Cindy Jean Gochis was a 49-year-old White/Caucasian woman. A longtime Saline, Michigan, resident who had been born in Ann Arbor on September 21, 1974, Gochis worked as a patient visitation specialist at the Ann Arbor campus of Trinity Health IHA Medical Group Hematology Oncology. Her obituary described the work as especially meaningful to her after her father died of cancer in 2017.
Her life centered heavily on her family, including her children, Matthew Allgood and Megan Allgood, her grandchildren, her mother, brother and extended family. She was remembered for following her daughter’s college STUNT competitions, traveling to watch her son compete in rodeo bull riding and spending time with her grandchildren.
The events surrounding Gochis’s death began on Friday, September 29, 2023, when concern grew after she did not report for work and could not be reached by telephone or text message. Local reporting said a coworker from the IHA Cancer Center contacted police, and Gochis was soon treated as a missing and endangered person. Officers went to her Elmwood Court residence in Saline but initially received no answer, and her vehicle, a white Dodge Journey, was not there. Her son subsequently completed a missing-person report. Police searched the surrounding area and used information from her cellphone in an effort to trace her movements. One local report also said officers found a Harley-Davidson motorcycle bearing temporary Indiana plates at the residence, an important detail as investigators began focusing on someone connected to Gochis who lived in Indiana.
The search ultimately led officers back to Gochis’s home, where she was discovered dead in the basement. Subsequent reporting established that she had been fatally shot, and police treated the death as a homicide with a domestic connection. Early reports described the person under investigation as Gochis’s boyfriend or former boyfriend. Authorities believed that person had left the Saline residence in Gochis’s Dodge Journey and traveled into Indiana. The disappearance of the vehicle, the Indiana connection and the circumstances at the home quickly turned what had started as a missing-person investigation into a homicide case.
At roughly the same time investigators in Michigan were searching for Gochis, authorities in Huntington County, Indiana, encountered the person police were seeking. The Huntington County Sheriff’s Department responded at about 1 a.m. Saturday to the J.E. Roush Wildlife Area after receiving a report involving someone who was suicidal. Deputies found the individual suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Saline police then contacted Indiana authorities because the same person was being sought in connection with Gochis’s disappearance and death. Gochis’s vehicle was also located in Indiana. The suspect was transported to a hospital in critical condition, while investigators in Michigan continued building the homicide case.
Within days, reporting said the suspect was in custody despite remaining hospitalized and had been charged with open murder and felony firearm. Police characterized Gochis’s killing as domestic-related. The charges marked a significant change from the earliest reports, when authorities had described the Indiana individual only as a suspect whose precise involvement remained under investigation. Later court reporting publicly identified the accused as Jeffrey Ray Long, who had previously been in a relationship with Gochis. Prosecutors accused Long of shooting Gochis inside her Elmwood Court home before leaving Michigan in her vehicle and traveling to Indiana, where police later found him after the self-inflicted shooting.
Long’s case subsequently became tied up in proceedings concerning whether he was competent to face the criminal charges. On March 21, 2024, Long appeared in custody before 14A-1 District Court Judge Cedric Simpson. Simpson found him competent to stand trial. At that point Long was being held in the Washtenaw County Jail and remained charged with open murder and felony firearm in connection with Gochis’s death. The court scheduled a probable-cause conference for May 16, moving the prosecution forward after the competency issue had been resolved. The ruling did not determine whether Long was guilty; it addressed whether he was legally capable of proceeding through the criminal court process.
Publicly available reporting located after that competency ruling does not establish a later trial verdict, guilty plea, acquittal, conviction, dismissal or sentence in Gochis’s case. The latest clearly documented stage in the reliable online reporting reviewed for this synopsis therefore leaves Long as the accused person facing open-murder and felony-firearm charges rather than as someone who can be described as convicted of the killing. The absence of a documented final disposition means the allegations against Long should continue to be described as accusations unless a later court record establishes otherwise.
Away from the criminal proceedings, Gochis’s family remembered a life that extended far beyond the circumstances of her death. Her obituary emphasized her devotion to her children and grandchildren, her work with patients facing cancer and the energetic personality friends associated with her. A celebration of her life was scheduled for December 9, 2023, at American Legion Post 322 in Saline. The family suggested that those wishing to make a memorial contribution do so through a domestic-violence charity, a request that reflected the circumstances surrounding the homicide and the way the loss was understood by those closest to her.
