Police: 2 asphyxiated children among 4 dead in Detroit

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Published Sep 22, 2016

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Detroit - The bodies of two young children and two teenagers were found at a Detroit-area home early on Wednesday after a man called 911 to report that he had killed them, police said.

The same man, Gregory Green, had served 16 years in prison for second-degree murder: the fatal stabbing of his pregnant wife in 1991, records show.

Police summoned to a Dearborn Heights home early on Wednesday found a staggering scene. Two girls, ages 4 and 5, were asphyxiated in a car using exhaust, while a 17-year-old girl and a 19-year-old male were fatally shot, Lieutenant Michael Krause said.

Green's wife was shot and stabbed but is in stable condition and is expected to survive. Green, 49, is in custody.

"The (911) call was made by the suspect himself. ... All of this seemed to have stemmed from a domestic violence-related incident," Capt. Michael Petri told reporters.

Police haven't released any names. But local media identified the suspect as Green, the father of the youngest victims, and said the injured woman was Faith Green, who was the mother of all four.

Court records reviewed by The Associated Press show Faith Green filed for divorce in August, citing a "breakdown in the marriage relationship." They were married in 2010. Her lawyer, Harvey Beck, spoke briefly with the AP, calling the deaths "a terrible situation," but declining further comment.

Faith Green also filed for divorce from Gregory Green in 2013 but no action was taken and the case was dismissed. She had asked for a personal protection order that same year but a judge dismissed the allegation as "insufficient."

Gregory Green was released from prison in 2008 after his fifth request for parole in the death of another wife.

He was rejected earlier because he "had not shown remorse for his crime, had not gained adequate insight and had a lack of empathy," Corrections Department spokesman Chris Gautz said. "After being denied four times, he completed several cognitive-based programs."

In Dearborn Heights, Krause said officers arriving at the family's home found a car parked outside with a hose hooked to the exhaust. Police believe the youngest children whose bodies were found on the ground floor of the home were asphyxiated with carbon monoxide inside that vehicle. Police found the bodies of the teens in the basement.

"It's tough to respond to something like this," Krause said. "We aren't robots; we're human beings. ... It's going to bother some officers for some time."

Mayor Dan Paletko called the killings "a tragedy in every sense of the word."

"Just two or three weeks ago, they had a birthday party - balloons and all that stuff out there," neighbor Ronnie Jones told WXYZ-TV. "They've been working on the house the last two or three months."

AP

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