THE WORD GOES OUT

When Gloria and Jack Misener returned home from the Hazel Park police station, she got on the phone for the task of summoning the family, so she could tell them the tragic news in person.

Her second-youngest daughter, Lisa Felice, had just got home with her husband, Mike. They work together doing home remodeling and repairs and had just finished up a job in the Miseners' family room. So when Gloria called and asked, sternly, "Let me speak to Mike," Lisa thought she had called to complain about the job, to perhaps get them back to fix it right.

"We'll be right there," said Mike. He put the phone down and told Lisa that something had happened. Something bad, but Gloria wouldn't explain. She just said they had to come over right away—the Felices live in nearby Shelby Township, about eight or nine miles from the Miseners—and to call Lindy and pick her up if they could.

Lisa, panicked, knowing it had to be bad for her mother to act this way, ran out of the house, cell phone in hand. She called Lindy's home. No answer. Called her husband Mark's cell phone. No answer. Called Lindy's cell phone, and got her in the middle of a checkout lane at the grocery store.

"Where are you?" asked Lisa. Then, "Leave the cart, walk outside and we'll pick you up."

"What do you mean? My cart's full. I've got these perfect steaks. I just have to cash out. I've got like a month's worth of groceries."

"No! Leave your cart and come outside. Something's happened. We've got to go to Mom's."

Lindy flagged down a passing employee, said an emergency had come up and she was sorry but she'd have to leave her cart and the groceries, and she ran outside. While she paced, waiting for her sister to pull up, she called Gloria.

"Mom, what's going on?" "Just get over here."

"Is it Dad? Is it Dad?"

"It's not your father. Just get over here."

Lindy ended the call, thinking to herself, "I bet Leann lost the baby. She's miscarried."

Lisa and Mike pulled up. They paged Mark, who was at the gym working out, and headed to Troy.

They pulled up to the Miseners', got out and ran inside. Lindy remembers seeing her dad standing there and thinking, "That's a relief."

Gloria came up to them. "Mick's murdered Leann."

"What! What are you talking about?" said Lindy. "I'm supposed to meet her.

I was on the phone with her."

"Mick shot Leann. He murdered her."

Lisa and Lindy both fell to their knees, screaming. Hannah was sleeping in a nearby room, and Jack and Gloria helped their two daughters into the family room so as not to wake the little girl.

"Take me to her! Take me to her!" screamed Lindy. "She cannot be alone. She cannot be alone." Later, she'd explain: "She was in the morgue and it was like, 'I don't care. You take me there.' I couldn't stand that she was there, alone."

"I'll never forget walking into the house and hearing those words," says Lisa. "I'll never forget that as long as I live. And I'll never work on that day again, ever."

*

Two days before the shooting, Leann had called Lori Mayes at her home in China Township, a community far enough north of Detroit, running along the St. Clair River that divides Michigan from Ontario, that it doesn't consider itself a suburb. Lori is a year older than Lisa, four years younger than Lindy. She wasn't as close to Leann as Lindy was, but they talked a couple of times a week, anyway.

Lori's phone had been acting up, so she told Leann she'd call her back in the next day or two, after she got a new phone. Leann told her the happy news, that she was pregnant, Lori congratulated her and said call back ASAP.

The afternoon of the shooting, new phone in hand, Lori tried calling Leann, but the phone was static-y. She was in a rush, she'd try back later. The family was piling into the van for a ride north on I-94 to Port Huron. Michigan is hockey-mad, with recreation leagues for kids of all ages. The mediocre players compete in what are known as house leagues, with all or most of their games at one home arena. The better kids play on travel teams, with an expanded schedule and games throughout southeastern Michigan, and even into Canada.

This was a big day for the family. Jessie, 8, was good enough to be trying out for a travel team based out of Port Huron, and that's where they were headed, Lori and her husband, Gary, their four kids, one of her daughter's friends and three nieces and nephews.

They were heading north on I-94 when the phone rang. It was Gloria, who asked her what she was doing.

