LANSING — Shortly after the sound of gunfire had erupted from the basement of her Lansing home, Tagan Adkins watched from outside the house as her mother’s estranged boyfriend climbed into a car with an “evil” look in his eyes before speeding away, Adkins told a jury on Sept. 18.
“He just looked evil, that’s the only way I can describe it,” Adkins said under cross-examination on the first day of trial for Dennis Joshua Whaley, 53, who is charged with murdering his estranged girlfriend, Christine Cambric, and Cambric’s cousin, Jason McKenzie, at the Woodrow Avenue residence in April 2024.
According to authorities, Whaley had just shot Cambric and McKenzie multiple times with an assault-style rifle in what Ingham County Prosecutor John Dewane described as “an execution.”
In a social media message to McKenzie’s girlfriend four days before, Whaley had complained about the two cousins carrying on “like they are a couple” and said he was going “to off” McKenzie, Dewane said in his opening statement. Whaley refered to Cambric as a “succubus” who needed to be gone, he said.
“Jealousy turned into rage, which turned into premeditated double murder,” the prosecutor said.
In his opening statement, Steven Freeman, an attorney for Whaley, said many facts are not in dispute but suggested the killings were something other than premeditated murder. He did not elaborate.
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“I don’t think first-degree murder was committed at all,” he said.
The shooting happened on the night of April 18, 2024 in the basement of a house in the 500 block of Woodrow on Lansing’s south side.
Whaley and Cambric were living there, although two witnesses on Thursday described their on-again, off-again relationship as “toxic” and said Cambric wanted Whaley to leave. Clay Roark-Scharf, Adkins’ boyfriend, said the relationship involved “a lot of fighting and not a lot of trust.”
The previous November, court records indicate, two Lansing police officers were called to the home after Cambric and Whaley had gotten into an argument about bills. Cambric told officers that Whaley kicked her four times, and days earlier, he’d pushed her out of bed, causing what she thought could have been a hairline shoulder fracture, the records indicate.
Lansing police obtained an arrest warrant for Whaley in January 2024 but did not serve it before the shootings happened more than three months later.
Whaley was at large for a couple of days after the shooting before he called a detective and said he planned to turn himself in. Police arrested him in the area of Crego Park and recovered the assault-style rifle used in the shootings after Whaley told them where to find it near a camp being used by those who were homeless.
Roark-Scharf testified he was upstairs in the Woodrow Avenue house, where he and Adkins also lived, when he heard loud voices, followed by the sound of gunshots, coming from the basement. He grabbed a couple of his own guns and hid in a closet, then called Adkins and told her to call 911 and not come home, he said.
Adkins was in a friend’s car at the time, and they reported the incident to 911. They drove past the Woodrow house before pulling into a neighbor’s driveway to turn around, Adkins testified. She said she could clearly see Whaley’s face after he had left the home. He had a “crazy” look, with “evil in his eyes,” she said.
The trial before Ingham County Circuit Judge Wanda Stokes was set to resume on Sept. 19. It was expected to finish next week.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Witness: Double murder suspect had ‘evil’ look in eyes while leaving south Lansing scene
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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