THE DARK SIDE OF IOWA
Michael Swanson
#6658252
photo courtesy City Pages
Full Name: Michael Richard Swanson
DOB: May 11, 1993
Charge: 1st degree murder
County: Kossuth & Humboldt
City: Algona & Humboldt
Current Status: Iowa State Penitentiary
Date of Crime: November 15, 2010
Tentative Discharge Date: Life
Victims: Sheila Myers & Vicky Bowman-Hall
DOB: May 11, 1993
Charge: 1st degree murder
County: Kossuth & Humboldt
City: Algona & Humboldt
Current Status: Iowa State Penitentiary
Date of Crime: November 15, 2010
Tentative Discharge Date: Life
Victims: Sheila Myers & Vicky Bowman-Hall
For nearly two hours, 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.
Michael was only 11 years old 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, Michael was caught before someone got hurt. Until November 15, 2010.
“It all changed when I woke up that Monday,” Kathleen 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, Michael drove from St. Louis Park to northern Iowa, where he allegedly shot and killed two convenience store clerks, Sheila Myers, 61, and Vicky Bowman-Hall, 47.
On that Monday night, Michael burst into a gas station in Algona wearing a ski mask, pulled a handgun and demanded cash and cigarettes from the 47-year-old clerk, Vicky Bowman-Hall. After Vicky handed over the cash and smokes, Michael shot her.
At trial, the prosecution played a two-hour videotaped interview that Michael gave Iowa criminal investigators shortly after the shootings. In the video, Michael’s calm demeanor struck a chilling contrast with his mother’s raw emotion on the stand. He described in an unaffected tone how Sheila had given him cash before he shot her in the face from two feet away. “I felt powerful. I just didn’t care,” he said. “My adrenaline was going good. I just felt like, ‘Well, sometimes people get shot.’”
He talked about how, after not sleeping for four days, he chose the Humboldt Kum & Go store to rob because Sheila was the only person there. He put on a ski masked, packed a handgun and pointed it at her while setting the bag on the table. She put the money inside it, Michael said. “Then I shot her,” he said. “And I left. I just walked out.”
His voice on the videotape reflected little emotion, but he smiled and scratched his head when re-enacting the noise that Sheila made when he shot her, a “half-scream, half-gasp.” He shot her in the face, he said, because “it was final.” “If I was just gonna shoot to injure, why would I shoot her at all?”
When Michael went with an aunt to do community service at Pioneer Park in Annandale, he stole $250 from the nonprofit. The aunt demanded he return the money and apologize. Then after returning home, she found two of her deceased husband’s shotguns in the trunk of her car and a hatchet, baseball bat and handguns in the bed of her four-wheeler. She called Kathleen to pick him up immediately, fearing he was going to hurt her.
The baby-faced teen was busted at a McDonald’s about 60 miles from Algona where workers recognized him from the APB. He had been driving the Jeep registered to his mother. Michael told cops after the arrest that he shot the women because he did not want them to identify him or call the police.
Michael was only 11 years old 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, Michael was caught before someone got hurt. Until November 15, 2010.
“It all changed when I woke up that Monday,” Kathleen 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, Michael drove from St. Louis Park to northern Iowa, where he allegedly shot and killed two convenience store clerks, Sheila Myers, 61, and Vicky Bowman-Hall, 47.
On that Monday night, Michael burst into a gas station in Algona wearing a ski mask, pulled a handgun and demanded cash and cigarettes from the 47-year-old clerk, Vicky Bowman-Hall. After Vicky handed over the cash and smokes, Michael shot her.
At trial, the prosecution played a two-hour videotaped interview that Michael gave Iowa criminal investigators shortly after the shootings. In the video, Michael’s calm demeanor struck a chilling contrast with his mother’s raw emotion on the stand. He described in an unaffected tone how Sheila had given him cash before he shot her in the face from two feet away. “I felt powerful. I just didn’t care,” he said. “My adrenaline was going good. I just felt like, ‘Well, sometimes people get shot.’”
He talked about how, after not sleeping for four days, he chose the Humboldt Kum & Go store to rob because Sheila was the only person there. He put on a ski masked, packed a handgun and pointed it at her while setting the bag on the table. She put the money inside it, Michael said. “Then I shot her,” he said. “And I left. I just walked out.”
His voice on the videotape reflected little emotion, but he smiled and scratched his head when re-enacting the noise that Sheila made when he shot her, a “half-scream, half-gasp.” He shot her in the face, he said, because “it was final.” “If I was just gonna shoot to injure, why would I shoot her at all?”
When Michael went with an aunt to do community service at Pioneer Park in Annandale, he stole $250 from the nonprofit. The aunt demanded he return the money and apologize. Then after returning home, she found two of her deceased husband’s shotguns in the trunk of her car and a hatchet, baseball bat and handguns in the bed of her four-wheeler. She called Kathleen to pick him up immediately, fearing he was going to hurt her.
The baby-faced teen was busted at a McDonald’s about 60 miles from Algona where workers recognized him from the APB. He had been driving the Jeep registered to his mother. Michael told cops after the arrest that he shot the women because he did not want them to identify him or call the police.
Source: NY Daily News