Mom To Be Charged With Murder For Deaths Of Children Found In Freezer; Continued To Collect Welfare Payments On Them For Years
DETROIT (WWJ) - The deaths of two Detroit children found in a freezer in their family's home have been ruled homicides.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner says Stoni Ann Blair and Stephen Gage Berry both died of multiple blunt force trauma; and in Stephen's case, burns as well. Autopsies were completed Friday.
Mitchelle Blair, 35, has two surviving children, 11 and 17 years old, who reportedly have scars from past abuse, in addition to current welts and other injuries. They reportedly lived for years in the tiny apartment where they knew their dead siblings were in a chest freezer near the front door.
Prosecutors believe that when the children were killed, the girl was 13 years old and her brother was 9. After Blair allegedly murdered her children and left their bodies in a freezer, she continued to receive welfare benefits for them, according to records obtained by the Detroit News.
According to court records, Mitchelle Blair's two surviving children told police that their mother tied a belt around Stephen's neck, threw hot water on him and put a plastic bag over his head in August 2012. They claim Stoni was struck by a two-by-four and hit with a hot curling iron before her death in May of 2011.
[Detroit Mother Kept Children's Bodies In Freezer For Years After Murders; Neighbors May Have Known]
Blair reportedly told police she killed the children because they sexually assaulted a relative.
She's being held on a $1 million bond on five counts of first degree child abuse, but will now be charged with murder, according to prosecutors.
Blair was arrested Tuesday after court officers, serving an eviction notice – at her low-income apartment home on St. Aubin Street – opened a deep freezer to make the horrifying discovery.
[Court Filing: Teen Says Mom Forced Her To Put Dead Sibling In Freezer]
Blair was due back in court for a preliminary exam next Tuesday, but that may change in light of the new charges.
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