Margaret Jensvold seemed to be a hard-working psychiatrist who doted on her son, spending hours researching the best educational options and doctors for him. Thirteen-year-old Ben Barnhard recently completed a camp for overweight children; he had worked hard to lose 160 pounds in the past year.
Both their lives ended when Jensvold fatally shot Barnhard, then turned the gun on herself, at their Kensington home.
Jensvold was upset over educational options for Barnhard, who suffered from attention-deficit disorder and learning disabilities, the teen’s father told the Associated Press. He said Montgomery County wouldn’t pay for Ben to attend a school for special needs children.
Others said they were struggling to understand what happened.
“She put a great deal of effort into her son’s educational and psychological well-being,” said Robert Baum, a lawyer who represented Jensvold when she divorced Barnhard’s father. “I never had any indication that Margaret had any sort of violent tendencies or even shortness of temper.”
Baum said Jensvold had expressed frustration in the past about working with schools to get an appropriate educational plan for her son.
The teen was enrolled at Herbert Hoover Middle School until last August, Montgomery County schools spokeswoman Lesli Maxwell said. He completed sixth grade. He then attended Wellspring Academy in North Carolina. The school was featured on the Style Network show “Too Fat for Fifteen: Fighting Back” and Barnhard appeared briefly in one episode, according to the network.
Capt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery County police spokesman, said a note was found at their home on Simms Court. He said the note was “one of the indicators of her state of mind” but would not disclose its contents.
Jensvold was not at work at Kaiser Permanente on Friday or Monday, and co-workers called police when she didn’t show up again Tuesday, Starks said.
He said Jensvold owned a firearm and officers recovered a gun from the home.
Lynne Bernabei, an attorney who represented Jensvold when she filed a sex-discrimination suit against the National Institute of Mental Health, called the deaths “shocking.”
“Something just went terribly wrong here,” Bernabei said.
