East Metro. Aaron Schaffhausen regained the trust of his ex-wife last summer, she testified Thursday. I killed the kids. By Pam Louwagie. After bouts of obsessive phone calls and threats surrounding their messy divorce, Schaffhausen had seemed to be getting better, a calm and composed Jessica Schaffhausen testified at her ex-husband's insanity trial Thursday: He told her that he had stopped drinking, she said, and that he joined an online dating service and that he was moving on and was in a better place.
Instead of profanity and anger-laden phone calls from the North Dakota town where he was working, she said he was friendly, even when hashing out issues left over from their marriage.
They also talked about books, music and movies. Aaron once again talked about taking part in their daughters' lives. So when her ex-husband flustered her with a surprise visit to the Twin Cities in July and said he wanted to see the girls at their home in River Falls, Jessica Schaffhausen conceded.
She wanted the girls to have a father, she said. When Aaron called her again that afternoon as she was getting in her car to drive home from work, she knew that she had been fooled, she testified.
Schaffhausen delivered just one line, she said: "You can come home now, I killed the kids. Aaron Schaffhausen has pleaded guilty to killing year-old Amara, 8-year-old Sophie and 5-year-old Cecilia. His attorneys are trying to persuade a St. Croix County jury that Schaffhausen suffered from a mental disease or defect and should go to a mental institution instead of prison. Attorneys kept Jessica Schaffhausen on the stand for most of the day Thursday, her second day of testimony.
