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MOUNT VERNON -- Lyle Swenson easily recalled the date. "September 8 is coming pretty fast," Swenson, the former longtime Davison County sheriff, said last week. He was referring to Sept. 8, 1981, 30 years ago today, when a rural Mount Vernon fami...
Authorities, surviving family disagreed on not guilty verdict Written By: Erik Kaufman | × The home of John Mathis, eight miles north of Mount Vernon, is pictured in this Republic file photo. The farm was the site of a triple homicide nearly 40 years ago. (Chris Huber/Republic) MOUNT VERNON, S.D. — It was an ugly scene at the Mathis farm outside of Mount Vernon Sept. 8, 1981. When police were called to the location that night, John W. Mathis was sitting on a bed in the metal shed he and his family were living in after a pair of fires had destroyed their home earlier in the ...