A Wellesley mother is indicted on two counts of first degree murder in the deaths of her two children

The indictment moves the case into the court where it will be tried.

A Norfolk County grand jury indicted Janette MacAusland, 49, on Monday, October 19, on two counts of first degree murder, one for each of her children. Kai MacAusland was 7. Ella MacAusland was 6. The children were found dead on April 24 inside the family home on Edgemoor Avenue in Wellesley, after police conducted a welfare check. Wellesley police and the Norfolk District Attorney's office allege that MacAusland strangled both children that day.

What prosecutors say happened next comes from her own family. MacAusland drove from Massachusetts to Bennington, Vermont, to an aunt's home, knocked frantically on the window and was covered in blood. The blood was her own. At her arraignment in Dedham District Court on May 6, a prosecutor told the court that she told her aunt she had tried to kill herself and that she had killed her two children. Vermont police, who had encountered her with a visible neck injury, contacted Massachusetts authorities, and she was arrested in Vermont and held for her return. She has been held without bail since.

The family was already in court before April. MacAusland's husband had filed for divorce and for custody of the children in October of last year, and the custody dispute was still running when the children died. The indictment moves the case from Dedham District Court to Norfolk Superior Court. No arraignment date in the superior court has been set. In Massachusetts, a conviction for first degree murder carries a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The charges are allegations, and MacAusland has not been tried, as of October 21.