SALON

Wednesday, Jul 25, 2012 2:45 AM UTC

ND man bound over for trial in daughters’ deaths

By

Topics: From the Wires,

ND man bound over for trial in daughters' deathsAaron Schaffhausen who is accused of killing his three daughters, sits in a St. Croix County, Wis., court room for a preliminary hearing, Tuesday, July 24, 2012. St. Croix County Circuit Judge Scott Needham said prosecutors presented enough evidence during the preliminary hearing to persuade him that Schaffhausen probably killed all three girls and should stand trial. (AP Photo/Star Tribune, Richard Sennott) MANDATORY CREDIT; ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS OUT; MAGS OUT; TWIN CITIES TV OUT(Credit: AP)

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A North Dakota construction worker must stand trial in the deaths of his three young daughters, a Wisconsin judge ruled Tuesday after hearing how the girl’s terrified mother called police and an investigator found the children tucked in bed with their faces covered in dried blood.

St. Croix County Circuit Judge Scott Needham said prosecutors presented enough evidence during a preliminary hearing to persuade him Aaron Schaffhausen probably killed all three girls. Faced with three bodies and an alleged confession, Schaffhausen’s attorney didn’t call a single witness.

Schaffhausen is charged with three counts of first-degree intentional homicide. He faces three mandatory life sentences if he’s convicted.

According to court documents, Schaffhausen, 34, and his wife, Jessica Schaffhausen, divorced in January. He lived in Minot while the couple’s three daughters, 11-year-old Amara, 8-year-old Sophie and 5-year-old Cecilia, lived with their mother in a house they rented from her ex-husband in River Falls, a city of 15,000 about 30 miles east of the Twin Cities.

Aaron Schaffhausen texted his ex-wife on July 10 and asked for permission for an unplanned visit with the girls. The mother was out but agreed to the visit. He showed up at the house that afternoon and the girls’ baby sitter left.

He called his ex-wife two hours later and said he had killed the children. An hour later, he turned himself in.

Ailene Splittgerber, who answers the phones at the River Falls Police Department, testified she took a call from Jessica Schaffhausen that afternoon. The mother was on her way back from Ramsey County, Minn., and was in tears, Splittgerber said.

She told Splittgerber her ex-husband had called her and said she could come home because he had killed the girls. Splittgerber said Jessica Schaffhausen was “hysterical, hyperventilating, very much in distress” and she had to tell her to slow down because she didn’t understand her.

Speaking in short, clipped answers, River Falls Police Investigator John Wilson described how he entered the house with a paramedic and discovered each girl in their beds, covers pulled up to their necks, their eyes open and lifeless and what appeared to be dried blood on their mouths and cheeks. The walls of one bedroom were splattered with blood and the carpet was covered with a large pool of blood, he said.

Autopsies revealed what Wilson called “gaping” wounds across the girls’ necks. Wilson also testified he noticed what appeared to be blood on Aaron Schaffhausen’s shorts, adding Schaffhausen refused to speak with detectives.

Jessica Schaffhausen did not testify Tuesday.

“I think that’s more than enough to show a felony was committed by (Schaffhausen),” Assistant State Attorney General Gary Freyberg told the judge.

Schaffhausen’s attorney, public defender John Kucinski, tried to raise doubts about whether River Falls Police were operating out of their jurisdiction, questioning whether the house lies in St. Croix or Pierce counties. Freyberg assured the judge the house is in St. Croix County.

Kucinski managed to get Wilson to say he didn’t know if police had recovered any weapons, but he called no witnesses and declined to make a concluding argument as to why his client should be released. He said he’d review the hearing transcript and file something later.

Schaffhausen remains jailed on a $2 million cash bond. He’s due back in court on Aug. 28 to enter a plea.

More Todd Richmond.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
283 points284 points | 58 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
252 points253 points | 10 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
195 points196 points | 1 comment
vote
Today in How Did I Miss This: Iowa GOP is pushing to cut the pay of the remaining Supreme Court Justices that voted for legalization of gay marriage.
84 points85 points | 8 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
53 points54 points | 8 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations