By JAMES MITCHELL
Sunday Times Newspapers
LINCOLN PARK — A 43-year-old man was charged Friday with first-degree murder for the homicide of his sister, who died Tuesday from what investigators said was blunt force trauma.
Lincoln Park Police said that during an interview, Gerald Eugene Dennis Jr. confessed to the murder.
“He stated that he used a metal jack handle and beat her about the head,” investigators said in a written release.
Detectives were taken by Dennis to a backyard location where he’d placed the jack handle.
Dennis was one of three occupants in the house when police arrived. According to police, Dennis’ hands, face and clothing were “covered in what appeared to be blood.”
Police were called to the victim’s house in the 1500 block of College Avenue about 6:40 a.m. The woman who called police said that Deborah Gayle Seifert, 53, was “unresponsive and bleeding about the face.” She was transported to Oakwood Medical Center and pronounced dead shortly after 7 a.m.
According to police reports, Dennis told investigators that his sister had been abusive to him, and “he had had enough.
“After the attack be closed the bedroom door and fell asleep in the living room,” police reported.
According to Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman Maria Miller, Dennis was taken into custody Wednesday, and an investigation by Lincoln Park and Michigan State police resulted in a warrant being secured Thursday.
Dennis was arraigned Friday before 25th District Court Judge David Bajorek, and will face a preliminary
examination of the evidence against him on March 13.
Dennis, who will be held without bond, faces up to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.
(James Mitchell can be reached at [email protected].)