Lansing police are investigating five deaths along a popular river trail near Michigan State University after officials said a suspect may have targeted vulnerable people at night.
The Lansing Police Department says five people have died in connection with the Lansing River Trail over the last year, and investigators are examining whether the cases are linked. Fox News reported that police described a possible pattern of nighttime targeting and attacks along the trail near campus.
All of the victims appear to be homeless White men, according to Lansing police. That detail has sharpened concern in a college town where students regularly move along paths by the Red Cedar River.
One arrest has been made. It does not close the larger investigation.
Daniel Lusk, 22, was found fatally stabbed under the East Michigan Avenue bridge on Aug. 20. The site sits less than a mile from the Michigan State campus.
On Sept. 3, police arrested Edward Joseph Smith, 23, in connection with that stabbing. Smith has not been accused of any crime or involvement in the other four deaths, police said.
Louis Woodruff was critically injured and later died in the 300 block of East Oakland Avenue on Sept. 16, 2026. Authorities have tied the case to the same trail corridor under review.
Names, dates, and causes of death for the remaining three victims were not detailed in the available official account. Police have said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus addressed the string of recent deaths at a news conference on Oct. 2, 2026, at police headquarters in downtown Lansing. Specific remarks from that briefing beyond the department’s public posture were not separately quoted in the report.
Michigan State’s Department of Police and Public Safety moved to harden the campus stretch of the trail while reminding students to stay alert after dark.
A university police spokesperson said:
"The MSU portion of the River Trail has upgraded security measures to include additional LED lighting and Green Light emergency phones with public safety cameras, and it is routinely patrolled by MSU Police Officers on bike patrols."
The same spokesperson added a direct warning to students who use the path:
"We encourage students using the trail to remain aware of their surroundings and take reasonable precautions to help ensure their safety, especially at night."
Those steps, brighter lighting, emergency phones tied to cameras, and regular bike patrols, are the practical response of a campus forced to treat a nearby recreation route as a potential crime scene.
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor told Fox News Digital that the trail and downtown remain safe, and that police have expanded coverage around the clock.
Schor said:
"The Lansing River Trail and our downtown remain safe for residents and visitors. LPD has significantly increased their presence downtown and on the river trail at all hours of the day and night."
Increased patrols are necessary. They are not the same thing as solved cases. Five people are dead. One suspect is in custody for a single stabbing. Four deaths still lack a publicly named defendant.
Criminologist Dr. David Hayes noted that cases involving unhoused people are hard to investigate because those victims often leave few physical or digital footprints. If the deaths are connected, he said, it would be a tragic example of a killer preying on highly vulnerable people.
That is the hard center of this story. The dead were not celebrities or campus stars. Police say they appear to have been homeless men. People in that condition are easier to attack and harder to account for after the fact.
The trail runs through ordinary civic space, near East Michigan Avenue, East Oakland Avenue, and East Cesar Chavez Avenue, and close enough to Michigan State that students commute along the river. When violence concentrates there, the risk is not abstract. It sits next to a major public university and a downtown that leaders still call safe.
Police have not publicly spelled out the forensic link, if any, that binds all five deaths beyond location and timeframe. They have said a suspect may have been targeting and attacking people at night. Media coverage has framed public anxiety in serial-killer terms. The department’s own described task is simpler and more urgent: determine whether one pattern of violence runs through these cases, and stop it.
Until that work is finished, lights, cameras, and extra officers are a start. They are not a substitute for arrests that match the full body count.
A city that cannot protect its most exposed residents on a public trail will not keep the confidence of the students and taxpayers who walk it next.
