Community Corner

Second Trial for St. Louis Park Teen Moved

Michael Richard Swanson faces two counts of first-degree murder and robbery.

A trial for the St. Louis Park teenager in November has been moved because of the publicity the case has received.

Michael Richard Swanson, 18, is set to stand trial in Lyon County, Iowa, on July 27 on charges of first-degree murder and robbery. That trial was originally slated to be held in Kossuth County. A judge approved the venue change last week, according to online Iowa court records.

Swanson faces the same charges in Carroll County, where he is set to stand trial on June 20. That case was originally in Humboldt County.

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On Nov. 15, 2010, the teenager allegedly stole his mother's vehicle in St. Louis Park, then drove to Iowa, where he shot and killed shot the two clerks — Vicky Bowman-Hall, 47, and Sheila Myers, 61 — in separate robbery attempts. Police believe that both clerks complied with his demands for cash and cigarettes, but he shot them anyway to keep the clerks from calling the police.

Swanson had enrolled at St. Louis Park High School on Nov. 8,  just five days after being released from the Hennepin County Home School, a residential treatment center for adolescent offenders. He had been sentenced there in the summer for stealing a vehicle in St. Louis Park and then crashing it while drunk.

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According to city records, police had visited the Swanson family home 10 times since 2005, including five times during 2010. Those calls involved reports of theft, assault, a missing person, vehicle theft, a weapons violation and shots fired.


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