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.
Swansons other two children boys, ages 16 and 20 were in the house at the time of the killing, but were unharmed in the incident.
Swansons 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 Swansons 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 Swansons 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.
No, like you, I was only stating my "observations". Those children really did behave like they never received much attention. I don't know why you think I'm hitting "below the belt" with my comments, yet you claim your comments are simply "nonjudgmental". BTW, I'm not "irritated". Just trying to make a point. Hope you get it this time.
That was my thought when I read it. Montana's "Big Sky Country" seems to be the perfect place for whack-jobs to "get away from it all." And in so doing, I think their isolation puts them right over the edge close to which they were living all along.
How sad for the children. What a whacked-out world we're living in now.
I agree 100%. I was a working mother myself up to a year and a half ago, though we avoided daycare by working split shifts. However, the other poster claimed first that SHM's children are ill-behaved. By making the opposite claim with my own observations, I was just trying to point out to him how his generalization is, indeed, "judgmental". And, if he can dish it out, he should be able to take it. That's all.
IOW, not all homeschoolers are whack, but nearly all such whackos are going to be homeschoolers.
Ever since I moved here, I see wacko every day. When a nut job makes national news, odds are good they're from Montana.
BTW, if you worked, you'd be even more "tired of taxes"....sorry, I couldn't resist.
Hey, PLEASE let me know where that happens! My wife is a teacher and doesn't make NEAR that much!
What? a cheap shot?
Dish, counter-dish, dish, counter-dish.
(Or something like that!)
A 2-year old who seems aloof and indifferent toward strangers......is not that uncommon. Some 2 year-olds can be handed from one person to the next without a whimper, regardless of the working/stay-home status of their parent(s).
Not the ones I know. Gotta go.
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