Man Sentenced For Killing First Wife

DETROIT – A Brownstown Township man with a long criminal record was sentenced to 15-30 years in federal prison Tuesday for the death of his first wife.

Roger Sweet was charged with second-degree murder of his wife, Marlene.

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Marlene died June 10, 1990, after a fall in the couple's Farmington Hills house. Her death was originally labeled an accident but investigators later determined that the broken bones and fractured skull were a result of domestic abuse.

Sweet is also a suspect in the disappearance of his second wife, Lizzie Mae Collier-Sweet.

She was reported missing after the couple's home caught fire Jan. 8, 2007. Investigators determined the fire was arson.

Sweet will serve his federal charge concurrently with another sentence he received in Wayne County on Nov. 18 for raping a 19-year-old mentally disabled woman.

Sweet was given 10-17 years in prison for criminal sexual assault.

Two weeks earlier, he was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for child pornography.

A search of Sweet's home after the fire turned up the evidence of the rape and child porn that led to his conviction.