St. Louis Park Teen Murder Suspect Set for Second Arraignment

The St. Louis Park 17-year-old accused of last month is now set for his second arraignment.

Michael Richard Swanson will appear in a Humboldt County courtroom on Dec. 28, according to online Iowa court records. Eight days before that, the teenager is set for an arraignment in Kossuth County. The teenager is facing first-degree murder and robbery charges in each county as an adult.

Investigators believe that, on the night of Nov. 15, Swanson shot the two clerks in separate attempted robberies. Earlier, Swanson had reportedly fled from his St. Louis Park home in his mother's vehicle.

According to a criminal complaint, the clerks — 47-year-old Vicky Bowman-Hall and 61-year-old Sheila Myers — complied with Swanson when he pointed a gun at them and demanded cash and cigarettes, but the teenager shot them to prevent them from calling police and identifying him.

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 — five of those occasions during 2010. Those calls involved reports of theft, assault, a missing person, vehicle theft, a weapons violation and shots fired.