Lansing Police are investigating the fifth violent death of a homeless man on the River Trail in the last 11 months, the LPD’s spokesperson confirmed today.
“LPD is looking into whether there may be any connection between the incidents,” spokesperson Jordan Gulkis added.
Denis Dunnebacke, 70, was found badly beaten near the Kalamazoo Street Bridge on July 9 and died July 16 after life support was removed in the University of Michigan Health-Sparrow Lansing hospital, his cousin, Teresa Sumpter, told WKAR News today.
Sumpter, who had Dunnebacke’s power of attorney, was called to the hospital on July 10. She said her cousin was brutally beaten and was on life support.
“It almost sounds like he was beaten with an object and then kicked maybe while he was on the ground,” she said, adding that she was told he had four or five spinal fractures and “brain trauma.” She said he also suffered a heart attack during the assault.
Gulkis said that the medical examiner has not issued a ruling.
Sumpter said Dunnebacke had been homeless about seven years and “pretty mentally ill.”
“But he was a happy, hopeful person, so it’s hard to imagine those were the last minutes of his life,” she said.
She said the police did not contact her after his death, which the Lansing State Journal was the first to report in an online story.
It is one of three deaths of homeless men since October 2025 that was “not announced by police in the usual way,” the LSJ’s story said.
Sumpter said her family contacted the Journal after a friend sent them a story on the other deaths.
The others who died were:
- Gino Chouinard, 54. He was found unconscious Oct. 14 in Old Town near the Brenke Fish Ladder with massive trauma to the back of his head and broken ribs. Police did not publicize his death at the time.
- Robert William Smith, 57, who was found July 13, three days after Dunnebacke, with severe head injuries in the same area of the trail. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide on Sept. 18.
- Daniel Lusk, 22, was found stabbed to death near East Michigan and South Grand avenues. Police have arrested Joseph Smith, 23, and charged him with homicide.
- Louis Woodruff, 57, who found unconscious with facial trauma Aug. 30 and taken off life support on Sept. 1.