Man accused of murdering Roseville woman charged with third jail assault
Freeman’s murder case, assault cases pending
A man accused of murdering a Roseville woman in her home in 2022 has been charged for a third time with assaulting a Macomb County Jail corrections officer.
Stephen Lee Freeman, 20, a Lexington native, appeared by Zoom video from the jail in front of 41B District Judge Carrie Fuca on his third charge of assaulting a prison employee Feb. 2 at the jail, since his arrest for the fatal strangulation of Gabriele Seitz, 62, in October 2022 in her Utica Road apartment.
Freeman’s attorney,
Marissa Kulcsar, appeared in court for a probable-cause conference, and Fuca scheduled a March 5 preliminary examination.
Details of the alleged assault were unavailable.
Freeman is housed in the most secure section of the jail, a sheriff’s deputy told the judge.
He faces the same charge for two other alleged assaults at the jail last Dec. 7 and Jan. 30, 2023, following his arrest in October 2022.
In the slaying case, he is charged with first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree felony murder, first-degree home invasion, second-degree criminal sexual assault and concealing the death of an individual. He remains held without bond.
Freeman, who was homeless at the time, allegedly broke into Seitz’s single-level residence near 12 Mile Road about 6:15 p.m. Oct. 26, 2022 and surprised her about an hour later when she arrived home from her job at National Coney Island. He allegedly beat, sexually assaulted and fatally strangled her.
About noon the next day, he crashed her blue Ford Ranger into a semi-truck near Hayes and Common roads with Seitz’s body in the truck bed and fled on foot, according to authorities.
He was captured three days later in Lexington.
He faces a March 18 pretrial in front of Macomb Circuit Judge Julie Gatti.
Freeman has also lived in Waterford Township.