Martin Yost faces mandatory life without parole after a jury found the killing of Dhoua Lao was premeditated.

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — A Macomb County jury has convicted a Sterling Heights man of first-degree premeditated murder in the death of his girlfriend, concluding a two-week trial that examined a fatal assault, troubling messages between the couple and the discovery of both people inside a parked vehicle.

Martin Yost, 45, was found guilty June 12 of killing 45-year-old Dhoua Lao on Nov. 13, 2023. Police found Yost unconscious in the driver’s seat of his vehicle in Roseville while Lao was unresponsive in the passenger seat, according to prosecutors and local news reports. Authorities said Lao had suffered extensive injuries during an assault that prosecutors described as connected to domestic violence. Yost, who has remained in the Macomb County Jail without bond since his arrest, is scheduled to be sentenced July 28 before Circuit Court Judge Rachel Rancilio.

The first-degree murder verdict carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without eligibility for parole under Michigan law. State law defines first-degree murder to include a willful, deliberate and premeditated killing. The jury’s decision therefore went beyond finding that Yost caused Lao’s death. It also meant prosecutors had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing involved the required level of advance intent. Yost had initially been arraigned on a second-degree murder charge shortly after the killing, but the case that reached the jury resulted in a conviction for the more serious first-degree offense.

The case began with a call from another driver who reported seeing a man assaulting a woman inside a vehicle in Detroit, Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido said in an interview shortly after Yost’s arrest. The caller provided a description of the vehicle. About 30 minutes later, Roseville officers located a matching car on Gratiot Avenue near Interstate 94. Yost was in the driver’s seat and appeared to be unconscious or incapacitated. Lao was beside him in the passenger seat. Police determined that she had died before officers reached the car.

Investigators believed Lao was assaulted in Detroit before she was placed in the vehicle and driven to the location in Roseville, according to reporting by WDIV. Authorities said Yost was covered in blood when officers arrived. The physical condition of the vehicle and the people inside became a central part of the prosecution’s account. The case did not depend only on officers finding Yost with Lao’s body, however. Prosecutors also presented evidence about the couple’s relationship, Lao’s communications with Yost and the nature of the injuries documented during the investigation.

Jurors were shown text messages in which Lao pleaded with Yost not to kill or hurt her and offered him money, according to a courtroom account cited by Law&Crime. Prosecutors used the messages to present what they described as a pattern of fear within the relationship. Such evidence can be important in a premeditated-murder case because it may help jurors evaluate the defendant’s conduct, the relationship leading up to the death and whether the fatal act arose without warning or followed earlier threats and abuse. The complete message exchange was not publicly reproduced in the reports reviewed for this article.

The trial also focused on the severity and location of Lao’s injuries. Authorities said she suffered significant trauma to her head, face and hands. Lucido said in 2023 that the injuries to her hands appeared consistent with an attempt to protect herself. He described the crime as the most severe beating he had encountered but cautioned that investigators were still gathering facts at the time. News reports from the trial said the injuries made Lao difficult for responding officers to identify immediately. The most graphic details have been omitted here because they are not necessary to explain the verdict.

Prosecutors argued that the evidence, taken together, demonstrated an intentional and premeditated killing. They relied on the eyewitness report that triggered the police response, the condition of the vehicle, the location and extent of Lao’s injuries, communications between the couple and the circumstances in which officers found Yost. The trial lasted two weeks before jurors returned their verdict. Public reports did not provide a full account of Yost’s defense or identify which evidence his attorneys challenged, and no defense statement about the conviction was available in the materials reviewed.

Yost had a prior criminal history that included a domestic violence conviction, according to The Detroit News and CBS News Detroit. He had completed parole about three weeks before his arrest in Lao’s death. Lucido said after the killing that investigators did not know whether Lao was aware of Yost’s history or that he had recently finished parole. That question remained outside the essential issue before the jury, which was whether prosecutors proved the charged murder based on the evidence connected to Lao’s death.

Lao was a mother of two, according to WDIV. Public statements released after the verdict focused on the loss to her family and the domestic-violence circumstances prosecutors said surrounded the killing. Lucido called the case a stark example of the worst possible consequence of domestic violence. He said the conviction could not reverse the family’s loss but expressed hope that the outcome would provide some measure of peace. The prosecutor’s office also credited the attorneys who handled the trial, the investigators and Lao’s relatives for their roles in the case.

The verdict marks a major legal change from the early stage of the prosecution. When Yost was arraigned in November 2023, he faced second-degree murder, a charge that can also carry life imprisonment but does not require proof of premeditation. By the end of the trial, the jury had been asked to decide whether the evidence established the elements of first-degree premeditated murder. Its guilty verdict resolved the question of criminal liability at the trial-court level, leaving sentencing and any post-trial litigation as the remaining formal steps.

Although the punishment for an adult convicted of first-degree murder is fixed by Michigan law, the sentencing hearing remains significant. Lao’s relatives may have an opportunity to address the court, and the judge will formally enter the sentence and related orders. The hearing also creates a public record of the case’s conclusion in the trial court. Available reports did not indicate whether Yost plans to appeal, and an appeal cannot be assumed until a notice or statement is filed.

Yost remains jailed without bond while awaiting the July 28 hearing. Court records and the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office identify Rancilio as the judge assigned to impose sentence. Unless the conviction is altered through a successful post-trial motion or later appeal, Michigan law requires Yost to spend the rest of his life in prison without parole.

Author note: Last updated July 15, 2026.