On the evening of April 18, 2024, police in Lansing found Jason McKenzie, 50, and his cousin Christine Cambric, 53, shot to death at the bottom of the basement stairs of a residence in the 500 block of Woodrow Avenue. Authorities described the scene as a double homicide linked to a domestic situation. A witness reported hearing yelling between Dennis Joshua Whaley, 51, who lived at the home with Cambric, and her before five or six gunshots, and then seeing Whaley drive away in Cambric’s car.

Whaley was arrested after turning himself in to a Michigan State Police detective on April 21; he led officers to a 5.56-caliber rifle recovered by investigators. He was charged with two counts of open murder, three counts of felony firearm possession, and one count of being a felon in possession of a weapon, and held without bond. Whaley initially told police he shot McKenzie in self-defense and said Cambric was struck when McKenzie was pulled in front of the rifle; prosecutors later pointed to threatening messages Whaley had sent to McKenzie’s girlfriend four days earlier.

Did anyone in Lansing know McKenzie or Cambric and notice tensions at the home before April 18?