An Orono woman discovered dead with her 5-year-old son Monday left a suicide note lamenting her long-running court battle with the father over custody that ended with them having joint parenting rights, according to a search warrant filed Wednesday.
Police have called the hangings of Gina Ilene Summers, 46, and her son Jude a murder-suicide. It appears to follow a lengthy custody dispute between Summers and the boy's father, 51-year-old Jeff Sandberg, of Minnetonka.
Officers first stopped by the home Monday, after Sandberg notified police that he could not reach anyone there to arrange for picking up his son at 5 p.m., Police Chief Correy Farniok said. Summers and Sandberg have joint custody of the boy.
The home was locked and no one answered the door, Farniok said. Sandberg was advised to call back later if the situation remained the same, the chief said.
After the father called again, a relative who lived nearby and had keys let police in about 8 p.m. That's when the bodies were found in the basement and a preliminary determination of murder-suicide was made, the chief said.
Summers' typed and signed note, which was discovered nearby, "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."
Sandberg released a statement late Thursday through his attorney pointing out how he went from enjoying a family fishing trip a week ago to the Boundary Waters with his 5-year-old son and others to now "planning the funeral for Jude, murdered by his mother, Gina Summers, when he was getting ready for his first day of Ready Start Kindergarten."
Sandberg challenged the mother's allegations, writing that Summers "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."
