Pontiac, Michigan, accused of abandoning their three children for years to live in Squallor, was charged with felony child abuse on Wednesday.
According to court records, 34-year-old Kelly Bryant was charged with three counts of first-degree child abuse. Prosecutors initially refused to identify the mother in the case, but Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald revealed Bryant’s name while announcing the charges Wednesday.
McDonald told reporters that her office will also represent the Department of Health and Human Services when it terminates Bryant’s custody.
“We are simultaneously prosecuting criminal cases against our mothers and… ignoring progressions related to the child,” McDonald said. “We ask that you submit a petition to terminate her rights, the Department of Health and Human Services, our client.”
Court records do not list Bryant’s attorney who was in the county jail on Wednesday.
Bryant was arrested last week after the landlord contacted the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office to conduct a welfare check. According to a sheriff’s news release, the landlord expressed concern about the three children living in the house after her mother stopped paying rent in October.
According to the release, deputies arrived to find the boy and two girls living in garbage, human waste and mold. Authorities have not identified children ages 15, 13 or 12.
Sheriff Michael Bouchard described the “abuse of the highest order” in living conditions.
“This situation is deemed sad and unbearable for animals, and completely unacceptable for three children,” Bouchard said in a statement.
The boy said his mother abandoned them around 2020 or 2021 and that they had left the food drop off left for them, the sheriff’s office said.
The office said it has not received hygiene products from its mother since 2020.
McDonald said on Wednesday that deputies must repeatedly assure the children they were there for them to help them. All three were “covered with shit” and the girls had a hard time leaving the apartment.
They were taken to the hospital where they showed signs of “serious neglect” and failed basic hygiene tests, including brushing their teeth, because they hadn’t done so in years.
During the interview, the children said they had little contact with their mothers or the outside world for years, McDonald said. Authorities say the children were not attending school.
“The girls hadn’t left the residence for several years so my son only left the house and went to the garden about twice,” she said. “Don’t leave your home rather than checking your mailbox.”
The children expressed fear of not following their mothers, McDonald added.
Prosecutors argued that Bryant “takes aggressive measures to lie and hide to ensure that the children have not been found.”
When asked why Bryant leaves her child in such a situation, McDonald says that the prosecutor cannot fall into someone else’s mind, and sometimes there is no reason to do so.
