LANSING — Things went from bad to worse after Gregory Michael Sanders waged a nine-hour standoff with police at a home on Pleasant Grove Road in southwest Lansing more than four years ago, firing numerous rounds toward officers who were staging outside, authorities said.
After Sanders finally came outside and the smoke from a tear-gas-like substance had cleared, investigators discovered something horrific in the basement − the body of a woman who had been stabbed hundreds of times and slashed from ear to ear. She had been dead for days.
“They were not expecting to find her,” Assistant Ingham County Prosecutor Sarah Pulda said on the first day of Sanders’ trial on more than two dozen felony counts, including murder, torture, mayhem, unlawful imprisonment and assault with intent to murder.
A standoff case had turned into a murder investigation.
The murder victim was 28-year-old Dominique Hawn, whose final hours were documented in “a video diary of sorts,” apparently by cellphone, Pulda said in her opening statement.
Sanders began taunting Hawn after she begged him for fentanyl and accused her of having other drug dealers, setting him up and “working with the feds,” Pulda said.
The taunting escalated, and Sanders eventually pulled out a knife and stabbed her “over and over and over again,” the prosecutor said. Hawn’s body was found in the corner of the basement, behind a marijuana plant and covered by a shower curtain, she said.
Sanders, 45, initially was charged with 18 counts, including eight counts of assault with intent to murder, stemming from the January 2022 standoff at Sanders’ house on Pleasant Grove, between West Jolly and Reo roads. Soon after, he was charged with 10 more counts, including murder and torture, in connection with Hawn’s death.
Court records indicate the defense will call witnesses in an attempt to show Sanders was legally insane and should be found not guilty for that reason. Interim Chief Ingham County Public Defender Stephen Cornish, whose office is representing Sanders, elected not to make an opening statement on Tuesday, April 7.
In a court document filed in support of criminal charges, Lansing police wrote that they responded to Sanders’ home because of reports of shots fired. Sanders shot at officers numerous times during the 2022 standoff, police said. No injuries were reported.
One of the first officers to arrive on scene testified Tuesday he saw someone lean through a shattered side door holding a black rifle with a drum magazine attached. He said he heard gunshots as he and other officers ran for cover.
While he was there, the officer said, he heard “more than 10” and “less than 30” shots coming from the house. Officers did not return fire during the standoff, he said.
Hawn’s body was found wrapped in a shower curtain and covered by a tipped dresser, a mattress and carpet, police said in a 2022 affidavit. A bloody knife was found in a bathroom, they said.
The jury trial before Ingham County Circuit Judge Morgan Cole was not expected to conclude until next week.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Trial begins for man charged with torturing, killing woman in Lansing
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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