Uploaded March 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Full Interrogation of Michael Swanson
CARROLL, IOWA - For nearly two hours Wednesday, Michael Swanson's mother sobbed as she told a jury about 18 years of near-misses with a son who from the very beginning was never like other kids.
They knew something was wrong early on, Kathleen Swanson testified. From birth, the boy never slept and never stopped moving. She had to quit her St. Louis Park day-care business after she found Michael, still a toddler, preparing to jump on top of an infant lying on the floor.
He was only 11 when a psychiatrist told her that he was a lost cause and needed to be locked up. His grandmother, his aunt, even his own mother feared he was going to hurt them -- and he usually admitted thinking about it, she said.
But always, it seemed, Swanson was caught before someone got hurt. Until Nov. 15, 2010.
"It all changed when I woke up that Monday," she testified, her shoulders heaving as she described the morning she awoke to discover her Jeep, her debit cards and her very troubled 17-year-old son all missing. That night, Swanson drove from St. Louis Park to northern Minnesota to Iowa, where he allegedly shot and killed two convenience store clerks.
Star Tribune
startribune.com/mom-tells-of-18-years-of-terror/124366264
Full Interrogation of Michael Swanson
CARROLL, IOWA - For nearly two hours Wednesday, Michael Swanson's mother sobbed as she told a jury about 18 years of near-misses with a son who from the very beginning was never like other kids.
They knew something was wrong early on, Kathleen Swanson testified. From birth, the boy never slept and never stopped moving. She had to quit her St. Louis Park day-care business after she found Michael, still a toddler, preparing to jump on top of an infant lying on the floor.
He was only 11 when a psychiatrist told her that he was a lost cause and needed to be locked up. His grandmother, his aunt, even his own mother feared he was going to hurt them -- and he usually admitted thinking about it, she said.
But always, it seemed, Swanson was caught before someone got hurt. Until Nov. 15, 2010.
"It all changed when I woke up that Monday," she testified, her shoulders heaving as she described the morning she awoke to discover her Jeep, her debit cards and her very troubled 17-year-old son all missing. That night, Swanson drove from St. Louis Park to northern Minnesota to Iowa, where he allegedly shot and killed two convenience store clerks.
Star Tribune
startribune.com/mom-tells-of-18-years-of-terror/124366264
