Five men died after they were found injured along roughly one mile of the Lansing River Trail. Four of them suffered severe injuries to their faces or heads. Investigators believe some may have been lying down or sleeping when they were hurt. All five were experiencing homelessness.

The attacks, if that is what they were, happened overnight or in the early morning hours on a paved path that runs through the city. For nearly a year the full pattern stayed largely out of public view. Lansing Police Chief Robert Backus addressed the cases together on October 2, 2026. He said investigators had identified similarities in the locations, the victims, the timing, and the injuries.

He acknowledged that the department is examining whether the deaths are related. He did not confirm that a serial killer is responsible. He noted limited surveillance footage and a shortage of witnesses. The department has increased patrols, deployed surveillance camera trailers, and opened a dedicated tip line.

The first man was Gino Chouinard, 54. Officers found him with facial injuries on October 14, 2025, in the 300 block of East Oakland Avenue. He died on October 27. His cause of death was classified as undetermined.

Family members later described severe head trauma. Police did not treat the case as a confirmed homicide in public statements at the time. Denis Dunnebacke, 70, was found unresponsive beneath the Kalamazoo Street Bridge on July 9, 2026. He had apparent facial injuries.

He died on July 16. As of the October briefing, his official cause of death had not been determined. Chief Backus has said investigators could not initially confirm that the death was suspicious. Hospital information at one point suggested a possible medical explanation, and the department did not release the case to the media in the usual way.

The public first learned of Dunnebacke’s death during the October 2 briefing. Four days after Dunnebacke was found, officers discovered Robert William Smith, 57, unconscious and bleeding from his head on July 13. He was on a bench along the trail in the same general area where Chouinard had been found months earlier. Smith died on July 17.

The Ingham County Medical Examiner’s Office later ruled the death a homicide. Police have said they recognized similarities to Chouinard’s case quickly. The homicide determination itself did not become public until mid-September, after local reporting had already raised questions about multiple deaths on the trail. Daniel Lusk, 22, was found stabbed to death beneath the Michigan Avenue Bridge on August 20.

Edward Joseph Smith, 23, was charged with open murder in connection with that death. Police have not established that the charged man is responsible for any of the other four cases. Lusk’s killing is the only one among the five that involved a stabbing rather than apparent blunt force injury to the face or head. It is also the only case with a named suspect.

Louis Woodruff, 57, was found with apparent facial injuries on August 30 in the 200 block of East Cesar Chavez Avenue. He died on September 1. His death was classified as a homicide. Family members have described catastrophic injuries.

By the time Woodruff died, three other men had already been found critically hurt along the same short stretch of trail in less than a year. The five locations sit within about one mile of one another, between the Old Town area and Kalamazoo Street. Chief Backus has said the victims were white men ranging in age from 22 to 70, all believed to be experiencing homelessness, and that the injuries appear to have occurred overnight.

He has stated that the way the men were found suggests they may have been lying down, possibly sleeping. No weapon has been publicly identified in the four blunt-force cases. Local news outlets began connecting some of the deaths in September. The Lansing State Journal detailed four of the cases on September 17 and confirmed the fifth on September 28, drawing in part on family accounts.

Police statements confirming a possible pattern and laying out all five investigations came on October 2. That gap is now part of the public record. Chief Backus has explained that the department does not routinely publicize incidents when available medical information suggests they may not be criminal. In Dunnebacke’s case, that uncertainty delayed any announcement.

In others, formal medical examiner findings arrived weeks or months after the men were found. Those delays matter. A death ruled undetermined or still awaiting a determination cannot be investigated or described the same way as a confirmed homicide. Robert William Smith’s death was not officially classified as a homicide until September 18, more than two months after he was found.

Woodruff’s case moved faster once the injuries were clear. Chouinard’s remains undetermined. Dunnebacke’s status was unresolved at the time of the chief’s briefing. Investigators cannot treat every facial injury on the trail as a crime until the evidence supports it.

At the same time, the absence of early public warnings left other people sleeping along that mile of path without a clear alert that similar injuries had already occurred. Chief Backus has said additional patrols began in June, before the July cases. After the October briefing the department placed camera trailers along the trail and continued seeking locations for permanent cameras. Social workers have also been assigned to contact people staying in the area.

The chief has said he does not have a safety concern for trail users outside the overnight and early morning hours. He has asked the public to report anything they see. None of those steps answers the central questions. When did investigators first see enough overlap to treat the cases as potentially linked?

Police statements indicate that similarities between Chouinard and Robert William Smith were noted in July. A broader public discussion of five deaths waited until October, after families and reporters had already pressed the issue. Whether earlier surveillance or an earlier warning could have changed the outcome for Woodruff or anyone else is unknown. The department has cited the lack of witnesses and usable video as a core obstacle.

Police have not said the men were specifically targeted because they were homeless. They have noted that the victims shared that circumstance, along with the location, the hour, and, in four cases, the type of injury. Vulnerability is an established fact. Motive is not.

One person may be responsible for more than one death. Separate crimes may share only surface characteristics. The evidence that would distinguish those possibilities has not been made public. Edward Joseph Smith is charged only in the stabbing of Daniel Lusk.

Investigators have not connected him to the other men. Two of the five deaths still lack a final determination that they were homicides. Treating all five as confirmed murders would go beyond what officials have established. The possibility that a single offender attacked sleeping men on the same stretch of trail remains an open investigative question, not a finding.

The Lansing Police Department has said every case is active. People who have nowhere else to sleep have continued to use the river trail. Some of them were found with their faces and heads badly injured. The public did not receive a comprehensive account of the possible pattern until October 2026.

Whether that timeline reflected ordinary caution, resource limits, or something slower is a question officials have only partly addressed. The men who died cannot answer it. The responsibility to protect those who remain, and to explain what was known and when, still sits with the city that maintains the trail.