DETROIT — A brother and sister whose bodies were found in a deep freezer in their Detroit home had been beaten to death, autopsies determined Friday, painting a more complete picture of the horrors that unfolded inside the home for years but that apparently went unnoticed by the outside world.
The Wayne County medical examiner's office classified the deaths of Stoni Ann Blair and Stephen Gage Berry as homicides, saying both were killed by multiple blows and that the young boy also had "thermal injuries."
Their older sister, who is 17, told child welfare officials that their mother, Mitchelle Blair, tortured Stephen "for approximately two weeks prior to his death by tying a belt around his neck, throwing hot water on him while in the shower and putting a plastic bag over his head." The girl and Blair's other surviving child, an 8-year-old boy, have been placed in the care of a relative.
Blair, 35, is jailed on first-degree child abuse charges, but prosecutors said Thursday that she could face murder charges depending on what the autopsies found. The prosecutor's office said Friday that there would be no changes in the charges over the weekend.
Investigators believe Stoni was 13 when she died and Stephen was 9. They think Stephen died in August 2012 and that Stoni died the following May.
In a court filing Thursday to end Blair's parental rights, the state Department of Human Services quoted her surviving daughter as saying that after Blair killed Stephen, his body was wrapped in a bed linen and put in the freezer.
She said in May 2013, Stoni incensed their mother by saying she didn't like either of the surviving siblings, and that their mother strangled Stoni with a T-shirt and placed a plastic bag over her mouth. The older girl said her mother forced her to put her sister's body in the freezer, the agency wrote.
Court officers carrying out an eviction notice at the family's home in an apartment complex near downtown Detroit on Tuesday found the bodies in the freezer. Neighbors said afterward that they hadn't seen the dead children for about a year — although investigators believe it must have been longer than that — and that they rarely saw the two surviving children. When neighbors asked if the children attended school, they said Blair told them the kids were being homeschooled.