An Independence Township man has been sentenced for a machete attack that left one person dead and another injured.
On Thursday morning, Oakland County Circuit Judge Martha Anderson sentenced 52-year-old Todd Alan Szyszkowski to 30-75 years in prison for the second-degree murder of Dustin Little, 27, assaullt of Alfredo Reyes and armed robbery that happened in February of 2021 at a house on Oliver Street in Pontiac.
Little lived with Reyes at the house along with another man David Black, who escaped injury in the attack.
Szyszkowski made a plea deal with prosecutors, who dismissed a charge of first-degree homicide in exchange for his no contest plea to second-degree homicide.
At a preliminary exam in June 2021, Black testified to seeing Szyszkowski hit Reyes in the face with a machete several times before turning it on Little — plunging it into him twice. Moments earlier, there had been talk about Reyes “ripping him off,” said Black, adding that they were all drug users and Szyszkowski had lived there previously.
Black and Reyes fled the house after the attack, but Little was dead — with 12 major stab wounds to the face and neck, six more to the chest and knees, and multiple superficial wounds to the hands and arms.
Oakland County Sheriff’s deputies called to the scene followed a trail of footprints and blood droplets in the snow and eventually located Szyszkowski lying behind a garage in the neighborhood, overdosed on Xanax. He’d stolen the drug from one of the three men, according to the prosecution.
Szyszkowski was sentenced as a habitual offender. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to pay restitution of $3,701.44. He has 554 days jail credit.
Dating back to 1993, Szyszkowski’s criminal history in Oakland and Wayne counties includes third-degree criminal sexual conduct, larceny, breaking and entering, retail fraud and ordinance violations.
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