By Ed White
Associated Press
DETROIT (AP) - A Detroit-area man who served 16 years in prison for killing his first wife was locked up Wednesday for nearly 50 more for the carbon-monoxide deaths of his two young children and fatal shootings of two stepchildren, an attack that also left his second wife barely alive.
"Your justice will come when you burn in hell for eternity," said Faith Green, who survived with a box-cutter scar visible from ear to chin.
She wanted a no-parole sentence for Gregory Green. But Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway said she would stick with the plea deal reached with prosecutors, including a minimum prison sentence of 47 years. The judge suggested that Green, who's 50, likely won't live long enough to see his first opportunity for parole at age 97.
Hathaway said it's the worst case she's seen.
"Fathers are supposed to protect their children. Husbands are supposed to protect their wives," the judge said.
Police say Gregory Green called 911 last September to report the deaths of his daughters, ages 4 and 5, and stepchildren, ages 19 and 17, at their Dearborn Heights home.
Faith Green, who had filed for divorce at the time, was bound, cut in the face with a box cutter and forced to watch as her teenage children were shot in front of her, police said. Their two daughters were asphyxiated through carbon monoxide poisoning.
Faith Green said she sometimes wakes up "screaming and sweating," thinking she can save her children.
"Then I realize that the nightmare is actually reality and my children are really gone," she said.
Assistant prosecutor Trisha Gerard said Gregory Green had planned the killings for days.
"Honestly, judge, there just aren't any words," Gerard said. "It is tragic. It is heinous. It is beyond evil."
When it was his turn to speak, Green said he was sorry and that he thinks about his daughters every day. But he also seemed to offer an excuse, saying all he wanted was a "God-fearing" spouse who would support him.
"God knows the heart," Green said. "He knows how regretful and how sorry I am. Even now, after all this, He still has a plan."
The Greens married in 2010, two years after Gregory Green left prison on his fifth request for parole. He had pleaded no contest to killing his first wife, who was pregnant, in 1991.
Published: Fri, Mar 03, 2017
