SAGINAW, MI — Using the dingy white T-shirt underneath her orange jumpsuit, Mio Campbell wipes a tear from the corner of her right eye and catches another sliding down her left cheek, all while cradling the black phone receiver attached to the brick wall below the security glass at the Saginaw County Jail.

At visiting time, the woman who came from a middle-class Illinois family sits in jail reflecting on finding her 6-year-old son’s lifeless body on the bathroom floor of her home.

“I knew he was gone,” Campbell said of her thoughts once they reached the hospital that day. “I just wanted some type of hope. Some type of movement.”

On Feb. 28, paramedics responded to 1812 Ames on the city’s West Side for a report of an unresponsive child. Upon arrival, they found Elijah Dillard with what appeared to be head trauma and burns. Paramedics called police, who took Elijah’s legal father, Aki Dillard, into custody. Officials removed three other children from the home.

Elijah Dillard, a 6-year-old first-grader at Saginaw's Jessie Rouse Elementary School, was declared dead the next day.

Campbell is being held on a $5 million bond, facing one count of child abuse. Prosecutors on March 4 filed first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder, torture and first-degree child abuse charges against 39-year-old Dillard. He is jailed without bond.

Neither parent was able to attend Elijah's funeral. In a series of four interviews, Campbell shared her background and details of the day her son died.

'Living house to house'



Campbell was born in Japan, and her family, including a brother, came to the United States and settled in Illinois when she was 4. Her dad, who was retired from the U.S. Army, died in 2007. Her mother was a homemaker.

When Campbell was in the 10th grade, she became pregnant with her first child. Her mother adopted the child to raise as her own, while Campbell finished her education. Campbell’s second child came a few years after she had graduated from high school. She eventually lost parental rights to her second-born.

Late in 2005, Campbell became pregnant with her third child, a daughter, who along with Elijah and two later children, eventually would come to call Saginaw home. Campbell gave birth in the summer of 2006 to the girl. Elijah came the very next summer.

During this time, life got tough, she said.

“I was living house to house and trying to get myself together,” Campbell said.

She gave Elijah to family friend Carrie Cross. She gave her daughter to another family friend, both with the understanding that she would be back for them once she got her life together, Campbell said.

Letters to a prisoner



Tabitha Wolf said she met Campbell in 2010.

Campbell was living in a boarding house that Aki Dillard’s mother was operating out of her home. Wolf, who still lives in Belleville, Ill., said her husband is Dillard's cousin.

“I lived on the other end of the street,” Wolf said. “When she worked at the library, she would walk past the house each day.”

Wolf and Campbell would often have short conversations with as she passed Wolf's home.

“She is very fragile,” Wolf said. “She is the type to go out of her way to divert a problem. She don’t want no problems.”

Campbell's relationship with Dillard began when his mother told her she had a son who was getting out of prison soon and that Campbell should write him, Wolf said.

According to documents from the Illinois Department of Corrections, Dillard was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999, spending 10 years in an Illinois prison before he was paroled.

St. Clair County, Ill., court records show Dillard also was sentenced to five years and 10 months on a felony robbery charge in 1994. Dillard had nine Class A misdemeanor convictions of battery between 1992 and 1993, county the records show.

After Dillard's release, he and Campbell lived in his mother’s home, Wolf said. They married in 2011 in St. Clair County, the county clerk's office confirmed.

Campbell gave birth to a girl, and she began the process of regaining custody of the two children she had placed in other homes. The family friend who was caring for Campbell’s daughter gave her back, but Cross said she didn’t think it was a good idea to have Elijah around Dillard.

“She didn’t know him, and I didn’t trust him,” Cross said.

Campbell said she didn’t have a problem letting Cross continue to see Elijah but insists Cross knew their arrangement meant giving the boy back to her.

Carrie Cross of Belleville Illinois pictured with a photo of Elijah Dillard and his favorite two stuffed animals. (Courtesy | Carrie Cross)

“She took me to court to keep my son,” Campbell said. “She took me about four or five times.”

An Illinois judge ruled in favor of Campbell and ordered Cross to return Elijah to her.

Cross earlier told The Saginaw News that the judge told Campbell to keep Cross in Elijah's life, but Cross replied that if she ever saw Elijah again, he would be dead. Saginaw News readers helped pay for bus fare and hotel expenses so Cross could attend the boy's funeral in Saginaw.

