Suspect in court for hearing on Chelsea Bruck’s murder

A 27-year-old Newport man was in court Tuesday for a hearing on the slaying of Chelsea Bruck as well as unrelated charges of home invasion and sexual assault, according to officials.

Daniel Allen Clay is charged with second-degree murder and concealing a death or disposing of a corpse in Bruck’s death. The 22-year-old woman disappeared Oct. 26, 2014, from a Halloween party in Frenchtown Township.

Her skeletal remains were found six months later, on April 24, 2015, about 12 miles away in a wooded lot on Briar Hill in Ash Township. Her cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head, according to the Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Clay also was in court Tuesday to address charges of home invasion and first-degree criminal sexual conduct, both stemming from a June 9 incident in Monroe, court officials said.

He appeared Tuesday before 1st District Judge Jack Vitale and is due back in court Nov. 2 for preliminary examinations on both cases.

Clay was arrested in Bruck’s murder in July, nearly two years after the woman’s death. Investigators have said Clay was linked to the murder after his DNA was taken during an unrelated arrest this year for theft, according to a published report in The Monroe News.

State police told the Monroe County Sheriff’s office that Clay’s DNA matched DNA found on Bruck’s Poison Ivy Halloween costume.

HFournier@detroitnews.com

(313) 223-4616

@HollyPFournier