On Tuesday morning March 24, 2014, Wayne County court bailiff Lee Gordon and her crew entered an apartment in Detroit to evict the family and clear the property. The subjects of the eviction, 35-year-old Mitchelle Blair and her four children by two men, resided in the Martin Luther King Apartments, a low-income housing complex on the city's east side. Neither of the children's fathers lived in the dwelling and both owed thousands of dollars in child support.
Shortly after 36th District Court bailiff Gordon and her crew entered the vacant apartment someone lifted the lid to a freezer that sat just inside the dwelling. In the freezer the eviction crew member discovered the frozen body of a girl inside a black plastic bag. Court bailiff Gordon called 911.
Responding police officers and emergency personnel found, beneath the girl's frozen corpse, the body of a boy, also inside a black plastic container. The girl had on a pink jacket and the boy had been wrapped in a white sheet.
A neighbor of Mitchelle Blair's told police officers that the mother of the dead children was babysitting a friend's baby in a nearby apartment. When taken into custody Mitchelle Blair said, "They're both dead. I did it." At the police station she confessed fully to killing her 13-year-old daughter Stoni Blair on May 25, 2013. The suspect said she later murdered her 9-year-old son, Stephen Berry. The mother said she made her 17-year-old daughter place the bodies into the home freezer.
When asked by a detective why she had murdered her two children the suspect said she had killed them because they had sexually molested their 8-year-old brother.
Officers booked Mitchelle Blair into the Wayne County Jail on suspicion of child abuse and murder.
Social workers took the other two Blair children, the 17-year-old and her 8-year-old brother, into protective custody. Neighbors told investigators that they rarely saw the home schooled children outside of the housing unit.
A spokesperson for the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office said the bodies would have to thaw before autopsies could be performed. The process would have to occur slowly to preserve potential evidence.
A few days after the shocking discovery in the freezer detectives learned that over the years all four of Mitchelle Blair's children had been repeatedly beaten with a two-by-four board, burned with an ironing rod, whipped and choked with a belt. The bodies all bore scars of prolonged physical abuse.
Autopsies determined that the two children in the freezer had died from multiple blunt force trauma and burns. The medical examiner ruled their deaths as homicide. The forensic pathologist found physical evidence of prior physical abuse.
On March 29, 2015, Alex Dorsey, the father of the murdered 13-year-old girl told a reporter that he hadn't seen his child in two years. Every time he showed up at the housing complex to visit his daughter, Mitchelle Blair told him the girl wasn't home. Efforts by Dorsey to gain custody of his other child were contested by the county's child protection agency.
On March 30, 2015, Mitchelle Blair's attorney, Wyatt G. Harris, told reporters that his client was being held in isolation at the Wayne County Jail. In a statement that was outlandish even for a defense attorney, Mr. Harris said, "She realizes she has some challenges to work through. I met with her and she's doing okay, but there are things she needs to get through and she'll get through them."
Challenges? Doing okay? How could this child abuser and double murderer be doing "okay"? Moreover, who cared how she was doing?
At Blair's arraignment on April 2, 2015 the defendant entered a plea of not guilty to the charges of murder. The judge ordered a team of state and private psychiatrists to evaluate her to determine if she was mentally competent to understand the criminal charges against her.
A few days after her arrest Wayne County Jail officials took Blair out of isolation and placed her into a cell with another person. Blair, shortly after the transfer, assaulted her cellmate.
On July 17, 2015, Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway, following Mitchelle Blair's guilty plea, sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Shortly after 36th District Court bailiff Gordon and her crew entered the vacant apartment someone lifted the lid to a freezer that sat just inside the dwelling. In the freezer the eviction crew member discovered the frozen body of a girl inside a black plastic bag. Court bailiff Gordon called 911.
Responding police officers and emergency personnel found, beneath the girl's frozen corpse, the body of a boy, also inside a black plastic container. The girl had on a pink jacket and the boy had been wrapped in a white sheet.
A neighbor of Mitchelle Blair's told police officers that the mother of the dead children was babysitting a friend's baby in a nearby apartment. When taken into custody Mitchelle Blair said, "They're both dead. I did it." At the police station she confessed fully to killing her 13-year-old daughter Stoni Blair on May 25, 2013. The suspect said she later murdered her 9-year-old son, Stephen Berry. The mother said she made her 17-year-old daughter place the bodies into the home freezer.
