A St. Croix County judge has ruled a North Dakota man will face trial on charges that he killed his three daughters. Aaron Schaffhausen is accused of slitting the throats of the girls at his ex-wife’s home in River Falls on July 10th and faces three counts of first degree intentional homicide.
During a preliminary hearing Tuesday morning, River Falls police investigator John Wilson described finding the body of one of the girls lying on a bed with dried blood on her face and her eyes open.
Aileen Splittgerber with the River Falls Police Department took a call from the girl’s mother reporting the murders. She described her as “hysterical” and says the mother reported getting a call from her ex-husband, in which he stated “he had killed the children and she could come home.”
Schaffhausen later turned himself in to police, although Wilson says he would not talk to officers. Wilson says police did see what appeared to be blood on a pair of shorts he was wearing at the time.
Schaffhausen is being held on a $2 million bond. He’ll be in court for an arraignment on August 28th.
AUDIO: Andrew Beckett reports (1:09)
WIXK’s Jeff Petersen contributed to this report.