Inset: Kelli Bryant. Left, right: Home in Pontiac, Michigan, where Bryant abandoned her three children, cops say (Oakland County Prosecutors Office).
In Michigan, three children were found living in appalling conditions within a home filled with feces, where two of the girls used pizza boxes as makeshift beds after allegedly being neglected by their mother for several years.
However, during a police interview, the mother appeared well-groomed, sporting styled hair, clean attire, and fake nails, as a detective described at a preliminary hearing on Friday.
Reports from the courtroom, as noted by Detroit’s NBC affiliate WDIV and ABC affiliate WXYZ, detailed Oakland County Sheriff’s Detective John Brish’s account of his conversation with 34-year-old Kelli Bryant, the mother in question.
Brish testified he was surprised by Bryant’s appearance and demeanor. She allegedly admitted to putting herself before her children, a 15-year-old boy and two girls ages 12 and 13.
“‘I hurt my children,”” Brish said Bryant told him. “‘I sacrificed my children, probably.’”
Bryant also allegedly asked detectives if there was “anything I could do to help myself.”
In addition, prosecutors reportedly noted when they extracted data from Bryant’s phone her children were listed in her contacts as not by their names but “My oldest,” “Kid 1” and “Kid 2.” The children had her listed as “World’s greatest mom” or something along those lines, prosecutors said.
Cops rescued the children after a welfare check in February.
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“She knew that her actions were selfish, that’s her wording and that it made her children sick and that she had ultimately sacrificed her children for her own purposes,” Brish reportedly testified.
Deputies described the awful condition in which the children lived. The first deputy on scene entered the home to find feces, trash and cobwebs all over. The boy came out and had a hard time walking because his toenails were so long. The two girls came out of another room holding hands and hunched over.
Brish testified: “I’d never smelled a home that smelled that bad without a decomposing body present.”
Bryant’s attorney argued that the children didn’t appear to be suffering from mental harm as they seemed to be intelligent and articulate in interviews with investigators.
But Judge Cynthia Thomas Walker believed the prosecutors presented enough evidence to bound the case over for trial on child abuse and welfare fraud charges.
“There is no question that this is an extraordinary case,” she reportedly said.
As Law&Crime previously reported, the landlord of the home on Lydia Lane in Pontiac, which is about 25 miles northwest of Detroit, contacted the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 14 to complete a welfare check because he hadn’t from Bryant since December and had not received rent since October, a press release said. What deputies found at the home was a case of “abandonment, neglect and abuse of the highest order,” Sheriff Mike Bouchard said.
The boy allegedly told deputies that he and his sisters have lived alone since 2020 or 2021. According to cops, garbage was stacked as high as four feet, feces was throughout the home and filled the bathtub, the toilet was overflowing and mold was everywhere.
The children had not been to school since their abandonment and spent their days watching TV and playing video games, according to cops. And while Bryant had contact with her son, she had not seen the girls for several years, deputies alleged. The boy slept on a mattress while the girls slept on pizza boxes, cops said. Each week their mother or a “stranger” would bring prepared food and drop it off on the porch, deputies said.
Neighbors told cops while they saw the mother dropping off food, they did not know children lived there. The kids were taken to the hospital for evaluation. They wore soiled clothes, had matted hair and had difficulty walking because their toenails were several inches long, deputies said. Cops noted the kids lacked basic hygiene skills.
From Bouchard:
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. This situation would be deemed deplorable and intolerable for an animal, and it is utterly unacceptable for your three children. The young girls 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.
An evidence technician processed the scene wearing a hazmat suit, according to deputies. Bryant said the father is not involved in the kids’ lives. Child Protective Services placed the children in the custody of a relative.
