Wellesley mother charged with murder after two children found dead in home

A welfare check that began with a call from Vermont police ended with two children dead inside a home on Edgemoor Avenue and their mother facing two counts of murder.

Wellesley police said they received the request for the wellness check around 9:30 p.m. Friday, April 25, 2026. When officers arrived at the home, they found the children, ages 6 and 7, deceased. The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office later said the children’s mother, Janette MacAusland, 49, was charged with two counts of murder.

MacAusland was arrested in Bennington, Vermont, as a fugitive from justice and is expected to appear in Bennington County Superior Court on Monday, April 27, 2026, on that charge before the Massachusetts homicide case moves forward. Wellesley police and Massachusetts State Police are investigating the deaths, while the Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office is handling the murder case in the town that falls within Norfolk County.

Authorities have not publicly released a motive, a cause of death, or a detailed sequence of events showing what happened between the original call and the discovery inside the home. That leaves investigators reconstructing the final hours of the case, including why the Vermont police department asked for the check and what officers found after the call was relayed to Wellesley.

School officials said the children were part of the Wellesley Public School System. They were identified as students at Schofield Elementary School, one a second grader and the other a kindergartner. The school and district now sit at the center of a community trying to absorb the news that two young students were found dead in their home.

Neighbors described the family as kind and said the children seemed cheerful. One neighbor said police asked for Ring camera footage as they canvassed the area, a sign that detectives were quickly trying to build a minute-by-minute timeline from doorbell video, witness accounts, and the first response at the scene.

For now, the case sits at the point true-crime watchers know often determines everything that follows: the gap between a welfare check and the first hard forensic answers. The next moves will likely turn on extradition or transfer proceedings, formal arraignment in Massachusetts, and whatever the medical examiner and investigators can determine about what happened inside the home.