Possible serial killer in Lansing, Michigan after 5 deaths along Lansing River Trail

Is there 'a serial killer' in Michigan? | Police say River Trail deaths 'may be related'

Michigan police said they are looking into whether five deaths along the Lansing River Trail are connected -- and if a serial killer is responsible.

abcnews4.com

Is there 'a serial killer' in Michigan? | Police say 5 deaths 'may be related'​

Michigan police said they are looking into whether five deaths along the Lansing River Trail are connected -- and if a serial killer is responsible.

Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus addressed community concerns on Friday after multiple men were found dead or fatally hurt along the trail during the past 11 months.

Backus said police believe all five men were homeless, adding that they were all white and range in age from 22 to 70.

The chief said investigators believe injuries in several cases may have occurred overnight or in "the early morning hour" while they were lying down or sleeping. He added that the injuries included blunt force trauma.

Authorities identified patterns in some of the cases, but are still awaiting medical examiner findings in at least two deaths, Backus said.

The five cases include three deaths that police have classified as homicides, one death with an undetermined cause, and another still awaiting a medical examiner's finding.

In one case, 23-year-old Edward Joseph Smith was charged with open murder in the August stabbing death of Daniel Lusk, according to the Lansing State Journal. Police have not publicly identified suspects in the other cases.

 

[SheWhoMustNotBeNamed]

Lansing Police Chief can't rule out serial killer in deaths of several unhoused people along riverfront – Lansing City Pulse

Lansing Police Chief Robert Backus said Friday he could not rule out a serial killer after five violent deaths within a mile on the Lansing River Trail in

lansingcitypulse.com

Lansing Police Chief can’t rule out serial killer in deaths of several unhoused people along riverfront​

Lansing Police Chief Robert Backus said Friday he could not rule out a serial killer after five violent deaths within a mile on the Lansing River Trail in the past year.

“Do we have a serial killer in Lansing,” he asked at a news conference Friday. “We are looking at the idea, or possibility, that these may be related cases. We look for information, we look for patterns and we have developed some. For example, we believe that all of our victims are members of our unhoused community. We suspect that in these instances, the injuries occur overnight, in the early morning hours. We believe that our victims in this case were lying down, potentially even sleeping.”

There have been five deaths, each linked to an attack, but police are tentatively separating one of the cases, in which someone has been arrested for a fatal stabbing.

The other four have had no arrests and are all linked to some kind of beating, with severe facial injuries.

Police have not identified an obvious weapon or instrument they suspect was used, the chief said.

The victims were all white men, ranging in age from 22, the stabbing victim, to 70 years old. Most survived several days in a hospital before dying; the earliest of the deaths was in 2025, Gino Chouinard, 54, died on Oct. 27, about two weeks after he was injured.

Dennis Dunnebacke, 70, was found with serious facial injuries on July 9 and he died a week later. Backus said medical officials initially described it as a medical cause rather than criminal but he said police treated it as a suspicious case from the onset.

Robert Smith, 57, was found on July 13, he was pronounced dead on July 17.

The stabbing death, of 22-year-old Daniel Lusk, happened on Aug. 20 and a man has been charged with open murder.

The most recent case was a little over a month ago, when Louis Woodruff, 57, was found with severe facial injuries.

The chief said a lack of surveillance cameras along the river has hampered the investigation, with the one case that has an arrest being linked to surveillance images.

Backus said there are no other deaths along the river. He said he is not aware of any severe assaults along the river and investigators have not handled any cases there recently where a non-fatal assault seems similar to the deaths.

He said homeless advocates and police have been working to warn people living along the river, and the advocates have reported that around half of those living there have moved elsewhere.

Backus said he didn’t know where they had gone.

The chief said the attacks are all believed to have happened in early morning hours, around 3 a.m. or 4 a.m.

“I do not have concerns for safety on the river trail outside of those hours,” Backus said.

 

[testerv]

I’ve heard a lot of sexual assaults on homeless women, but never anything like this! I don’t even know where to begin on this. It seems impossible to protect these people from themselves. And now we have to figure out how to protect them from others?

 

[Guess Who]

I’ve heard a lot of sexual assaults on homeless women, but never anything like this! I don’t even know where to begin on this. It seems impossible to protect these people from themselves. And now we have to figure out how to protect them from others?

We had a case here very similar. It's the one I mentioned about it taking 10 years for him to be tried.