Daughters stabbed, mom arrested

Neighbors say woman afflicted by depression, financial problems

By Elizabeth Mohr and Jake Grovum

Investigators walk around Westwood Village in Roseville, where Sylvia Lynn Sieferman allegedly stabbed her two daughters and then herself on Thursday. (Brandi Jade Thomas, Pioneer Press)A Roseville woman repeatedly stabbed her two 11-year-old daughters before stabbing herself Thursday at their town home.

Neighbors and friends say financial distress and depression must have set her off. Mounting troubles apparently shattered the life Sylvia Sieferman, 60, had built with the two girls, whom she had adopted from China.

"It kind of blows my mind," said neighbor Florence Schmidt, who lives two doors down from Sieferman. "There wasn't any indication of any trouble at all. But something happened this afternoon about 2 o'clock."

As of Thursday evening, both girls were at Regions Hospital, one in critical condition, the other stable. Sieferman was in custody at Regions, also in critical condition.

Police received two phone calls about 2 p.m. alerting them to a stabbing at a Roseville town home. One call came from a neighbor, the other from the "suspect herself, who said she had stabbed her child," Capt. Rick Mathwig said.

When police arrived at her town home on County Road C, Sieferman was near the front entry with stab wounds, according to Roseville police. Her wounds are believed to be self-inflicted, Mathwig said.

Police found one girl in the town home and the other at a neighbor's house. Both are 11 years old. Each had multiple stab wounds.

Police found "several knives and other cutting instruments" at the home, Mathwig said.

"We're devastated," Schmidt said. "We didn't see this coming."

Sieferman adopted both girls several years ago, Schmidt said. There were never any problems at the home and they appeared to be a tight- knit family, she said.
"I always admired her. For a single mom to take on these two girls, how wonderful. And they seemed to be happy," Schmidt said.

The girls are identified as Hanna and Linnea on a Web site detailing Sieferman's travels to China. Hanna was adopted in 1999 and Linnea in 2003. Both were "Now with mom Sylvia in Roseville, Minnesota," the site says. The last blog post is dated 2005.

"I suppose my adoption journey really started 25 years ago, when I used to dream of adopting an Asian girl someday," Sieferman wrote.
After reading an article on the subject, "(I) started off to explore exactly what would prevent me, then nearly 50 and single, from becoming a mom."

Sieferman, who has a doctorate degree, is part of a class-action age-discrimination lawsuit filed against the former Guidant Corp., now a division of Boston Scientific, in 2006. Guidant had notified 721 employees in August 2004 they would be terminated, and 450 of them were age 40 or older, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court.

Sieferman, a Guidant senior system analyst, was terminated at age 56 after four and a half years of service, the complaint said. 
The lawsuit is pending and a settlement conference is scheduled for  October.

Layoffs from other jobs came one after another, said one friend, who  declined to be identified. Then, Sieferman's mother and sister died.

A $250,000 addition to her house was more than she could afford after  being laid off, the friend said. Sieferman moved to the town home and  tried to sell the house, which sat on the market for more than a year  and is now near foreclosure, the friend said.

"That's what did her in," she said.

A month ago, Sieferman was hospitalized for mental instability, said  neighbor Bob Micko, who watched her girls during that time. "She was  depressed," he said.

Around the same time, Sieferman had arranged for "guardians" to take  care of the girls, but the deal fell through, the friend said.

That may have been the last straw, friends speculate.

"All she wanted to do was be a good mom," the friend said. "She was  one of those people who just couldn't take it."

Sieferman does not appear to have a criminal record in Minnesota.

She faces multiple felony charges in the two stabbings. Roseville  investigators will present the case to the Ramsey County attorney's  office today.

Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.