Since they were a family, Dillard wanted everyone to have the same last name, Campbell said. Dillard assumed legal fatherhood of Elijah, whose biological father relinquished his rights to the boy.

Homeless family

The new couple was thrown out of Dillard’s mother’s house after a disagreement, Campbell and Wolf both said.

Wolf said it wasn’t uncommon for Dillard and Campbell to visit, play cards and watch wrestling with her and her husband, so when she came home from work one day to find them at her house, she didn’t think anything of it.

“They were laying in my living room, asleep,” Wolf said.

Wolf, who was working two jobs at the time, said she went to her next job and returned later in the evening.

“When I came home from work that night, they were still there,” she said. “It was not unusual for them to come to our house, but it was not normal for them to be there that long.”

Dillard’s mother kept Elijah and his sister, and Campbell left with the newborn.

Dillard's mother “wouldn’t let me take my kids,” Campbell said.

A memorial for 6-year-old Elijah Dillard sits on display after a candlelight vigil for him, Tuesday, March 11, 2014 at 1812 Ames in Saginaw. Police say Dillard, 6, died March 1 from injuries he suffered in his home in Saginaw. The boy's parents are jailed; his father faces murder charges, and the mother faces child abuse charges.

Campbell said Dillard’s mom called child protection workers and said her son had abused the kids, an accusation that Campbell neither denied or confirmed.

Homeless, Dillard and Campbell and the new baby girl moved in with the Wolfs.

The state "let her keep them," Campbell said, referring to Elijah and his sister staying with Dillard's mother. The children stayed in her care until they were removed to foster care, Campbell said.

“Mio used to walk about 20 blocks every week to family service to see her kids… one hour on Thursdays, supervised,” Wolf said, adding that she never knew of Dillard visiting the children.

Campbell said she was doing everything she could to get Elijah and his sister back.

Wolf said Dillard was controlling of Campbell. Campbell had a list of things, mainly food and snack items, she had to provide for Dillard daily, and she couldn’t come home without them, Wolf said.

Campbell was arrested for shoplifting after she couldn't afford to buy some things Dillard demanded, Wolf said.



“I haven’t seen him hit her,” Wolf said, “but he has choked her in front of me. He has threatened her in front of me.”

Campbell enrolled in school, and Wolf said she was trying to convince her to use her school refund check to get a place to live as the best way to get Elijah and his sister back. Dillard was trying to convince her to spend the money elsewhere, Wolf said.

Wolf said she put the couple out of her home.

“That was the last straw,” Wolf said. “The day they left my house was Oct. 6, 2012. I told them that they can’t stay long term.

“I put them out, and they left. They left some things in our garage, and we saw them again at the end of October. They came over in a big white truck to get things out of the garage. After that, Aki cut off all communication.”

Wolf said Dillard would not let Campbell come in to talk to her, and he would not tell her where they were moving.

Coming to Saginaw

Campbell, Dillard and their baby girl arrived in Saginaw in November 2012 and lived with some of Dillard’s relatives — people with whom he had had no contact in nearly 20 years.

“We lived with them for a while,” Campbell said.

Campbell said she remained in contact with the state of Illinois, seeking to regain custody of Elijah and her daughter, still in foster care there.

Omarr Dillard listens to testimony during a preliminary hearing for his brother Aki C. Dillard in front of Saginaw County District Judge Terry L. Clark, April 9, 2014.

In August of 2013, Campbell gave birth to her fifth child, another daughter. Elijah and his sister were returned to Campbell the next month.

“I did everything I was supposed to, and they brought them to Michigan,” Campbell said.

Ta-Tanesha Dillard, wife of Aki Dillard’s brother, Omarr Dillard, said she and her family spent time with Elijah's family throughout his mother's pregnancy and during the first part of the second daughter’s life. Some of the time, Campbell, Dillard and the children lived with them, Ta-Tanesha Dillard said.

In October, the Campbell and Dillard family moved into the house at 1812 Ames.

Aki Dillard cut off communication with them after a birthday party for Elijah’s 7-year-old sister in December, Ta-Tanesha Dillard said.

“That was the last time we seen them,” she said.

A visit from a social worker



Campbell said Aki Dillard would “discipline” the kids and could become very angry.

