LANSING — A man has been convicted of first-degree murder, torture and numerous other counts in connection with the murder of a woman and a standoff with police more than four years ago.
Gregory Michael Sanders, 45, was accused of stabbing Dominique Hawn, 28, to death on Jan. 5, 2022, at a house on Pleasant Grove Road in southwest Lansing. Three days later, he fired numerous rounds into the neighborhood during a nine-hour standoff with officers.
Hawn’s body was found in the basement after the standoff ended and police had obtained a search warrant.
On Wednesday, a jury in Ingham County Circuit Court found Sanders guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and first-degree felony murder, torture and other counts in connection with the killing.
Jurors acquitted him on three counts of assault with intent to murder in connection with the standoff but convicted him on three counts of felony firearm possession and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. A number of other counts in that file had been dismissed by the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office.
Judge Morgan Cole set sentencing for May 27.
The defense didn’t contest allegations that Sanders brutally tortured and murdered Hawn in early 2022 before waging a marathon standoff with police in which he fired dozens of rounds from several guns. Instead, it mounted an insanity defense, presenting testimony to support a theory he was legally insane.
Police were surprised to find Hawn’s body hidden in the basement after the standoff ended. She had been stabbed more than 200 times, including numerous times in the head, and her face had been slashed from ear to ear.
Sanders was recording things on cellphone video, including mostly audio from the fatal confrontation, and those recordings were played to the jury. Sanders accused Hawn of working with federal authorities and trying to set him up. He threatened to shoot her in the eye, and Hawn pleaded for her life.
“Her life was violently stolen from her in the grimy bathroom of a flophouse when she was 28 years old,” Assistant Ingham County Proseuctor Sarah Pulda said during closing arguments
First-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Man convicted in murder, torture of woman in Lansing
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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