murder weapon.
Court documents indicate that Swanson’s 20-year-old son reported to authorities that his mother had a .38 Smith and Wesson gun in her possession when she placed the 911 call, but Liedle would not confirm whether that was the same make of gun seized at the scene.
Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Sam McCormack said Monday morning that a motive for the killings was sketchy.
However, he said that Swanson and her husband had argued last week about Swanson’s decision to enroll the two children in school in Augusta — Gene Swanson wanted his wife to continue to home school the kids on the ranch while she wanted them to attend public school.
The children attended their first classes at school in Augusta last week.
Oh yeah. Obviously homeschooling is evil! The root cause of all this insanity! Let's send our kids to public schools, where at least they'll be safe from shootings... < \sarcasm off >
Or did I read it differently than everyone else.
she enrolled them in public school, not wanting to homeschool any further and he, apparently, disagreed with the choice.
Everything COBOL should Remain COBOL.
They were already back in public school.
Apparently, she's a homeschooler who didn't want to be a homeschooler.
Sadly, these crimes happen very often. But, when the parents of public school students murder their children, we never hear: "A public schooler murdered her children." Yet, I'd almost bet that happens much more often. Now, we're going to hear again how homeschooling "is too stressful for parents to handle", and the anti-homeschool people like the NEA will use this tragic story, too, against us.
Wouldn't it have been easier if she'd just shot him?
They could have said the mom uses acne medicine, instead of homeschooling, and everyone would have commented on that and the homeschooling comments would not have come up.
Were the children killed because of homeschooling?
Did the mother kill because she homeschooled?
This is as bad as the garbage people in "conservative" circles are swallowing about the lies and spin in the media about GW! Absurd!
How about a statistic of children in public schools (or private) murdered by their parents?
We have a winner, folks.
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