A Minnesota woman who hung herself and her five-year-old son in a murder-suicide on Monday left behind a typed note lamenting her lengthy custody battle with the boy’s father.
Gina Summers, 47, and her son, Jude, were found hanged in the basement inside of their home on Bayview Place in Orono after police were called to the property for a second time to conduct a welfare check around 8pm on Monday.
Authorities say her typed and signed note was discovered nearby. In the note, she ‘talked about prior domestic abuse and issues with the system and allowing a child to be ripped from his mother,’ and it ended with, ‘Don’t let this happen to another child and mother,’ the Star Tribune reported.
Police say the child’s father, Jeffry Sandberg, aged, 51, called 911 on Monday when he couldn’t reach his son or Summers when he was supposed to pick the boy up as part of a scheduled custody arrangement around 4pm.
Authorities told Sandberg, who lives in Minnetonka, there was nothing they could do since no one answered the door at the home when they first went to check, but said to call again if the situation remained the same.
Tragic: Gina Summers, 47, and her son, Jude (above together), were found hanged in the basement inside of their home in Orono, Minnesota on Monday. She left a suicide note talking about the custody rift with the boy’s father, Jeffry Sandberg
Police say Sandberg (above with Jude), called 911 when he couldn’t reach his son or the mother when he was supposed to pick the boy up as part of a scheduled custody arrangement around 4pm
Police were called to the home (above) for a second time to conduct a welfare check around 8pm and made the tragic discovery inside the basement
Sandberg then called again when he still couldn’t get in contact with Summers.
One of her relatives who lived nearby came to the home with keys to give to police who then discovered the mother and son dead.
‘It wouldn’t have mattered if we would have [entered] at that 4 o’clock time or that 8 o’clock time,’ Police Chief Correy Farniok said. ‘[The deaths] occurred prior to that time.’
Sandberg and Summers were never married, but began a romantic relationship in 2008.
The next year they discussed having a child together through in vitro fertilization and their son was born in 2012 after several failed pregnancy attempts.
Sandberg and Summers were never married, but began a romantic relationship in 2008. The next year they discussed having a child together through in vitro fertilization. Their son was born in 2012 after several failed pregnancy attempts
In July 2015, the relationship soured and the woman filed an order for protection against Sandberg after saying he had been physically abusing her since 2009.
Court records show Summers shared custody of the five-year-old boy with Sandberg and that she also had filed a civil case against him.
She was suing him to fulfill an alleged agreement to cover 50 per cent of their fertility treatments she underwent before having their son, WCCO reported.
Summers, who worked as a realtor for Fazendin Realty, claimed in one document that Sandberg refused to pay child support for nine months and that she and her son were living in poverty.
In July 2015, the relationship soured and the woman filed an order for protection against Sandberg (above) after saying he had been physically abusing her. She was suing him to fulfill an alleged agreement to cover 50 per cent of the fertility treatments she underwent
They both have previously accused each other of harming the boy.
They filed court motions against one another over which school district Jude should attend, and on Friday, Hennepin County District Judge Edward Wahl ruled in Sandberg’s favor.
Of his son’s death, Sandberg released a statement saying how they enjoyed a family fishing trip a week ago to the Boundary Waters and now he’s ‘planning the funeral for Jude, murdered by his mother, Gina Summers, when he was getting ready for his first day of Ready Start Kindergarten,’ the Tribune reported.
He also challenged Summers’ allegations and wrote, ‘since the onset of the case in January 2015 when she falsely accused the father of domestic abuse, never missed an opportunity to disrupt the established father-son relationship, both inside and outside of the Family Court paternity proceedings.’
Sandberg added that Summers traumatized him and his family over the past two-and-a-half years with ‘her actions and inactions, including her scheduling of multiple motions before the court, not only before but also after the trial, and subsequently to the Court of Appeals, and her absolute refusal to participate in ordered mediation.’