“Every time he got mad, I would make sure he would get mad at me to divert the attention from the kids,” she said. “He was caring, but when he got mad, it would get extreme.”

She said Dillard was strict with the older kids, and they sometimes asked out of fear if he was home when they came in from school.

Elijah's 7-year-old sister wet the bed, and Dillard tasked the boy with making sure she didn't do so. That may have set off the chain of events that led to her son's death, Campbell said.

Campbell said the week of Elijah’s death, a social worker visited their home because someone at Elijah’s school was concerned about a busted lip he said his dad gave him for letting his sister wet the bed.

Campbell said Dillard “popped him in the mouth,” and she was too scared to do anything about it. A social worker came to the house that evening, she said.

“He (Aki) did most of the talking,” Campbell said. “They didn’t ask me anything.”

Dillard told the social worker that the boy had tripped and injured himself, Campbell said. Elijah changed his story to match, saying he was walking with Dillard and fell and busted his lip, Campbell said.

“The worker said that the case would probably be closed because she didn’t find anything,” Campbell said.

Campbell said she was scared to talk in front of Dillard and would have told the worker what happened if she questioned her alone. She said she would have reported all of the abuse long ago if she could have done so without Dillard’s knowledge.

“He made threats to my mom and oldest daughter, and I didn’t want them to get hurt,” she said. “He used to tell me that if he got locked up, he would have somebody do something to them.”

Dave Akerly, director of communications for the Michigan Department of Human Services, the entity that oversees Children's Protective Services, declined comment.

"Under Michigan Child Protection Law, we can't comment or discuss whether we are, or not, involved with a particular child or family," Akerly said.

'Something was wrong'

Elijah went to school the next day and got into trouble on the bus, Campbell said.

Campbell said Dillard took Elijah into a back room to discipline him. Testifying against Dillard during his preliminary hearing April 9, Campbell described the room as the "quiet room," detailing hours of beatings the day before the boy died and again the day he was taken away by ambulance. She said she did not see the abuse but heard her son's cries.

Campbell said she believes Dillard was punishing her son for having workers visit the house.

Later that evening, Campbell knew something was wrong with her son.

“His whole equilibrium was off,” she said. “He was acting strange. Something was wrong.”

Campbell said she wanted to call the ambulance but that Dillard told her she couldn’t. Elijah went to sleep that night, and the next day, Campbell said she kept him home from school.

“He kept saying, ‘Mom, I want to go to school,’ but I wanted him to stay home because something was wrong,” she said.

Elijah at some point during the day passed out on the floor, Campbell said. Dillard took him to the bathroom to wake him with water, Campbell said. The medical examiner said Elijah had burns to nearly half of his body.

Dillard “called me to the bathroom, and I knew something was wrong,” Campbell said. “I went to the bathroom, and all I saw was my baby on the floor, lifeless.

“I just want my son back…his hugs, his I-love-yous,” she said. “You never think the little things would mean so much.”

Waiting on a tax return

Wiping more tears from her eyes, Campbell confirmed that she is about four months pregnant with what will be her seventh child.

Her tears do little to soften the negativity Campbell has garnered from readers, people in the community and her cellmates.

“A girl was mad at me in here and told me I shouldn’t be allowed to have mail,” Campbell said. “She don’t even know me.”

Campbell said if she could do it over again, she would have left instead of waiting on her income tax refund. Campbell said she didn’t want to get the police involved, which would have angered Dillard.

“I was going to take my income tax and sneak off without the police,” she said. “I have family in New York and Atlanta.”

A Facebook status from Feb. 3 on her now deactivated page stated: "Cant wait for taxes."

Campbell said she had a relative delete her page because people were leaving hateful comments for her there.

Wednesday, April 9, Campbell took the witness stand during a preliminary hearing and told Saginaw County District Judge Terry L. Clark about events she and prosecutors say led to Elijah's death.

The couple also faces legal action in family court regarding their parental rights. A pre-trial hearing is scheduled for 2 p.m. April 17.

Campbell wiped another tear and gripped the telephone receiver, holding it near her chest. Looking toward the sky, she placed the phone back to her ear.

“I never got a chance to say goodbye,” she said.

Bob Johnson is a public safety reporter for MLive/The Saginaw News. Contact him at 989-395-3295, by email at

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