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.
So, I assume if you started college yesterday that you are still a high school student? After all, you've only been there 1 day.
But you miss the point entirely. Why don't you like homeschooling? Just spit it out.
Are you willing to ascribe all child deaths by parents of public school children to the fact that they were publicly schooled?
I think the better bet would be HOW SOON will they be on TV blaming him. I will wager that we will here the cries of sympathy from NOW and calls for them to get her some psychological "help" no later than 9:00 PM Pacific time. Of course it will all be the fathers fault. They will play it up like he was living the life of Riley out in the camper when he should have been inside making sure that his wife wasn't murdering their kids. 9:00PM folks...set your clocks.
Sorry that we come across as mean sometimes. But, that's because we're often hopping-mad about something the NEA said against us, or we've been put into a defensive mode by anti-homeschoolers. There has been a stigma on homeschooling for a long time (not to mention laws restricting it), and the movement is still fighting hard against it. Unfortunately, sometimes it means that we have to lob a few in the public school direction. =)
Our school taxes are very high, and we intended to send our children to the local public schools. In fact, we live just around the corner from both the high school and middle school and just a 20-minute walk from the grade school. But, after I had my oldest in preschool there for just two months, I was forced to take him out by the educrat principal (long story). I know other homeschoolers who took their children out of public school, too, so obviously many of us are not fans of public school for those reasons.
This is normal? Daddy kicked out of the bed?
That's a funny observation. Is it based on anything solid?
There's a disconnect here, folks. Much more here than meets the eye. Everything based on this is pure speculation, the sheriff himself, who was the source of the homeschool/public school argument, said the motives for the killings were sketchy at the time of the interview.
Oh, no no no.....See, you didn't say "Let's not bring Rengade Homosexual Priests into this", you indicted a whole organization, so using your broad brush method, since a few women are cheap, easy sluts, your own lineage is questionable by extension.....
i know that homeschoolers take a lot of flack, and so i understand where you are coming from on this. after all, i live in No.VA which is a HQ of sorts for homeschoolers.
You don't believe that Mr. Yates bears some culpability in the deaths of his children?
she wasn't forced to homeschool in that he wasn't there with a GUN to her head, but obviously it was an area of continued TENSIONS between them. They had been attending public school classes but clearly it was not a MOOT POINT.
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