Inset: Brittany L. Groat (Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office). Background: The Indiana home where Groat allegedly killed her boyfriend last week (WOOD).
A 36-year-old Michigan woman is accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death inside his home before calling someone and repeatedly saying, "I think I killed him."
Brittany Leigh Groat is charged with one count of open murder in the killing of 50-year-old Robert Walter Larsen, according to court records.
According to a probable cause affidavit from the Michigan State Police, troopers responded at about 9:16 p.m. on July 24 to a home on West Sturtevant Avenue in Comstock Township after 911 callers reported that Groat had contacted them around 9 p.m. and said she had killed her boyfriend.
When troopers entered the residence, they found Larsen dead on a staircase. Investigators described the home as being covered in blood, with bloody footprints leading throughout the residence and into the garage.
The affidavit states that part of Groat's phone call before authorities arrived was recorded. After giving the home's address, she allegedly can be heard saying, "I think I killed him, I think I killed him."
Investigators used surveillance video and witness interviews to reconstruct what happened next. According to the affidavit, Larsen's vehicle left the residence at about 7:11 p.m. Deputies later located it on Kings Highway and found Groat alone behind the wheel. Police said she was wearing a white shirt, jean shorts and black-and-white Converse shoes.
Describing Groat, police wrote that "all clothing" she was wearing "had bloodstains all over them."
After waiving her Miranda rights, Groat denied knowing how the blood got on her clothing and denied doing anything to Larsen, investigators wrote. She acknowledged that she and Larsen were in a dating relationship and that she had been staying at his home for several weeks, but when detectives asked what happened before she left, she allegedly said that "she did not remember."
Groat later claimed Larsen cut her with a folding knife as she was trying to leave the house and said he went back inside after she exited, according to the affidavit. She also told investigators that only she and Larsen had been inside the residence.
After obtaining a search warrant, investigators recovered a folding knife and a baseball bat lying next to Larsen's body on the stairs and landing. Once his body was moved, investigators observed at least six stab wounds to the front of his body, several concentrated near his upper chest and neck, according to the affidavit.
An autopsy performed two days later documented a total of 10 stab wounds as well as multiple lacerations. The medical examiner determined Larsen died from blood loss caused by the stab wounds and ruled the death a homicide.
Groat was arraigned Monday in Kalamazoo County's 8th District Court, where a judge denied bond, records show. She is scheduled to return to court for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 5.