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A defense attorney for the Massachusetts mother accused of strangling her two young children before fleeing to Vermont stunningly requested that his client be freed and the case be dismissed on Thursday.

Janette MacAusland's lawyer, Joseph Krowski, argued to a judge that there wasn't enough information to keep the 49-year-old Wellesley mom behind bars - despite her allegedly admitting to cops that she killed 7-year-old Kai and 6-year-old Ella and tried to take her own life back in April, according to court records and WCVB.

4 Janette MacAusland appears in court on Sept. 10, 2026. WCVB Channel 5 Boston

 I strangled them and then I tried to kill myself,  MacAusland told a Vermont cop at her aunt's Bennington home, where she showed up out of the blue with bloody wounds across her neck late one night in April, according to a police report.

 I wanted the three of us to go to God together but it didn't work,  she allegedly told the officer.

MacAusland made the appeal to the judge less than a week after a judge declared a mistrial in the murder case against Lindsey Clancy - who strangled her three children but argued she was suffering extreme postpartum psychosis at the time.

Prosecutors on Wednesday told the Dedham District Court judge that they were still waiting for the medical examiner's office to determine the children's official manners of death.

The judge denied Krowski's requests and ordered that MacAusland remain behind bars without bail on two charges of first-degree murder, to which the mom has pleaded not guilty.

4 Ella MacAusland and Kai MacAusland were allegedly killed by their mother, Janette MacAusland. Cale Darrah

MacAusland, who was an acupuncturist with New England Integrated Health, had been fighting to get custody of the children after her husband filed for divorce last October after nine years of marriage.

The children's father, Samuel MacAusland, was seeking custody of the couple's children and home, court filings show.

The bitter legal battle appeared to come to a head when the parents filed a motion to have a t

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