Michael Swanson was seventeen when he would shoot and kill two clerks during two robberies. According to court documents Michael Swanson who is from Minnesota would travel to Iowa to rob a store where he would shoot and kill the store clerk. He would travel to another Iowa county where he would kill another store clerk. Michael Swanson would be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Since being in prison this teen killer has been convicted of attempted murder dealing with a violent assault on another inmate.
Michael Swanson 2023 Information
| Name | Michael Richard Swanson |
| Offender Number | 6658252 |
| Sex | M |
| Birth Date | 05/11/1993 |
| Location | Iowa Medical & Classification Center |
| Offense | MURDER 1ST DEGREE |
| TDD/SDD * | LIFE |
| Commitment Date | 07/07/2011 |
| Recall Date | 03/04/2089 |
| Mandatory Minimum (if applicable) | 01/04/2089 |
Michael Swanson Other News
A man imprisoned for killing two North Iowa store clerks was in solitary confinement on Friday after attacking another inmate, officials say.
Michael Richard Swanson, 21, and fellow inmate Michael Ivester are charged with felony attempted murder.
Swanson, serving time for the 2010 shooting deaths of Vicky Bowman-Hall and Sheila Myers, slashed another inmate in the neck multiple times at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville on Nov. 13, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit.
The victim needed stitches to close 15 lacerations, the complaint states. A corrections officer and another inmate allegedly pushed Swanson off the victim.
Prison officials say Ivester also was involved in the attack. Officials would not identify the victim.
Swanson and Ivester have been separated from the rest of the prison population. They are not allowed to interact with one another or other inmates, said Iowa Department of Corrections Assistant Director Fred Scaletta.
No staff members were injured. The incident did not result in a lock down at the classification center, Scaletta said.PauseCurrent Time0:00/Duration Time0:00Stream TypeLIVELoaded: 0%Progress: 0%0:00Fullscreen00:00Mute
Swanson was imprisoned for the shooting deaths of Bowman-Hall, 47, of Burt, and Myers, 61, of Humboldt, on Nov. 15, 2010.
Bowman-Hall was working at the Crossroads gas station in Algona. Myers was shot later that night at a Kum and Go in Humboldt.
A jury convicted Swanson of first-degree murder for Myers’ death. After the verdict, he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for the death of Bowman-Hall.
Initially sentenced to life in prison, Swanson was one of 38 inmates convicted as juveniles whose life-time prison sentences were commuted by Gov. Terry Branstad.
Branstad made the move after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled juveniles could not be sentenced to life without parole.
Swanson, who was 17 at the time of the killings, will now be eligible for parole after serving 60 years in prison.
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Michael Swanson, who killed two convenience store workers in 2010 and was convicted in 2011, will serve an additional 25 years after pleading guilty to attempted murder
Swanson, 21, made the guilty plea Tuesday to slashing a fellow inmate with a knife at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center in Coralville.
A second inmate, Michael Ivester, 34, pleaded guilty to attempted murder in late October.
On Nov. 15, 2010, Swanson, then 17 years old, shot Sheila Myers at a Humboldt convenience store. Earlier in the evening, he shot Vicky Bowman-Hall at a convenience store in Algona.
Both women were survived by husbands and children.
Swanson was convicted of first-degree murder and first-degree robbery for killing Myers. He shot Myers in the face with a .40-caliber Beretta handgun and left the Kum & Go store with $31 and some cigarettes.
He received a life sentence for that murder.
Swanson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and first-degree robbery for Bowman-Hall’s death.
He admitted during his plea hearing that he walked into the Crossroads convenience store on the night of her death armed and shot Bowman-Hall with the intention of killing her.
Swanson received a life sentence for that murder.
In 2013, Gov. Terry Branstad commuted the life sentences of 38 Iowa inmates convicted as juveniles, including Swanson, to terms of 60 years in prison before they could be eligible for parole.
That order came following a 2012 United States Supreme Court ruling that threw out automatic life sentences for juveniles.
