PONTIAC, Michigan (AP) — A Michigan woman accused of leaving three children to live alone for years in a house teeming with trash and feces was charged Wednesday with child abuse, five days after police opened the door and discovered stomach-turning filth.
Kelli Bryant, 34, was identified by Oakland County prosecutors Wednesday as the mother of the three children left to live in squalor in the suburban Detroit residence. She is in custody awaiting a court hearing.
“These three kids were entrusted to the care of their mother … and the evidence suggests that she effectively abandoned them to a revolting pit of refuse and squalor,” said Karen McDonald, the Oakland County prosecutor in suburban Detroit.
“What stands out the most for me is, no love,” McDonald said later during a news conference. “There was nobody there to care for them.”
MODEL MOM: Kelli Bryant, 34, of Pontiac, Michigan.
The siblings — a 15-year-old boy and two girls, ages 12 and 13 — were hiding when police entered the Pontiac home Friday after a call from the landlord, who had not been paid since October.
“Police were astonished to find anyone in the location, because it appeared to be uninhabitable with piles of garbage and refuse several feet high,” McDonald said, noting that the toilet was not working.
The children were covered with feces, and the girls had trouble walking outside the home, she said. At a hospital they struggled with flushing a toilet and brushing their teeth “because they had not done it in years,” the prosecutor added.
McDonald said the children likely had been alone since 2020 or 2021, communicating with Bryant only through text messages when they needed food. She was living elsewhere in Pontiac, 20 miles north of Detroit.
The children were found living in deplorable conditions.
Meanwhile, a judge set a $250 million bond today for Bryant.
She is is accused of leaving three children alone for years in a house where conditions were so offensive that police evidence technicians wore hazmat suits.
Bryant shook her head at times during her first court appearance on child abuse charges in Oakland County. Her lawyer entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf.
Three children, ages 15, 13 and 12, were removed last week from a house in Pontiac where they had lived on their own since 2020 or 2021, amid trash and feces and occasional food drops on the porch, police said.
Defense attorney Cecilia Quirindongo-Baunsoe acknowledged the “very serious case,” but she said Bryant was not a risk to the community and could be released from jail with an electronic monitoring device.
Judge Ronda Fowlkes Gross, however, set the extraordinary cash bond and said Bryant was an “acute risk” to the public.
The siblings — a 15-year-old boy and two girls, ages 12 and 13 — were hiding when police entered the home. (Photo courtesy of the Oakland County Sheriff)
The children were hiding when police entered the home Friday after a call from the landlord, who had not been paid since October. Authorities said the toilet didn’t work and feces were found in the tub and other places. Bryant was living elsewhere in Pontiac.
“There’s a multitude of reasons why they didn’t leave the home,” prosecutor Karen McDonald said of the siblings. “We just don’t know that yet.”
