On the morning of August 22, 2021, three elderly men were found shot to death inside a shared home on Fishville Road in Grass Lake, Michigan. Victims were 70-year-old Michael George Pauli, 80-year-old Delmar Eugene Fraley, and 70-year-old Edward John Kantzler. The Jackson County Sheriff’s Department opened a triple homicide investigation.

Investigators identified 43-year-old Zacharie Scott Borton, who had been staying at the residence, as a person of interest. Borton was believed to have fled in Kantzler’s red Ford Explorer; he was arrested in Grand Rapids on August 24, 2021, and charged with three counts of open murder, felony firearm possession, and carjacking. In April 2022 a jury convicted Borton of second-degree murder in Michael Pauli’s death and of first-degree, premeditated murder in Delmar Fraley’s death, along with felony firearm possession and credit card fraud. The jury deadlocked on the open murder count for Edward Kantzler and on the carjacking count.

In May 2022 Borton received a sentence of life without parole for the first-degree murder conviction. Did anyone in Grass Lake know these men well enough to add details about their routines or visitors in August 2021?