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Police Deliever Death Notifiation - Find Three People Murdered

Last updated on Friday, August 17, 2012

(VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich) - Officers found a woman and her two young sons dead in their suburban Detroit home Thursday when they went there to notify the family of a fiery, fatal crash in Indiana.

Police seeking crash notification find 3 dead


Police said they went to the home after being notified of a man's death in a crash near Michigan City, Ind., which is just over the state line. When no one responded they entered through an unlocked door and found the three bodies in separate bedrooms.

Investigators didn't say how the three died but said the case was being investigated as homicide. The boys, ages 4 and 7, were found in their own beds at the home in Wayne County's Van Buren Township, police said.

Their mother was found in an adult bedroom.

"There was no sign of forced entry. No sign of robbery," Van Buren Township Police Capt. Gregory Laurain.

John Sullivan, the coroner in LaPorte County, Ind., identified one of the people killed in the crash as Michael VanDerLinden. Public records showed the 39-year-old VanDerLinden co-owned the Michigan home where the bodies were found with his wife, 34-year-old Linda VanDerLinden.

Officials there weren't confirming the identities of any of the people killed.

They're trying to tie the two together and why Michael was down in Indiana," Sullivan said.

Laurain confirmed that a weapon was found in the home, but didn't indicate what kind. It was too early to speculate about what happened at the home, but police planned to search the burned wreckage of the car involved in the Indiana crash for a possible suicide note or other evidence, he added.

Authorities went through the home about 25 miles west of Detroit, collecting computers and voice messaging equipment. Laurain said the woman who was killed was described as a stay-at-home mother, while the man who died in the crash worked in information technology

Neighbors in the quiet, clean subdivision of Tudor- and Colonial-style homes declined to talk about the family.

Police in Indiana said earlier that two people died about 1:30 a.m. on Interstate 94 in the crash which was caused by a driver going the wrong way. Police said it appeared the driver left a highway rest area going eastbound in the westbound lanes and hit another vehicle head-on, causing a fire that engulfed both vehicles.

VanDerLinden and 45-year-old Juan Nelson Jr. of Portage in West Michigan were pronounced dead at the scene, Sullivan said. Two westbound lanes of I-94 near Michigan City were closed for several hours after the crash.

Police say the circumstances of the crash remained under investigation.

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