A house explosion ripped through a home on Rollaway Drive NE off 7 Mile Road in Plainfield Township, Michigan, just before 4 a.m. Tuesday, leaving one person dead, another critically injured and a neighborhood shaken awake by the blast.
Kent County Sheriff's Office deputies said they believe the explosion was a domestic-related incident and that the fire was intentionally set by the husband in what was intended to be a murder-suicide. A woman who lived at the house was pulled from the debris by two neighbors, a man and a teenage boy, and was taken to the hospital in critical condition.
The blast destroyed the house and a car in the driveway, and debris from the home kept burning after the explosion. One of the neighbors who helped rescue the woman hurt his hands and was treated at the scene by emergency responders. Deputies said they received around 50 calls from people in the area who heard or saw the explosion, underscoring how hard the blast hit a part of the township about 7.8 miles north of downtown Grand Rapids.
By just after noon Tuesday, investigators found a man dead at the scene and believed he was the husband, though official identification was still pending. Deputies said they believed natural gas had allegedly been leaked into the basement of the home, but the ignition source remained unknown. DTE Energy crews responded to help make the scene safe while law enforcement investigated.
The case now turns on the grim mechanics of how the blast was triggered and whether the investigation will confirm what deputies already believe: that this was not a random explosion, but a deliberate act inside a family home. The Kent County Sheriff's Office asked anyone with footage of the incident in the area to share it online.
