Media ask if Lansing has serial killer. Where homicide cases stand

With area residents and national media questioning whether a serial killer is involved in the deaths of five men along the Lansing River Trail, police this week said medical officials were unable to determine how one man found along the path died.

The Ingham County Medical Examiner's office declared the manner of Denis Dunnebacke's death to be indeterminate, Lansing police announced on Wednesday, Oct. 14.

"The Lansing Police Department will continue to investigate this as a suspicious death," officials said in a news release. "The case is currently open and active."

Dunnebacke was one of five homeless men who died from apparent violence along the Lansing River trail over the past year.

Dunnebacke, 70, was found along the river trail near the Kalamazoo Street bridge on July 9 and died a week later.

He suffered severe brain injuries and spinal fractures, a family member said.

A year-long string of deaths along the Lansing River Trail, has many on social media — and national media, including CNN, NBC, the New York Post and New York times, among others — asking if a serial killer is lurking, but police have said while several of the cases share "commonalities" they aren't certain the deaths are linked.

Four of them suffered head injuries, and police have said they were investigating whether the cases might be connected. The fifth case was a stabbing.

The five incidents occurred overnight or during the early morning hours along a 1-mile stretch of the trail.

Police Chief Rob Backus, during a press conference earlier this month, said his department is investigating the five deaths.

Asked if he thinks the river trail is safe for public use, Backus said, "I do not have a concern for safety on the river trail outside of those hours."

What's happening on the Lansing River Trail?

Five homeless men have died from violence, most of them in north Lansing, over the past year.

"We believe our victims were lying down, maybe even sleeping," Backus said. All of the victims were white men who were homeless.

Who were the victims on the river trail?

In chronological order, these were the people who died:

Gino Chouinard, 54, was found unconscious along the river trail on Oct. 14, 2025 and died 13 days later. He suffered severe head trauma and various other injuries, family members said.

Police described the location as the 300 block of East Oakland Avenue. That location is along the river trail on the east side of the Grand River, south of the Brenke Fish Ladder.Denis Dunnebacke, 70, was found on the river trail near the Kalamazoo Street bridge on July 9, said Teresa Sumpter, his cousin.

He was transported to the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow Lansing hospital with severe brain swelling and “four or five spinal fractures,” she said. He was taken off life support and died July 16, after about a week in the hospital.Robert Smith, 57, was found on a bench along the river trail with severe head trauma on July 13, 2026, and died four days later at U-M Health-Sparrow Lansing hospital.

On Sept. 18, the Ingham County Medical Examiner's Office determined the death was a homicide, and police acknowledged they were investigating it as such.Daniel Lusk, 22, of Lansing, was fatally stabbed on the river trail in the 300 block of East Michigan Avenue in the early morning hours of Aug.

20. On Sept. 3, Edward Joseph Smith, 23, was formally charged in connection with Lusk’s death.

Louis Woodruff, 57, died after being assaulted on Aug. 30, 2026, in the 200 block of East Cesar Chavez Avenue. Police and family said he was found unconscious with facial trauma.

Lansing police have said they are investigating Woodruff's death as a homicide.

Backus said there are commonalities among several of the incidents, including that four of the men suffered head injuries.

In one of the five deaths, a stabbing, a 23-year-old man has been charged with murder in connection with that case.

Edward Joseph Smith was arraigned Sept. 3 in 54A District Court on an open murder charge.

What are police doing to curb violence on the trail?

Portable cameras have been deployed to monitor the trail during the early morning hours, and police are looking for locations to put permanent cameras, Backus said.

Officials are exploring cost and feasibility of that option, he said. He also said police started additional patrols on the trail in June.

"We don’t have a lot of surveillance footage," Backus said. "More would help us."

Why did police wait to notify the public?

Backus said that in some cases, police didn't know how victims came to be injured and suggested that was why they may not have immediately publicized it. Investigators, for example, could not confirm that Dunnebacke's death was suspicious, he said.

How does the FBI define 'serial' murder?

The FBI defines serial murder as the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender or offenders in separate events.

The definition draws a distinction from mass murder by a separation in time between the deaths.

This break-in-time was necessary to distinguish between a mass murder and a serial murder. Serial murder required a temporal separation between the different murders, which was described as: separate occasions, cooling-off period, and emotional cooling-off period," the FBI says.

Jalen Williams is a trending reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jawilliams1@freepress.com.