Autopsy to Determine Cause, Manner of Death of Grosse Pointe Park Woman

Grosse Pointe Park detectives are at the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office this morning awaiting the results of an autopsy of the 35-year-old woman found dead early Thursday. 

Detectives were asked to be there at 8:30 a.m. and will be there until the autopsy is complete, Capt. David Loch said early Friday.

The woman, identified by media as Sabrina Gianino, was the head receptionist at Platz Animal Hospital.

Loch told Patch early Friday there had not been a history of 911 calls to the duplex where she was found, 1316 and 1314 Wayburn St. He declined to explain the nature of the call at this time. 

According to a press release from the Grosse Pointe Park Department of Public Safety, the Michigan State Police crime lab is assisting in the investigation. Gianino's death is being investigated as suspicious. 

The official ruling on the cause and manner will come after the autopsy is completed this morning. 

Her death is the second in Grosse Pointe Park in about 18 months to be under investigation as suspicious. The other well-known investigation was of Jane Bashara, whose death was ruled a homicide by strangulation. Her death was the first homicide in the Park in at least a decade if not two. 

Bashara's body was found in the backseat of her SUV in a Detroit neighorbhood near 7 Mile and Hoover roads. The investigation has revealed that Bashara was likely killed in her garage on Middlesex. Her husband, for her violent death.

The homes are less than two miles apart but in vastly different neighborhoods.

Bashara's home was 2,800-square-feet with five bedrooms, three full and two half bathrooms, a wine cellar and a finished basement with a large yard and just a short distance from Lake St. Clair. 

The duplex where Gianino was found is in a cozier neighborhood featuring many multi-family homes--duplexes, twinplexes and apartments--that are close together with small yards and alley access to garages. 

Both neighborhoods are close to Detroit, just a short distance from Alter Road, wihch is the dividing point between the cities. The duplex on Wayburn is in the corner of Grosse Pointe Park proper, meaning it's less than a block from the Detroit city line.

Little information is being released on the investigation of Gianino but news of her suspicious death has traveled quickly throughout the Pointes. , shocked the otherwise quiet community where everyone knows each other or they know someone who knows that person. 

Homicide investigations in the Pointes are few and far between overall, not just in the Park. There have also been two notable investigations in Grosse Pointe Woods in the last few years. 

Kara Wilhelm, 19, was found dead in her bed at her parents Hampton Road home in May 2011 with her hands crossed and a sheet pulled over her head. Her death has been ruled undetermined after the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office could not determine the cause or manner. The caes remains open but is inactive until something sheds light on the circumstances of her death.

Then in November 2012, in his house in the 2000 block of Hampton Road--several blocks north of Wilhelm's house. His death was ruled a homicide. He was shot to death. The investigation remains very active behind-the-scenes, the Woods Public Safety Director has told Patch.