Two children no one has seen for at least a year were discovered dead in a freezer at their mother's Detroit townhouse on Tuesday.
The bodies were discovered at around 11: 30 a.m. Tuesday while court officials were in the process of evicting 35-year-old Mitchelle Blair from a row of townhouses on the city's east side, The Detroit News reported. Two more siblings found alive inside the home were removed and are being questioned by social workers.
A bailiff called police after finding the first body, a 14-year-old girl, inside a plastic bag in the freezer. Her 11-year-old brother was also found inside the freezer.
"When we walked past, we saw two bodies on the floor," said Blair's neighbor Tori Childs as she described the scene to the newspaper. "It was a little girl and a little boy. The little girl had on a pink jacket."
Blair, who was being evicted for failure to pay rent, was taken into police custody and as of Wednesday has been charged with child abuse. She allegedly confessed to killing her children but the investigation is ongoing.
It was not immediately clear how long the bodies were in the freezer located right next to the front door, The Detroit News reported. Autopsies to determine how the children died are pending.
Residents at the Martin Luther King Apartments said they suddenly stopped seeing two of Blair's kids at least a year ago.
"When people asked her where her other two kids are, she said they were at their aunt's house," Shanetria Lanier, another neighbor, told The Detroit News. "Or sometimes she'd tell people they stayed inside because they didn't like to be around people."
Blair home-schooled her children, so their disappearances were not noticed by any school, according to Lanier.
The mother reportedly had a history of run-ins with the law, including an outstanding 2006 arrest warrant for allegedly driving an unregistered car without insurance. She was sued at least six times by Martin Luther King Apartments for failure to pay rent, the first time in 2004, the newspaper reported.
An eviction order, filed in February, was in the process of being carried out when the gruesome discovery was made.
Blair's brother, who lives in California, was shocked by the news of what happened back in Michigan.
"She didn't have any emotional problems from what I'm aware of," Marlon Blair said of his sister. "I don't know what to say about this."
