Police arrested a Detroit mother Tuesday after the bodies of her 11-year-old son, Steven, and 14-year-old daughter, Stony, were discovered in a deep freezer inside of the family’s 3-bedroom apartment, The Associated Press reports.
The corpses were discovered by court officers who were carrying out an eviction order where Michelle Angela Blair, known to everyone as Angel, lived with her four children. Police sources say that the body of one of the children sat in the freezer for two years. It’s believed that the other was placed in the freezer about a year ago. Neighbor and friend Tori Childs said she hadn’t seen Steven or Stoney in nearly one year.
“I haven’t seen them since they were playing with my step-kids,” Childs said.
When officers arrived to the home to carry out the court order, the apartment had already been vacated. Neighbors in the community worked together to help police track down Blair, who remains in police custody. The 36-year-old’s two surviving children, 11 and 17, were located at a neighbor’s home and placed in protective custody. Carrie McDonald, Childs’ mother, also lives in the Martin Luther King apartment complex and revealed that she had actually spoken to Blair just prior to the gruesome discovery.
“She told me this morning, ‘Ms. Carrie, if you don’t never see me again just know that I love you,'” McDonald said. “I love her. The mother is a beautiful person. She was just going through some things.”
Friends of the troubled mother say that she home schooled her children after taking them out of the Detroit school system.
“She took her kids out of school because she thought something was going to happen to them,” McDonald said.
Blair lived in the complex for the past 10 years, but struggled financially. Court records show that she owed $2,206 in rent prior to the eviction.
“She was really behind, but she didn’t have it,” Childs said.
According to WXYZ, just prior to her arrest, she confessed to Childs that she killed Steven and Stony because she discovered that they were sexually abusing her other surviving son.
“I’m like Angel, why wouldn’t you just give the kids to me?” an emotional Childs told reporters. “We could have figured something out.”
Investigators say that both bodies showed signs of torture, but an exact cause of death for either child has yet to be determined.
Follow Jazmine on Twitter @JazmineDenise