"You've got to turn around and come over here right away." "What? What, Mom?"

"Just do it."

The directness of the request—and coming so decidedly just after telling her she was on her way to hockey tryouts with a van full of kids—well, Lori reacted immediately, certain it was tragic news. "I knew somebody was dead. I told Gary, turn around, and then I started calling friends on the way back." She was looking for someone to take her kids for a while. Finally she reached a girlfriend who said it would be fine. "I didn't tell her I had eight," she is able to say with a laugh more than a year later.

She cried the whole way over. Lisa and Mike Felice are motorcycle enthusiasts and over the weekend they'd gone on a biker weekend up north. "I'm thinking Lisa and Mike are dead. I thought 'Oh my gosh, they got hit!' And I remember thinking, 'Lisa is never going to get to see Leann's baby.'"

Lori, too, felt like the ride over was in slow motion. Finally they get there.

Gloria is standing outside, next to the garage that adjoins the house. "It's Lisa and Mike," says Lori.

"No," says Gloria, "Mick murdered Leann."

Lori spins half around, falls back against the garage, slumps to the ground.

Gets up quickly, looks at her mom and says: "That motherfucker is dead."

They go in the garage. Lisa walks out of the kitchen. "Is she dead?" asks Lori.

When Lori and Gary had pulled up, Jack had started crying. As they walk into the kitchen he is standing there. "The normal reaction would be to run over and grab him and hug him," says Lori. "But I couldn't do anything. We just stared at each other."

*

Jeni Hughes, Leann's best friend, worked late that day. When she got home, there was a message from Gloria to call her when she got in.

"Is Jeff home with you?" Gloria asked. "No, he's at work."

"Well, come on over." "Why?"

"Just come over."

"Did something happen?" "Yes. Just come over." "Something really bad?"

"Yes, Jeni"—Gloria calm, as she will be throughout this day, but forceful, a power—"Just get in your car and come on over."

Jeni called her husband at work and recounted the conversation. "What do you think it is?" he asked.

"Maybe they won the lottery or something and they want us to think it's something bad and we'll get over there and they'll tell us. She'll make it seem really bad and I'll get over there and then she'll say: 'Guess what? We won the lottery.'"

And all the way over, Jeni kept telling herself the same thing: Maybe it's kind of a joke. Maybe they won the lottery. Alternating that with, "If I get to the YIELD sign by their house and I see a lot of cars there, it's going to be really, really bad. Please don't let there be a lot of cars there."

She pulled off Dequindre onto the Miseners' street, drove up a block to the

YIELD sign. Scared, afraid to look, lifted her eyes and saw … a lot of cars.

She pulled up, got out, walked up the driveway. Lindy and Gloria were walking toward her. It all seemed dreamlike. Jeni knew it was something horrible, but saw Leann's car in the driveway and without conscious thought was relieved it wasn't something horrible that had happened to Leann. Then, thinking it must be Mick. Something's happened to Mick.

Gloria took her hand. "Mick and Leann went to the gun range together and Mick shot Leann." Jeni had a scene in her mind. An accidental shooting at the range. Leann at the hospital. Everything going to be okay. "So, she's at the hospital?"

"No, Jeni, she's dead."

"What?" said Jeni. In a fog—"I felt like my whole head went blank"—she turned to Lindy. "Is your mom telling the truth? Is she lying?"

"No, she's telling the truth."

More than a year later, Jeni would say: "I felt like my eyes were going to roll into the back of my head, and I was going to pass out. I still feel that way today."

*

The Miseners say they had another visit from a family member later that night— Mick, along with Roy Gruenburg.

The Miseners said they saw it was Mick coming up to the door. Unwilling or unable to face him, they ignored his knocking, sitting there silently, looking at each other and hoping he'd go away.

He knocked, waited, knocked again. Gloria and Jack say they're sure he knew they were inside, and that finally Mick said loudly enough through the door for them to hear:

"I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I'm tired of this bullshit."

And then he and Gruenburg turned, walked back to their car and left.