Woman, Sons Kill 3 Officers in Motel Siege

A woman and her three heavily armed sons killed three police officers who had come to their motel room to serve a bad-check warrant and held off authorities for more than nine hours with a 1,000-round fusillade before surrendering early today.

The four gave up about 3:45 a.m. after having talked with a prominent Detroit minister and a television reporter, and police found the bodies of their three fellow officers in the room at the Bungalow Motel.

Killed were Daniel Dubiel, 36, a 13-year police veteran; rookie patrolman Clay Hoover, 21, and their supervisor, Sgt. Ira Parker, 41, a 15-year veteran on the force.

Police Chief James Buckley said Dubiel and Hoover were sent to the brick and cinder-block motel 10 miles west of downtown Detroit at 5:17 p.m. Thursday to serve a bad-check warrant on Alberta Easter, about 57.

‘Volley of Shots’

Parker arrived a short time later at the officers’ request, and the three entered the room where they were met with “a volley of shots,” Buckley said. “From all indications it appears highly likely that the initial volley was the fatal one.”

Easter and her three adult sons then barricaded themselves in adjacent rooms 105 and 106 and began firing with an arsenal of weapons. The gunfire lasted about three hours while the fate of the officers was unknown.

Police cordoned off the area as dozens of officers from area SWAT teams surrounded the motel. Tear gas canisters were fired into the motel room about 7 p.m., but the gunmen could not be forced out.

Buckley said Easter told police that she wanted to talk to the Rev. James Holley, pastor of Little Rock Baptist Church in Detroit and a prominent civil rights activist.

‘Something Else Involved’

Holley was rushed to the scene and spoke to Easter by telephone, urging her to surrender and free the officers.

“It’s sad,” Holley said after the siege ended and the officers were found dead. “I really thought I was doing something in talking (the suspects) out. I have mixed emotions. We got the people out, but at the same time the officers were dead.”

“We all have to suspect there’s something else involved here . . . because it was a serious reaction,” Deputy Police Chief Terry Colwell said of the bad-check warrant.

During the standoff, Easter told WXYZ television reporter Bill Proctor that the bad check had been written because she had been cheated in a $100-million real estate deal and that she did not want to be arrested because one of her ailing sons needed her care.