Passer-by led to MN teen’s arrest in Iowa killings

Published 10:03 am Friday, November 19, 2010

DES MOINES — Webster City Mayor Janet Adams says an alert passer-by led to the arrest of a Minnesota teenager charged in the killings of two convenience store clerks in northern Iowa.

Adams says the passer-by noticed a young man in a vehicle stopped at a traffic signal in Webster City near a McDonald’s for “a period of time” Monday night.

Adams says the passer-by “thought that seemed odd” and called police. Officers arrived and arrested 17-year-old Michael Swanson in the McDonald’s parking lot.

Adams says Police Chief Brian Hughes was proactive after receiving word of the killings. She says he and other officers went to convenience stores and late-night restaurants, giving them a description of the suspect’s Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Swanson, of St. Louis Park, Minn., is accused of killing clerks Vicky Bowman-Hall in Algona and Sheila Myers in Humboldt.