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Southfield police investigate after DMC nurse found dead in her home
Investigators first believed she died from natural causes, but an autopsy showed she had bullet fragments in her head.
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - A woman was found dead in her Southfield home on Thursday. Investigators first believed she died from natural causes, but an autopsy showed she had bullet fragments in her head.
63-year-old Patrese Sayas loved her grandkids and gardening, her daughter, Rochelle Davis, tells FOX 2.
"I call her the crazy cat lady gardener because she rescues all the cats in our backyard; all her coworkers have one, one I have one and didn't even like cats," Rochelle said. "She attended everything my kids have done."
The victim, 63-year-old Patrese Sayas, with her grandson.
On Thursday, Rochelle couldn’t get a hold of her mom, so she started to worry.
"I called that morning, and she didn’t answer, it went straight to voicemail, so I started call around the ER's. Is she there? Everybody said no," Rochelle said
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So Rochelle called DMC where Patrese worked as a nurse and the person on the other end of the call said something that gave Rochelle chills.
"Well Patrese has been a no call, a no show for the past 3 days that’s so unlike her and the 30 some years she’s been working that has never happened."
Patrese Sayas when she first started her nursing career.
Rochelle rushed to her mother’s Southfield home, but there was no answer when she knocked on the door.
"I didn’t see the cat running around, her car was gone."
She called police, and they came to the house on Avon Lane, but she says they told her they didn’t think it was necessary for them to force their way in. When police left, Rochelle took matters into her own hands.
"I found a window was half way open that wasn’t all the way locked, and my friend came to help me, and we got in, I climbed in the window."
When she made it inside the home, she made a shocking discovery.
"I just saw her laying in the bed with her arm dangling to the floor."
Investigators came back to the house and said it appeared the long-time nurse died from natural causes.
"I told them no way."
Rochelle says her mom had no major health problems. The next day the medical examiner’s office determined there were bullet fragments in Patrese’s skull.
Hours later, police say her 65-year-old husband, Rochelle's stepfather, was found deceased in a parking garage in Detroit. He died from a self-inflicted gun shot wound to the head.
Authorities are now investigating a possible connection between the two deaths.
"It just really hurts, and I'm her only child, and we don’t have any family here anymore they’ve all moved away over the years, and I'm just here by myself with my boys just trying to do the right thing," Rochelle said.