Mother in custody after children found in freezer

A grisly discovery was made Tuesday by a crew carrying out an eviction at an apartment in Detroit: the bodies of two children in a freezer.

Court officer Lee Gordon told the Free Press Tuesday that her crew made entry into the town home in the Martin Luther King Apartments off St. Aubin Street to clear the property. Just inside the door, she said, was a small deep freezer.

Gordon said that when they opened it, she could see a body with a black plastic garbage bag laid on top of it. It was so cold, she said, she could see frost on the face of a person she thought was an older woman.

"I'm really sickened now to find out that it was babies," Gordon said. "It's not an easy pill to swallow."

Autopsies have not yet been conducted, but police said they are of a boy and a girl, ages 11 and 15.

Their mother was taken into custody as a person of interest in the case, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said. He said she was found at a separate residence in the housing complex and her other two children are in protective custody. He said police found the mother with the help of a community member who offered a tip.

Craig said the bodies in the freezer appear to have been frozen for "some time." Assistant Police Chief Steve Dolunt said it's possible the bodies have been there for more than a year.

Some neighbors today said that they hadn't seen the children for as long as a year.

"I been staying down here my whole life, and I never saw them outside, to the point where I thought that they actually moved out," said Rocky Ashford, 18, who lives in a neighboring town home.

Jessy Porter, 28, who lives next-door to the unit where the bodies were found, said that sometimes the only way they knew their neighbors were home was by hearing them through the walls.

"There'd been times we didn't see her," Porter said. "I would think she just wanted to be alone."

She said her kids had previously spent the night at the unit, and that the kids would sometimes come outside in the summertime. Porter's family had a little brown cat named Angel, but they couldn't keep it. So the neighbors took the cat in.



Gordon, who said court officers at 36th District Court are independent contractors, said she was asked by the apartments to handle the eviction. She said there were children's items in the home, including boots by the door.

Gordon said that once they saw a body in the freezer, everyone was told to leave and 911 was called.

"It's just very, very sad," she said. "It's a sad situation."

Gordon said the woman being evicted was not at the house when it was being cleared. A large trash bin remained facing the apartment after police had cleared the scene.

Carol King, a neighbor who'd been a longtime friend of the family, said she'd spoken with the mother Tuesday morning and had offered to help deal with the eviction after she got off work.

Two days earlier, she'd been at the residence for a barbecue with the mother and kids. The deep freezer was there, but King said she "never paid no attention to it. I've got a deep freezer."

She said she wants to help the mother, who can be "the sweetest thing" and has "the heart of an angel," but who has also shown rage when provoked.

Tori Childs, 33, said she "was numb" after seeing the children's bodies as she walked by the door of the town home.

"The little girl had on a pink jacket," she said. "(The boy) was under a white sheet."

She said they'd recently been at her house, as she's been friends with the mother for years.

Many neighbors gathered in grassy areas in the apartment complex, expressing frustration with the tragedy.

"We lost two of our beautiful children down here in the Martin Luther King Apartments because we don't want to pay attention or be nosy," said Yvette Whitfield, 52. "So this is a message I have for other communities: Be nosy, pay attention. They're children."