CENTER LINE, Mich. (WXYZ) - An argument between a landlord and her tenant ended in a shooting death. Police say officers shot an armed man in self defense.
While Kristy Greene leaves her home late Wednesday afternoon after stopping by to get some of her belongings, a cleaning crew is still on the property, hours after 40-year-old Jeffrey Wanks was shot and killed in her basement.
John Vandenelzen lives across the street, and remembers the noises he he heard early Wednesday morning; he now realizes they were gunshots.
"It was like firecrackers going off," said Vandenelzen. "I knew it was coming from inside the house."
Neighbors say Wanks had been living at his friend Kristy's house for about six months. Investigators say he'd been doing work on her home and had a room in the basement.
But early Wednesday morning, investigators say Wanks argued with Kristy. She called Center Line Police around 1:15 a.m. and said Wanks had shoved her.
When the arguing started, police say Kristy got her 9-year-old daughter out of the house and into her car. She said that all she cared about was getting her daughter away from Wanks.
When officers got to the house they went in through the side door and saw Wanks at the bottom of the basement stairs with a double-barrel shotgun. That's when officers fired six rounds at Wanks. Two shots struck him.
Wanks was taken to the hospital. He was pronounced dead just after 2 a.m.
Investigators believe Wanks may have been drinking, but they don't know exactly what he was upset about or why he refused to put down the shotgun.
