The murder trial of Deandre Booker begins on Tuesday, November 10, in Macomb County Circuit Court — a case Michigan prosecutors will have to prove without the one piece of evidence most murder trials have: a body. Booker, 33, of Roseville, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder in the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend Ashley Elkins, a Warren mother who was last seen leaving her home on the morning of January 2, 2025, and whose body has never been found. Booker has pleaded not guilty — the court entered that plea after he stood mute at his circuit court arraignment — and every charge against him is an allegation until a jury decides.
Source: WDIV Local 4 via Opera News, Nov. 10, 2026
Prosecutors say the case rests instead on forensic and digital evidence gathered in the first month after Elkins vanished: DNA testing that matched a 'substantial' amount of blood found in the bathroom of Booker's Roseville apartment to Elkins, her phone's last known location at his residence, surveillance footage prosecutors described at the preliminary hearing, and online searches police say Booker made while he was in Flint — including fastest routes from Flint to Ohio, what to do while on the run, how to beat a polygraph test, and deleting Google search history.
The disappearance: January 2, 2025
Family members last saw Elkins leaving her Warren home at about 8:30 a.m. on January 2, wearing a long black coat with fur around the hood and black leggings. Her mother, Monika Elkins, arrived at the house about 10 minutes after she left and could not reach her by FaceTime. Hours later, a family member received a text from Elkins saying she was going to a beauty supply store; after that, her mother said, the phone was turned off before being turned back on. According to her phone records as described by the family and police, her last known location was her ex-boyfriend's residence in the 20900 block of Pinehurst Street in Roseville. She was reported missing on January 3.
Two days before she vanished, on December 31, 2024, Booker had booked an appointment at Elkins' home salon using a different name, according to family members. Her mother said he knocked on the front door and then the side door, and that Ashley told everyone in the house to be quiet before he left. Prosecutors are expected to present that visit as part of the run-up to her disappearance; Booker has denied killing her.
The car, the apartment and the arrest in Flint
On January 7, authorities found Elkins' grey 2009-10 Chevrolet Malibu, which had no licence plate, a few miles from Booker's Roseville apartment, and searched his apartment that night. Booker was arrested in Flint on the evening of January 8 and brought back to Roseville, initially on a charge of lying to police. Elkins' uncle and family spokesperson Maurice Morton said after meeting authorities that investigators had collected substantial evidence at the ex-boyfriend's home, that they indicated Ashley had been murdered, that they did not have her body, and that they had good leads on where it might be. Her body has still not been recovered, more than 22 months later.
Booker was arraigned on January 9 on the lying-to-police charge, given a $250,000 cash/surety bond with a steel GPS tether if released — the hearing at which his Flint search history was aired. Then, on January 31, 2025, after Michigan State Police laboratory testing confirmed the blood in his bathroom was Elkins', Macomb County Prosecutor Peter J. Lucido's office charged him with first-degree premeditated murder, tampering with evidence, disinterment or mutilation of a body, and concealing the death of an individual, in addition to lying to a police officer in a violent crime investigation.
Source: The Macomb Daily, Jan. 2025
At that hearing, Roseville Police Detective Sergeant Anthony Coraci told 39th District Judge Alyia Hakim that Elkins' DNA matched the blood, and Hakim ordered Booker held without bond. His attorney at the time, Robbie Lang, asked for bond, noting Booker had no prior criminal convictions and had ties to the area. Lucido said publicly that he believed his team could achieve justice in the case without a body.
Michigan law does not require a body to prove murder. Prosecutors must still prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Elkins is dead and that Booker killed her with premeditation — here, they intend to do it with DNA, phone-location, surveillance and search-history evidence rather than a recovered body.
The long road to this courtroom
A lengthy preliminary examination in August 2025 heard testimony from Elkins' mother and several officers, including Roseville Officer Shane Nabozny on what was found in the apartment search, and prosecutors presented surveillance footage they said showed suspicious activity around the time Elkins went missing. On January 7, 2026, Booker was bound over for trial on all counts. On June 4, 2026, Lucido announced Booker had been deemed competent to stand trial after a forensic evaluation: a Center for Forensic Psychiatry report dated May 20 was adopted by a Macomb County Circuit judge at a pretrial conference.
The last step before trial came on October 28, 2026, when Macomb County Circuit Court documents show Booker asked to terminate his counsel and the request was denied. An evidentiary hearing was also held that day, but Booker did not appear. He has remained in custody in the Macomb County Jail without bond on the murder charge.
What it means for Warren and Roseville families
Elkins, a hairstylist who ran a home salon and a mother whose family has spent nearly two years without a body to bury, became one of Macomb County's most closely followed missing-person cases — one that began as a disappearance in Warren, moved through a Roseville apartment and a Flint arrest, and now lands in circuit court about 20 miles northeast of Detroit. For the family, the trial starting Tuesday is the first time a jury will weigh the full evidence in public; for the wider community, it is a close look at how a modern no-body murder case is built, exhibit by exhibit.
What happens next
The trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday, November 10, in Macomb County Circuit Court, starting with the opening phase of jury proceedings. The prosecution, led by Lucido's office, is expected to lay out the DNA, location and search-history evidence first; Booker's defence is expected to challenge whether that evidence proves a murder at all, and whether it ties him to one. If convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, Booker faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. No trial length or verdict date has been announced.