A re-sentencing hearing for Swanson has been continued indefinitely due to the attempted murder case, according to Iowa Courts Online.
https://www.messengernews.net/news/local-news/2015/11/swanson-gets-25-years-for-slashing-inmate/
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My heart breaks for this entire story. Mother is actually right. She did try everything she could to get the help her son desperately needed.. if she reads this I just want to thank her for her story and opening up. Don’t blame yourself. The doctors and psychiatrist were never going to be able to help him because they didn’t understand either. Things happen for a reason and sometimes we don’t understand why. After watching the show “evil lives here” I realized it was obvious Michael suffered from extreme trauma. But from what? We don’t know. I think if you believe in this stuff, and anything is possible, so don’t be close minded here, but there was a bigger picture we didn’t see. Our souls come form somewhere else. I think there is a possibility he had trauma from a past life. Especially because he had paranoia that someone always wanted to harm him and always needed knives to protect himself, did y’all not notice that he was just stuck in that mindset? That’s what trauma does to you. You get molded into behaving a certain way to fend for yourself. All his behavior was unexplained. I honestly would have talked to a medium or psychic with experience in past life. And if you think this is stupid, just wait until you are on the other side of life. There is life after death and our souls are placed on earth for a reason. His mother was looking for help in all of the wrong places.
That’s crap. As a trauma and abuse survivor myself, I made myself a great life. I survived, dealt with things and moved forward. This pos was a psychopath from day one. He should be euthanized for his crimes. He has zero remorse and CANNOT be rehabilitated. The earth is safer with this demon in prison. I hope another psychopath takes him out in prison. He deserves nothing but torture.
I don’t buy the trauma or abuse excuse. I would put money down he has mental illness and more hid it well. He stole money for drugs, and lied about ot (true addict behavior). The Mother (parents) were dismissed, and blamed, judged and until the extreme happens, as like this, then its like we did all this. The sad fact that the group home dismissed him with charges instead of moving him to a hospital speaks volumes. There are bad seeds and He is one. He will never get out. and that is w
here he needs to be.
Eliza, I believe you have psych problems.
You’re trying to excuse away Swanson’ s evil with an imaginative story about him carrying over trauma for the afterlife? Are you FKN serious?
Next you’ll be bringing him cookies and reading him bedtime stories.
Dumb broad.
Do not underestimate the ability of the person to make you feel crazy. I had a son that terrorized me up to age 16, when he punched me in the arm and I kicked him out. He still broke in my house and stole from my older son and myself. He was a master manipulator. Michael’s mother did try, but got no help, just like myself. But, the one thing I didn’t do was explain away his behavior and give excuses. I think his Mom, mainly because the father didn’t seem to be in a lot of the story, was so stressed and did blame herself, even though it was her son all along and the system.
He clearly had some kind of mental illness as many other people on this show. Unfortunately, 15-20 years ago there wasn’t the awareness about mental problems as there is today, that’s why he wasn’t treated properly.
I just finished watching Evil Lives Here. This is an impossible situation. The parents saw that there was something fundamentally wrong with their child and tried numerous times to get the help he needed. However the professionals let them down time and again.
In my personal opinion tho, not every baby is born ‘perfect’, some might have a genetic or physical defect. I think there are people whom are born with emotional defects. Michael is an example of having something wrong or broken. His loving mother and father tried their best. They tried to get him help. However, there was nothing they could’ve done. It looked like he had traits of a psychopath. Looking into an article that’s been Medically reviewed by Timothy J. Legg, PhD, PsyD — Written by Sara Lindberg on January 9, 2019,it mentions:
‘Since the term psychopath is not an official diagnosis, experts refer to the signs described under ASPD (anti social personality disorder). According to Masand, some of the more common signs to be aware of include:
socially irresponsible behavior
disregarding or violating the rights of others
inability to distinguish between right and wrong
difficulty with showing remorse or empathy
tendency to lie often
manipulating and hurting others
recurring problems with the law
general disregard towards safety and responsibility
Other behaviors that may be signs of ASPD include a tendency to take risks, reckless behavior, and being deceitful with frequent lying.’
If it didn’t happen when he was 17, it would’ve happened later I believe. Sad situation for ALL involved. Thank you for sharing your story as well.
The Michael Swanson story is every parent’s worst nightmare. – this young man was exhibiting disturbing behaviour indicative of psychiatric illness from childhood. This is a major failure of the Mental Health system.
Describing persons as psychopaths is unhelpful. He is Mentally ill. period.