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

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, is expected in a Vermont courtroom Monday, where she will be arraigned as a fugitive from justice. The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office said she also faces two counts of murder upon her return to Massachusetts.  

What do we know about the killings?

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 DA’s office has said little about how the MacAusland children died or what may have happened inside the house. 

For now, Janette MacAusland is being held at Marble Valley Correctional Facility without bail, Bennington police said. 

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. 

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 Boston 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.”

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.