Man Held After 5 Slain in Home

A man was charged Friday with killing his girlfriend, their daughter and three other children, as mourners from all over the city streamed by the victims’ home to place toys, cards and candles at a makeshift shrine.

Roger Thompson, 36, was arrested Thursday after a 13-year-old girl who survived the bloodshed alerted police. Officers found the victims beaten to death in the house in the northeast section of Detroit and caught Thompson running through a vacant lot across the street.

“These five horrible deaths illustrate in the strongest possible terms the problem we have with family violence in this country,” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said.

Thompson had not previously been arrested for domestic violence, and had no criminal record.

Worthy gave no details about a possible motive and did not discuss the cause of the deaths. She said Thompson was “quite remorseful.”

Thompson was charged with five counts of first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. Michigan does not have the death penalty.

He was held without bond.