HUDSON, Wis. (WCCO) – The defense maintains that Aaron Schaffhausen was insane when he killed his three girls in their home in River Falls, Wis.
The defense argues that he should be sent to a state mental hospital, where he could one day be released.
Thursday brought chilling testimony from the officers who entered the Schaffhausen home with their guns drawn not knowing what they were going to find.
River Falls police officer Christopher Kober was one of them.
“I saw the pool of blood on the floor,” he said.
The officers quickly found the girls each in their bed.
“I saw a child lying in the top of the bunk bed,” Kober said before being asked if she was dead.
He responded, “Yes it was.”
River Falls Sgt. Mike Reardon was emotional as he described what another officer had told him
“They had found a deceased child in each of the other two rooms,” Reardon said.
In other testimony, a compliance officer at a Twin Cities Credit Union testified that Aaron Schaffhausen withdrew $1,000 from his account the day before the murders.
When Schaffhausen turned himself in after the murders, he had $800 of cash on him. The prosecution has argued that Schaffhausen attempted to cover up the crimes before turning himself in, and may have at one point considered fleeing after the murders.
As he has throughout the trial Schaffhausen showed no emotion in court.
The officers who responded also said they were worried that the Schaffhausen home was going to explode because there was a strong odor of gas, and a fireplace was turned on despite the fact that it was the middle of July.
Prosecutors say Schaffhausen poured gasoline in the basement and turned the fireplace on in an apparent effort to get the home to catch fire.
