Three Michigan children lived in squalor in a feces-filled home, with two girls sleeping on pizza boxes after their mother allegedly abandoned them for years.
However, when the mother arrived for a police interview, she had her hair done and was dressed cleanly, with fake nails, according to a detective who testified at a preliminary hearing on Friday.
According to courtroom reports from Detroit NBC affiliate WDIV and ABC affiliate WXYZ, Oakland County Sheriff’s Detective John Brish described his interview with the mother, 34-year-old Kelli Bryant.
Brish testified that Bryant’s appearance and demeanor surprised him. She allegedly admitted to putting herself ahead of her children, a 15-year-old boy and two girls aged 12 and 13.
“‘I hurt my children,'” Brish claimed Bryant told him. “‘I sacrificed my children, probably.'”
Bryant also reportedly asked detectives if there was “anything I could do to help myself.”
Furthermore, when prosecutors extracted data from Bryant’s phone, they allegedly discovered that her children were listed in her contacts as “My oldest,” “Kid 1,” and “Kid 2,” rather than their names. According to prosecutors, the children referred to her as the “World’s greatest mom” or something similar.
Police rescued the children after conducting a welfare check in February.
“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, according to reports, stated.
Deputies described the appalling conditions in which the children lived. The first deputy on the scene discovered feces, trash, and cobwebs throughout the home. The boy came out and struggled to walk because his toenails were so long. The two girls emerged from another room, holding hands and hunched over.
Brish shared the following testimony: “I’d never smelled a home that smelled that bad without a decomposing body present.”
Bryant’s attorney contended that the children did not appear to be suffering from mental illness because they appeared to be intelligent and articulate in interviews with investigators.
However, Judge Cynthia Thomas Walker believed the prosecutors presented sufficient evidence to bind the case over for trial on child abuse and welfare fraud allegations.
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“There is no question that this is an extraordinary case,” she reportedly stated.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, the landlord of the home on Lydia Lane in Pontiac, about 25 miles northwest of Detroit, contacted the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 14 to conduct a welfare check after not hearing from Bryant since December and not receiving rent since October, according to a press release. Deputies discovered a case of “abandonment, neglect, and abuse of the highest order,” according to Sheriff Mike Bouchard.
The boy allegedly told deputies that he and his sisters had been living alone since 2020 or 2021. According to cops, garbage was stacked up to four feet high, feces was spread throughout the house and filled the bathtub, the toilet overflowed, and mold was everywhere.
According to cops, the children had not attended school since their abandonment and instead spent their days watching TV and playing video games. According to deputies, Bryant had contact with her son but had not seen the girls in several years. Police said the boy slept on a mattress and the girls slept on pizza boxes. Every week, their mother or a “stranger” would bring prepared food and leave it on the porch, according to deputies.
Neighbors told cops they saw the mother dropping off food but had no idea children lived there. The children were transported to the hospital for evaluation. Deputies said they wore dirty clothes, had matted hair, and had difficulty walking because their toenails were several inches long. Cops noticed that the children 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.
According to deputies, an evidence technician wore a hazmat suit while processing the scene. Bryant stated that the father is not involved in the children’s lives. Child Protective Services placed the children under the care of a relative.