1867
The White Earth Reservation was created in 1867 by a treaty between the United States and the Mississippi Band of the Chippewa Indians, and is one of seven Chippewa reservations in Minnesota.
about 0:10:56The story
White Earth is a small town in Becker County in north-western Minnesota, about three hours and 45 minutes from Minneapolis and an hour and ten minutes from Fargo, North Dakota. It sits inside the White Earth Reservation, which was created in 1867 by a treaty between the United States and the Mississippi Band of the Chippewa Indians and is spread across three counties. The town itself covers 3.9 square miles, much of it on a lake, and had a population of 548 at the time of the story, with a median age of 28.6 and a median household income of $20,547. The surrounding country is flat, wooded and full of lakes, and the boundaries between the small towns there are largely lost in the trees.
Chad Swedeberg was about 34 in 2007. He lived in rural Becker County with his wife, Leslie Fane, in a house in the woods that also held Leslie's son Jesse Fane, Jesse's wife and three children, and Leslie's sister and her child: nine people in all. Chad and Leslie had married without telling Chad's family, who did not approve of the match, partly because Jesse was only three years younger than Chad.
On the evening of 12 April 2007 Jesse and Chad visited Ken Swedeberg, Chad's brother, who lived nearby. Jesse later said the visit was partly to mock Ken's maple syrup, and that the brothers got on well. Jesse said he saw no tension between them.
On the morning of 13 April 2007 Chad planned to go early to the syruping camp to cut wood for the evaporator before Albert Baker, a 72-year-old retired electrician who had built Chad's sap traps and condenser, and Jesse arrived. He was delayed at the house waiting for a television segment about a man who lived with wolves. The segment did not air, and Chad left at about 8 a.m., telling Leslie to watch for it and report back.
Chad declined, saying he was going syruping with Al Baker. Baker agreed but said he had to buy groceries first.
Shortly after Chad left, Leslie heard two gunshots from the direction of the syruping camp. It was April, outside hunting season, and she thought it odd. At 9.45 she called again, still got no answer, and walked down the trail to the camp, hearing a four-wheeler in the woods on the way. She found Chad lying motionless near the maple cooker.
Chad was on his back in a winter jacket, blue jeans and insulated boots, his cap pulled over his face. Leslie called Ken Swedeberg at 9.55 and 911 at 9.57. White Earth tribal police arrived a minute or two after 10 a.m. and Ken led them out on his ATV. Leslie was screaming beside the body. At first the officers saw no blood, but under Chad's coat they found blood all down his right side. His phone was in his jacket pocket.
The medical examiner found that Chad had been shot twice, in the back of the right shoulder and in the left buttock, and bled to death within minutes. There was no gunpowder around the wounds, so the shots were not at close range. The bullets came from a .30 calibre weapon, probably Winchester Supreme Ballistic Silver Tips, though damage prevented a precise identification.
The scene produced little. Four trails led into the clearing, and on the northbound trail an investigator saw what he believed were two sets of footprints in the frost, one heading north and one south towards the body. No photographs were taken, and by the time the day warmed to about 37 degrees the frost had melted and the prints were gone.
Leslie told investigators that Ken and Chad had run a bee business together and that Ken had cheated Chad in it, and that Ken had recently tricked Chad into signing a quitclaim deed for family land. She also said Chad had been having an affair.
He said he had a tax appointment at 9 or 9.30 and a bank appointment at 11, and that he left between 8.30 and 9, telephoning his cousin at 9.17 for a lift to Fargo. He then went to City Financial in Moorhead, applying for an unsecured $7,500 loan described as being for home repairs. Branch manager Nicole Knudsen said he was agitated and lacked the required income proof; while he was there his phone rang and he told her his business partner had been shot. The loan was denied a week later, partly because his 2005 and 2006 income was non-existent.
His account of that morning did not match other witnesses. He told his cousin that Chad's brother Ken had been shot, though his niece said she told him only that Chad had been shot. On the day of Chad's funeral he opened a bank account and told the manager a third story, saying he had stopped at Chad's house to see whether Chad wanted to go to South Dakota to buy leech traps.
The examiner could not make a ballistics match because of the absence of rifling marks, but concluded that the rifle could have fired the bullets from Chad's body. He reeked of alcohol, sweated, paced and dry heaved, and became angry when officers searched the outbuildings, claiming his brother owned them. He then left for Grand Forks.
He challenged the search warrant, arguing that material misrepresentations and omissions had removed probable cause, particularly over how he acquired the rifle and over the description of possible footprints when Ken Swedeberg had seen only a heel print.
He had called Chad at 7.46 and learned he was going syruping with Baker; he had called Baker at 7.52 and learned Baker would not arrive for some time; he knew the area and lived only 1.3 miles away. A neighbour testified that he heard two gunshots that morning, thought they came from the direction of Chad's place and took them for a .30-06 or similar hunting rifle.
He has maintained his innocence, saying he was framed. His mother, Geraldine Bellinger, insists he is innocent.