PONTIAC, Mich. (Scripps News Detroit) — A Michigan mother has been arrested and charged with child abuse after abandoning her three kids in a home for years, according to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office.
This image provided by the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office shows the bathroom inside a home where a Michigan mother allegedly abandoned three kids for years. (Oakland County Sheriff’s Office)
On Wednesday, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced charges had been filed against 34-year-old Kelli Bryant and that they would seek to terminate Bryant’s parental rights. Bryant could face up to life in prison if convicted. She will be formally arraigned on the charges on Thursday.
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McDonald revealed during the news conference that during an interview with the children, the boy told officials that he would text his mother when they were running low on food, and she would have some delivered to them.
During a Tuesday afternoon news conference, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard began his news conference by calling it a “very horrific case.” He also addressed the question of where the children’s father was in all of this. He says the man was incarcerated for a time and had no contact with the children. Bouchard says he tried to reunite with the children when he got out, even filing paperwork with the court to try to get visitation. A consent agreement was “arrived at” in 2022.
Officials say that the children were left in squalor, surviving on weekly drop-offs of prepared food. First responders said that four-foot piles of garbage were found in some rooms. Mold and human excrement was found throughout the house.
Deputies were called to the home on Friday afternoon to perform a welfare check and found the children — a 15-year-old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl — all by themselves. The sisters were locked in a bathroom when deputies arrived.
The landlord of the home told authorities that he had not heard from Bryant since December, with rent last being paid back in October.
The oldest sibling said that the kids had been abandoned by their mother in 2020 or 2021, surviving on one prepared food dropped off by their mother or a stranger once a week.
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Bouchard says they have narrowed the window of “abandonment” to spring of 2020, at the “height of COVID.” He also says the last time the children’s hygiene was addressed by their mother was when she dropped off Febreeze, gloves and garbage bags at that time.
Bouchard also says that the boy only left the house a few times; he reportedly only did so twice, once to just “touch the grass” and then to go out to get the mail.
Bouchard called the revelation the boy just wanted to feel the grass “by itself, heartbreaking.”
“You wouldn’t do this to an animal, let alone your child,” Bouchard said. “So, just to hear that he came outside to touch the grass is just crushing, soul-crushing on so many levels.”
Authorities say that the children had not attended school since their abandonment, passing the time watching television or playing games. It appeared the girls had not been outside the home for several years, with the boy sleeping on a mattress on the floor while the girls slept on pizza boxes.
The children were taken to the hospital for evaluation, with soiled clothes, matted hair, and toenails so long that it was difficult to walk.
Neighbors told authorities that they did see a woman drop off stuff at the home occasionally, but they never saw the kids leave the house.
The mother was arrested without incident at a separate location, while the kids are now in the care of a relative, organized by Child Protective Services.
“Throughout my extensive career in this field, I have never encountered a scenario as dire and prolonged as this one, involving abandonment, neglect, and abuse of the highest order,” Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a release on the arrest.
“This situation would be deemed deplorable and intolerable for an animal, and it is utterly unacceptable for three children. They have been deprived of any interaction with their mother and have not received an education for years. The far-reaching consequences of this abuse must be acknowledged. We look forward to presenting this case to the prosecutor and ensuring that this mother faces the consequences of her actions.”
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office is collecting clothing donations for the three children.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Detroit, an E.W. Scripps Company.
