Detroit Mother Facing Charges

In a tragic turn of events, a recent eviction in Detroit’s Eastside became a horrific crime scene and will likely result in one woman losing two of her children, and going to prison for the murder of two others.

According to police, an eviction crew arrived at the Martin Luther King Apartments to clear out an apartment where Mitchelle Angela Blair was thought to live with her four children. However, it was not long before the first body was discovered in a chest freezer near the front door, and all hell broke loose.

Blair, who was babysitting an infant in a nearby apartment at the time of the discovery, was on the phone when police arrived to arrest her. Officers testified that as they entered the apartment she was on the phone with someone and was heard to say that she was about to be arrested for the murder of her children, and that she had done it. She also told officers as they were handcuffing her that she herself wasn’t evil, just her act had been evil.

Of Blair’s four children, only two remain alive. The bodies of her daughter, Stoni Ann Blair, and her son, Steven Gage Berry, who are believed to have been 13 and 9 at the time of their deaths, were found frozen in her apartment. The remaining two children, aged 17 and 8, have been placed in the custody of a family member.

Blair apparently admitted to police that she had murdered her children, but claimed that the reasons were because they sexually molested another child. Her son was the first to die, and several months later her daughter. She placed the dead children in the freezer and never moved them again, although the reasons are currently unknown.

The bodies of the two children have been identified but not autopsied, as the Wayne County Medical Examiner has said that the bodies will need to thaw naturally under very controlled conditions in order to preserve as much evidence as possible.

She has been charged with four counts of first degree child abuse, which under Michigan law is a 15-year felony. She is also facing a single count of committing first-degree child abuse in the presence of another child, which is a felony punishable by up to life in prison.

The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has refused to comment on the details of the case, as it is an ongoing investigation. However, they have said that as the investigation continues and the bodies are autopsied, more information may come to light and additional charges may be brought.