St. Louis Park Teen to Plead Guilty in Second Iowa Slaying

The St. Louis Park teenager last November now plans on pleading guilty to killing another clerk, according to the Associated Press.

Michael Richard Swanson, 18, is expected to enter the plea on Thursday in Kossuth County, the AP reports. Earlier in the day, Swanson is expected to be sentenced to life in prison on his previous conviction, which came on June 23.

Swanson shot the two clerks — Vicky Bowman-Hall, 47, and Sheila Myers, 61 — in separate armed robberies Nov. 15, when he was still 17, after fleeing from his St. Louis Park home in his mother's vehicle. 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.

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.