Photo of the river trail sign in Lansing. Image credit: WILX
Police in Lansing are investigating a series of five deaths in the past year along the same river trail, and say they’re looking into the possibility they’re all connected.
In a press conference on Oct. 3, police detailed a few patterns from investigators.
Lansing River Trail death investigations
What we know:
Police Chief Rob Backus detailed the following patterns in the five investigations:
- All victims are believed to be experiencing homelessness
- Instances occurred overnight
- Believe all victims were lying down, potentially even sleeping
- All victims are white men
- Four involve what appear to be blunt force, traumatic injuries to the facial area with no weapon being used or known
- One case was a fatal stabbing
Additionally, the deaths reportedly all happened within a one-mile stretch of the Lansing River Trail.
The victims ranged in age from 22-70 years old. The victims were reportedly Gino Chouinard, 54; Denis Dunnebacke, 70; Robert Smith, 57; Daniel Lusk, 22; and Louis Woodruff, 57.
The newspaper reports the earlier incident, involving Chouinard, happened on Oct. 14, 2025, with the most recent case, involving Woodruff, happening on Aug. 30, 2026.
What we don't know:
Backus said at the press conference that medical examiner results are still pending for some cases, which will include determining the cause of deaths.
Backus also said investigators are lacking witnesses and help from surveillance footage.
What they're saying:
"One question that we’re being asked is, do we have a serial killer in Lansing? What we need the public to know, is we are investigating all of these cases. They are all active investigations, and we are looking at the idea or the possibility that these may be related cases," Backus said Friday.
"When I’m reporting these patterns to you, I wish I had more information to share with you. I wish I could be more certain and more concrete in what I say, but there are challenges in these cases," he continued.
What you can do:
If you have information that could help in the investigation, the police have established a tip line – (517) 483-6023.
One suspect in custody
Dig deeper:
Backus reiterated that one case was different from the others, in that the victim was stabbed and a person was in custody.
"The question that’s been posed to us, is, is this the suspect for all the instances? I want to be very clear – that is a challenging question to answer and one that I have to be very cautious on," Backus said.
Defining "serial killer"
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Investigating serial killings: Criminologist explains
Police in Lansing are investigating a series of deaths that have taken place in the same location, along the Lansing River Trail. Criminologist Dr. David Hayes explains how investigators look into possible serial killings.
FOX 2 spoke with a criminologist about what an investigation into a possible serial killer involves.
What they're saying:
"The phrasing in and of itself is part of a definition, certain types of homicides that the FBI has put together. So, technically a serial killer (is) someone who has killed multiple people, you have to have killed at least three people with a "cooling off" period in between each of those. The cooling off period, of course, will vary by offender," explained Dr. David Hayes.
"(This differentiates from a mass murderer, who kills three people all in one concentrated location, or a spree killer who kills three or more people in a succession of different locations," Hayes continued.
Dig deeper:
As for this particular investigation that’s playing out in Lansing, Hayes said investigators will be looking for connections between the cases, which he says could be difficult in this situation.
"An unhoused individual, a homeless person, they don’t have that digital footprint — or even that physical footprint — that we have, where people know where we're at, people know what we’re doing; we see other people every day. And the people that are living alongside an unhoused person or in the general area are going to be pretty reluctant to talk," Hayes said. "So we don’t really have that connective tissue that could really pull these together; that’s going to make this investigation far more difficult."
He added, "If this does turn out to be a series of connected deaths, then we’re looking at someone preying on incredibly vulnerable people."
The Source: Information in this article was taken from an Oct. 3 press conference given by Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus. Background information was taken from local reportings by the Lansing State Journal and WILX, and from a conversation with a criminologist.