Crime

Wellesley mother accused of killing her 2 children appears in Vermont court as new details emerge

Janette MacAusland is accused of murdering her two young children, whose bodies were found in the family’s Wellesley home Friday night.

April 27, 2026 | 11:51 AM

4 minutes to read

killing — An undated photo of Ella MacAusland (left) and Kai MacAusland with their mother, Janette MacAusland. *– Photo provided by Cale Darrah*

Janette MacAusland’s social media footprint paints a rosy, if unremarkable, picture of life in a quiet Wellesley neighborhood, from photos of grinning children to a post on a community Facebook page soliciting cupcake recommendations for an upcoming birthday party.

But court records tell another story: Since October, MacAusland had been locked in a contentious divorce and custody battle over her children, 6-year-old Ella and 7-year-old Kai MacAusland. It was in the midst of this legal saga that authorities say Janette MacAusland murdered her two children and fled to Vermont, where she was arrested over the weekend.

MacAusland, 49, appeared virtually in a Vermont courtroom Monday, bowing her head to folded hands as she waited for her hearing to begin. She conversed briefly with a judge to confirm she wanted to waive her right to challenge her extradition back to Massachusetts, where she faces two counts of murder.

“She’s decided that the best thing is to get back to Massachusetts as soon as possible and address these charges,” an attorney for MacAusland explained.

What do we know about the killings?

Janette MacAusland was arrested in Vermont after authorities say the Wellesley mother killed her two children. – Bennington Police Department

Police in Bennington, Vermont, said they received a call around 9:15 p.m. Friday after MacAusland turned up at a family home in town “appearing highly distraught” and with a visible neck wound. As they spoke with MacAusland, officers “became increasingly concerned for the welfare of her children” and asked the Wellesley Police Department to conduct a check, Bennington police said.

At about 9:50 p.m., Wellesley police reported finding the two children dead inside the family’s Edgemoor Avenue home. The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office has said little about how the MacAusland children died or what may have happened inside the house.

A Bennington police report obtained by The Boston Globe indicates MacAusland’s aunt, Sandra Mattison, called authorities after MacAusland showed up at her home and began knocking on her window Friday.

“I asked where her husband was and she said he was at the lake. I asked her where her children were and she told me that she had killed them,” Mattison wrote in a statement provided to police, according to the Globe. Mattison reportedly said her niece also told her she’d driven to a bridge and tried to jump but found she couldn’t.

‘“I wanted the [three] of us to go to God together but it didn’t work,’” she allegedly told her aunt. MacAusland purportedly told a police officer she strangled her children and left them in her bed in Wellesley, the Globe reported.

She is being held at Marble Valley Correctional Facility without bail pending her return to Massachusetts.

Janette MacAusland appears via video conference in Rutland Superior Court on Monday, April 27, 2026, in Rutland, Vermont. – Rutland Superior Court

A Dedham District Court judge on Monday allowed Norfolk County prosecutors’ request to impound a Massachusetts State Police trooper’s report and affidavit on the case for six months.

“If information about the investigation were made public at this stage, it might result in widespread media coverage,” prosecutors argued in their motion. “The public release of the information contained in the affidavit would contribute to the increased psychological and emotional distress of the people involved, and cause apprehension on the part of the witnesses named.”

It was not immediately clear when MacAusland will face the murder charges.

What do we know about the MacAusland family?

Court records indicate Samuel MacAusland — Janette MacAusland’s husband — filed for divorce in October after nearly 10 years of marriage and sought custody of the couple’s children. Janette MacAusland also asked for custody, and on April 16 the couple agreed to have a court-appointed guardian ad litem investigate the “legal custody and parenting plan issues” and offer recommendations to the court.

The MacAusland children were in kindergarten and second grade at Schofield Elementary School, Wellesley Superintendent David Lussier previously told the Associated Press.

The Wellesley home on Edgemoor Avenue where Janette MacAusland lived and where she is alleged to have killed her children, ages 6 and 7. – Lane Turner/Boston Globe Staff

An acupuncturist affiliated with New England Integrated Health, Janette MacAusland received her undergraduate degree in Vermont before attending the New England School of Acupuncture, according to an archived staff biography on New England Integrated Health’s website. MacAusland later founded the pop-up volunteer clinic Boston Acupuncture Trauma Relief in response to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

She and Samuel MacAusland bought their home on the Wellesley-Natick town line in 2018, and property records indicate the parcel was valued at just over $1.2 million in 2026.

Siblings were ‘full of life and laughter,’ former babysitter says

Cale Darrah, who babysat for the family for about a year, told the Globe the MacAusland children seemed happy and healthy, also describing Janette MacAusland as an attentive mother who methodically planned meals and ensured the kids took their medications.

“Never did I enter the house and feel like there was anything that was extremely off,” she told the Globe.

Speaking to Boston 25 News, Darrah said the siblings 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.”