Suspect in custody after Detroit woman, her mother and niece found dead in burned SUV | Law Enforcement Today

DETROIT, MI - A person of interest was taken into custody by Detroit police officers Monday in connection with the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend and her mother and the fatal stabbing of her nine-year-old niece. Authorities said that all three victims were found across town, incinerated inside an SUV.

Detroit Police Assistant Chief Charles Fitzgerald told reporters, "It's a horrible case," according to The Detroit News. "We've still got a lot of work to do, but at this point, it appears that the victims are the (person of interest's) ex-girlfriend, the ex-girlfriend's mother, and a nine-year-old kid that was in that vehicle ... we're confident it's the ex-girlfriend's niece she was watching.

"We believe the two adult victims were shot, and the nine-year-old was stabbed in the neck," Fitzgerald said. "We believe they were killed elsewhere and transported to that location."

The Assistant Chief told reporters that after finding the bodies, they were able to track the person of interest to a home on the city’s east side, where officers also found a four-year-old boy. "Thankfully, he wasn't harmed."

Elauntra Sutton lost her daughter, her mother, and her sister Sunday after all three were found dead in a vehicle this weekend. https://t.co/tAVDud20Hi

— FOX 2 Detroit (@FOX2News) April 8, 2025

A woman identified as Elauntra Sutton, told Detroit Fox 2 that the victims were her mother, sister and daughter. Her mother it turns out had been caring for her four-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter. She told reporters that she recognized something was wrong when her mother didn’t answer her phone calls and saw pictures of a burned-out SUV matching her mother’s.

Sutton said that the man arrested was her sister’s ex-boyfriend. "He is on parole," she said. "She's called the police on him. They removed him but he would always find his way back."

Police chief Todd Bettison told the outlet, “With a case like this, it really upset me as well, and it upset our community, and it can create a sense of fear. My homicide detectives worked around the clock along with Michigan State Police. We put our homicide task force on it. So we utilized all of our assets."

According to Fitzgerald, the suspect is in custody and is not cooperating with investigators. "He listened to what we had to say, and then he lawyered up." Detroit Police spokesman Vic Pratt told reporters in a statement Monday that The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is assisting the investigation.