When asked by a detective why she had murdered her two children the suspect said she had killed them because they had sexually molested their 8-year-old brother.
Officers booked Mitchelle Blair into the Wayne County Jail on suspicion of child abuse and murder.
Social workers took the other two Blair children, the 17-year-old and her 8-year-old brother, into protective custody. Neighbors told investigators that they rarely saw the home schooled children outside of the housing unit.
A spokesperson for the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office said the bodies would have to thaw before autopsies could be performed. The process would have to occur slowly to preserve potential evidence.
A few days after the shocking discovery in the freezer detectives learned that over the years all four of Mitchelle Blair's children had been repeatedly beaten with a two-by-four board, burned with an ironing rod, whipped and choked with a belt. The bodies all bore scars of prolonged physical abuse.
Autopsies determined that the two children in the freezer had died from multiple blunt force trauma and burns. The medical examiner ruled their deaths as homicide. The forensic pathologist found physical evidence of prior physical abuse.
On March 29, 2015, Alex Dorsey, the father of the murdered 13-year-old girl told a reporter that he hadn't seen his child in two years. Every time he showed up at the housing complex to visit his daughter, Mitchelle Blair told him the girl wasn't home. Efforts by Dorsey to gain custody of his other child were contested by the county's child protection agency.
On March 30, 2015, Mitchelle Blair's attorney, Wyatt G. Harris, told reporters that his client was being held in isolation at the Wayne County Jail. In a statement that was outlandish even for a defense attorney, Mr. Harris said, "She realizes she has some challenges to work through. I met with her and she's doing okay, but there are things she needs to get through and she'll get through them."
Challenges? Doing okay? How could this child abuser and double murderer be doing "okay"? Moreover, who cared how she was doing?
At Blair's arraignment on April 2, 2015 the defendant entered a plea of not guilty to the charges of murder. The judge ordered a team of state and private psychiatrists to evaluate her to determine if she was mentally competent to understand the criminal charges against her.
A few days after her arrest Wayne County Jail officials took Blair out of isolation and placed her into a cell with another person. Blair, shortly after the transfer, assaulted her cellmate.
On July 17, 2015, Wayne County Judge Dana Hathaway, following Mitchelle Blair's guilty plea, sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Efforts by Dorsey to gain custody of his other child were contested by the county's child protection agency. "Great Job"
ReplyDeleteShe did not admit to making her 17 year old daughter place the bodies into the freezer. She did it herself. I've been following this case for years.
ReplyDeleteI have been following this story for weeks as I just stumbled upon it on a blog. I can't seem to let it go because it is the most bizarre story I have ever heard. It has disturbed me on so many levels but the nosy in me wants to fill in the gaps and missing pieces so I keep researching for information.
DeleteJust like "Anonymous" above I feel upon this story by accident & I can't let it go either. I've NEVER seen a defendant so WILLING to talke about what she did, so proud of what she did!
DeleteAt first I kind of understood hurting someone who hurts her baby on such a horrific level but as I listened to her full allocution more & more online I'm finding holes in her story that just don't make sense reg. Stoni & Stephen's alleged abuse of Matthew.
I feel the same.. so confused. Is there anywhere online where they've released more information? I've google, but haven't found anything .. I'm very surprised the oldest child has not come forth with more information .. ANY insight would help me move pas this horrible tragedy ..
DeleteI would like to have the address of the facility Ms. Michell Blair will be encarcerated?
ReplyDeleteNot writing her to judge her. Before hearing what happened to her life as a child, I notion she suffered sexual abuse as well.
Ms. Blair hearing her youngest describe what his siblings did to him sexually; had to have triggered those same emotions and expressions her son showed Ms. Blair while describing his horror. She just snapped, lost it. Not justifying her heinous crime towards all of her children, the living and the deceased.
I hope these children receive the proper help and care, in order to bare living a normal life.
My condolences to the surviving siblings.
Sorry if I sound unsympathetic, but not everyone who is abused as a child turns into an abuser in adulthood! Childhood abuse is no excuse! Many of us know the agony of being hurt and abused in so many ways in our childhoods... we know it so damn well that we would never, EVER, inflict this sort of misery on another human being, or any living creature, particularly a helpless child.
Delete