UPDATED: Son Held in Homicide of Elderly Parents

This story has been updated with details from a Tuesday afternoon news conference.

A Rochester Hills man beat his elderly parents to death and then placed their bodies in a car inside their garage, Oakland County authorities said Tuesday afternoon.

Officials were called to the home of 85-year-old Gayle Baird Maurer and 87-year-old William Joseph Maurer on East Maryknoll, near Brewster Road and Walton Boulevard about 3 p.m. Monday after the Maurers’ daughter, a sister of the suspect, said she had not seen her parents since Saturday.

The car belongs to their 53-year-old son, who has not been identified, Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe said during a news conference Monday, the Detroit Free Press reports.

“One was found in the front seat and the other was found in the back,” McCabe said.

The Maurers live at the address with their son, who has a history of mental health issues and drug and alcohol abuse, authorities said. He reportedly told his sister that their parents “had gone away,” McCabe said.

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“She felt a little hinky about it and didn’t think it was right because she had been trying to get a hold of them,” McCabe said.

When authorities searched the house, they found the suspect in an upstairs bedroom “in a disheveled state,” McCabe said. Physical evidence, including blood, collected tied him to the crime, he said.

McCabe said police believe they have recovered the weapon that was used to kill the elderly couple, but he declined to identify it.

“We’re keeping just about everything close to the vest at this point,” he said. “We have recovered physical evidence at the scene.”

McCabe said the couple’s son did not resist arrest, but is refusing to answer questions.

He was previously arrested and convicted of a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence for an attack on his parents in 2000, McCabe said. He was investigated for assault on another occasion, but charges were never filed.

This is Rochester Hills first homicide in two years.

“This is very tragic,” McCabe said. “The entire neighborhood is upset and the daughter is extremely upset.”