A Massachusetts acupuncturist allegedly murdered her two young kids as she fought to get custody of them during her bitter divorce, cops said.
Janette MacAusland, 49, is accused of killing her children — Kai, 7, and Ella, 6 — in their home in Wellesley last Friday night before fleeing the state to a relative’s home in Vermont.
The alarmed relative then called cops for a welfare check on the “highly distraught” mom who was bleeding from the neck, authorities said — with a mugshot showing a wound across her throat.
“Officers attempted to engage her in conversation and, during the interaction, became increasingly concerned for the welfare of her children,” Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette said in a statement.
It wasn’t immediately clear how the children were killed.
Authorities also haven’t confirmed if MacAusland’s neck wound was self-inflicted.
MacAusland, who is an acupuncturist with New England Integrated Health, had been fighting to get custody of the children after her husband filed for divorce last October after nine years of marriage.
The children’s father, Samuel MacAusland, was seeking custody of the couple’s children and home, court filings show.
The parents had only just filed a joint motion on April 16, agreeing to have a third party investigate and make recommendations about the custody battle, according to records.
A guardian had been appointed on April 21 — just days before the slayings.
The children were in kindergarten and second grade at Schofield Elementary School.
Their former babysitter, Cale Darrah, told Boston25 the kids were well cared for and “full of life and laughter.”
“They were two beautiful children who were full of life and laughter, and it pains me to think that the world should remember them only by the way their lives were tragically ended,” she said.
The babysitter added in a separate interview with the Boston Globe that MacAusland appeared to be a doting mom.
“I kind of got the impression maybe that she felt like she was shouldering more of the stereotypical child rearing and housework kind of thing,” she said.
“Never did I enter the house and feel like there was anything that was extremely off.”
Massachusetts State Police issued an arrest warrant charging MacAusland with two counts of murder in the deaths of her children.
She is currently being held in Vermont, where she is expected to appear in Bennington County Superior Court later Monday on a fugitive from justice charge as authorities seek to have her returned to Massachusetts.
