Murder Trial Ordered For Rochester Hills Man In Parents' Hammer-Beating Deaths

ROCHESTER HILLS (WWJ/AP) - A judge has ordered a 53-year-old man with a history of mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse to stand trial in the hammer-beating deaths of his 87-year-old father and 85-year-old mother.

A Rochester Hills district judge ruled Tuesday that there's enough evidence to try Jeffrey B. Maurer in Oakland County Circuit Court on first-degree murder charges.

Authorities say the couple's daughter called Jan. 19, saying she'd been unable to reach her parents. Sheriff's deputies went to their home in the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills and found the bodies of William and Gayle Maurer in a vehicle in the garage of their home on E. Maryknoll Road, in a neighborhood off Walton Boulevard and S. Adams Road.

Maurer, who officials said was found bloody and disheveled, was immediately taken into custody.

Two bloody hammers and "a great deal of blood-stained clothing and towel" were taken by detectives from the scene.

Investigators said the victims appeared to have died of blows to the head. A possible motive for the crime has not been disclosed.

Maurer had a previous domestic violence conviction involving his parents.

He faces an automatic penalty of life in prison without parole if convicted on the first degree murder charge.

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