LANSING — A man charged with murdering his longtime girlfriend and her male cousin last year in Lansing described the shootings as an accident, saying he didn’t mean to pull the trigger of an assault-style rifle that fired eight rounds in the basement of a home on Woodrow Avenue.
Dennis Joshua Whaley took the witness stand in his own defense on Sept. 22, telling a jury Jason McKenzie grabbed the barrel of the rifle, causing it to fire rounds in rapid succession, even though it was not fully automatic and he didn’t mean to pull the trigger.
Whaley contended McKenzie rushed at him before grabbing the rifle barrel but maintained he was not claiming self-defense.
“Your shooting of two unarmed human beings was an accident?” Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane asked Whaley during cross-examination on Sept. 22.
“Yes, it was,” Whaley responded.
Whaley is charged with murdering McKenzie and Christine Cambric on April 18, 2024.
Whaley left the area in Cambric’s car and later called police to turn himself in. He was arrested about three days after the shooting in the area of Crego Park and directed an officer to where he had hidden the rifle.
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Lansing police obtained an arrest warrant for Whaley in January 2024 in connection with a domestic assault on Cambric in late 2023, but did not serve it before the shootings happened more than three months later.
Prosecutors contend Whaley was following through with promises he made in an angry message to McKenzie’s girlfriend four days before the shootings, in which he complained about the cousins carrying on “like they are a couple” and said he was going “to off” McKenzie. The message also said, the “succubus needs to be gone or bad things will happen,” and “I’m losing my shit and I’m about to snap.”
By definition, a succubus is a female demon, but Whaley said he was referring to McKenzie because he believed the term referred to a “leech,” “mooch” or “freeloader.”
Whaley described the message as, “by far, the worst set of words I’ve ever sent,” and denied having any intent to kill someone.
Dewane challenged Whaley about his description of events, noting that it didn’t match forensic evidence, including an expert’s testimony that the shots were not fired at extremely close range, as Whaley described. The prosecutor also noted that McKenzie had five gunshot entrance wounds to the back.
Whaley called it an “extremely unfortunate coincidence” that the shooting happened within a few days of the message he sent McKenzie’s girlfriend and maintained that he didn’t intend to shoot anyone.
The trial before Ingham County Circuit Judge Wanda Stokes was set to continue on Sept. 23.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Defendant in Lansing double-murder trial tells jurors killings were accidental
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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