"Super Nice Guy" Ends Ongoing Dispute

"MUSKEGON, MI - Authorities were investigating what they said was a probable murder-suicide Saturday night that claimed the lives of a man and a woman inside a Muskegon Township home.

"Police were not releasing the victims' names. Neighbors who knew the victims estimated the man was in his mid-40s and the woman in her mid-30s.

"Police were called to a home at 332 S. Densmore around 8 p.m. by a person who reported gunshots fired inside the home.

"Officers called in the Muskegon County Emergency Response Team -- the county's equivalent of a SWAT team -- because they weren't sure of the situation in the house.

"Police said they thought there might have been a person barricaded in the home with a gun and a hostage.

"More than a dozen heavily armed and armored officers surrounded the house, and eventually entered it, at which time they found the bodies of the man and woman, according to Muskegon Township Police Chief Donald Schrumpf.

"Schrumpf said the dead man and woman were boyfriend and girlfriend, and they had been involved in an ongoing dispute for about the past month.

"The deaths occurred in a middle-class neighborhood of well-kept homes, just north of Marquette Avenue and east of Sheridan Road.

"Penny Hampton, of 385 Densmore, said other neighbors told her that the couple who lived at 332 S. Densmore broke up about a month ago, and the house was recently put up for sale.

"Hampton said she and her husband, Jim, were watching TV Saturday night when they saw police running across their lawn.

"`The cops told us to stay in our house and stay away from the windows,` Hampton said. `Then the SWAT team showed up. There were 14 of them -- it was crazy.`

"Penny Hampton said the man believed to have died in the house was `a super nice guy. But then, you never know what happens behind closed doors,` she said."

From mlive.com...