Gregory Vincente Green, 49, and Faith Harris Green, 39, appeared to be a doting family in the tree-lined Detroit suburb of Dearborn Heights. They celebrated birthday parties outside, laughed together and seemed to be an ideal family. But inside their home, a storm raged as the couple fought.

On September 21, 2016, Gregory Green called police and told them that he had executed his four children and tried to get rid of his wife as well. She survived.

Once investigators got inside the residence (Gregory Green waited for police and was arrested on his porch), they discovered a house of horrors: 4-year-old Kaliegh Green, 4, and Koi Green, 6, were found in their beds dead, poisoned from carbon monoxide. His stepchildren, a boy and girl, 17 and 19 respectively were found deceased in the home's basement, both shot multiple times. Faith Green, the wife, was found zip-tied and wrapped in duct tape but fighting for her life inside the home. She was leaking blood from several wounds in her body after being both shot and stabbed.

Police said Faith Green, who had recently filed for divorce, had been forced to watch her husband methodically go room to room, executing their children. When police found her her face with cut up from a box cutter; her foot had a bullet hole in it, according to the Detroit Free Press.

This was not the first time Faith Green tried to leave her husband, whom she married in 2010. According to Detroit TV station WDIV, Faith Green filed a report in 2013 that said, "He is trying to make me leave our home. We're filing for divorce. He's being belligerent, kicking things. He kicked the couch while the baby was sleeping on it. He's just kicking things, threatening me and saying if I don't leave, things are going to get ugly. He jumped at me like he was going to attack. This went on for four hours."

People who knew the couple said that things were uneasy at the home as of late.

“They were having some issues and they supposedly worked them out, and then she moved back in and this happened,” said a neighbor who only wanted to be identified as Michelle told WWJ-TV in Detroit. “But, you know, I kind of think she was getting ready to leave again.”

Another neighbor, Terry Strickland, told the TV station:  “They were just quiet, you know, kids seemed always happy. The guy seemed really good, too,” he said. “I mean, the time when he accidentally hit my car, he was polite, he came and knocked on my door and told me what happened and we worked things out. He seemed like a very good guy.”

Dearborn Heights Mayor Dan Paletko told WWJ that the family's murder was "devastating" in every way. “Right away when you see the kind of action that was taken against these four kids, you can’t help but think of your own kids and what would make anybody do this,” Paletko said live on WWJ Newsradio 950. “It’s a tragedy and it’s unbelievable. I can’t fathom as to what would be the motivation to do something like this.”

On Wednesday, September 28, Faith Green, her face still freshly scarred from cuts and bruises, was supposed to speak publicly on the murders to her family, her life shattered forever more. She couldn't do it.

Spokesman Lloyd Banks said at a news conference that the grief had overwhelmed Green the night before. She couldn't bring herself to utter a word.

“Faith Green is not up to addressing the media; she’s not up to coming out today,” Banks said, according to WWL. “She had a really bad night, an even worse morning, so she will not be here.”

“I think she wanted to make sure everyone understood and knew about her children, and that was the main message,” he said, the TV station reports. “She didn’t want them to be forgotten in all of this tragedy that has taken place.”

Funerals for the four children were held Friday, September 30.

It turns out Gregory Green is an ex-convict. In 2008 he was released from prison after serving 16 years for murder of his pregnant wife. He was released after a fifth try at parole, WWL reports.

Green is charged with four counts of first-degree murder; one count of torture; one count of unlawful imprisonment, assault and felon in possession.