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  • In the distance, officers investigate the scene of a stabbing Tuesday evening on the river side of Seven Mile Creek Park while a helicopter prepares to airlift the victim to a hospital. Dan Nienaber

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May 8, 2012

Man arrested after Seven Mile Creek stabbing

By Dan Nienaber The Free Press

ST PETER — A Coon Rapids man who beat his sister to death in 1998 was arrested at Seven Mile Creek County Park Tuesday after he allegedly attempted to stab his mother to death.

Law enforcement officers were already in the area searching for an escapee from the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center when someone called to report a man was stabbing a woman at the park at about 6 p.m. Burton James Ewing Jr., 48, was arrested without incident when deputies arrived at the river side of the park, which is halfway between Mankato and St. Peter on Highway 169.

The woman he was allegedly stabbing was identified as his mother, 69-year-old Marlys Helen Olson of Coon Rapids. She was airlifted from the scene and flown to a hospital to be treated for multiple stab wounds, Nicollet County Sheriff Dave Lange said in a news release.

Ewing was charged with murder in May 1998 after he beat his sister, Mary Ewing, to death at a house where she was living in Shoreview. She shared the townhouse with Olson, who is also her mother, according to civil court documents filed in federal court.

Burton Ewing had a history of mental illness and was delusional and psychotic when he entered the house, believing something was telling him to kill his mother. Olson had been concerned about him living with her and her daughter, so she had purchased a cabin in Clearwater where he had been living.

After going to the guest room of his mother’s house to sleep for awhile, Burton Ewing broke into his sister’s bedroom and beat her to death with a hammer. During a trial in September 1998 he was found not guilty by reason of mental illness.

He was committed to the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter and was there in 2000 when the civil case was being heard in federal court. That civil suit was filed by an insurance company that was attempting to avoid paying benefits to Olson and her surviving daughter, Kristin Horner.

Burton Ewing was taken to the Nicollet County Jail after he was arrested Tuesday. Lange’s news release said he was requesting a charge of attempted murder. The release did not say why Ewing and Olson were in the area or at the park.

Olson’s condition wasn’t available Tuesday night.

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