Mitchelle Blair's cruel parenting

Outsiders saw Mitchelle Blair as a devoted mother of four, but within the confines of her Detroit flat, she mercilessly tormented all her four children and killed two. Blair's 17-year-old daughter revealed that her half-brother, Stephen Berry Jr., who would have been 9 on August 30, 2012, passed away on August 30, 2012. 

Prior to Stephen's passing, Mitchelle Blair tortured him for about two weeks by placing a plastic bag over his head, tying a belt over his neck, and using hot water on him while he was in the shower. And on May 25, 2013, Stoni Blair, who would have been 13 at the time, passed away after being smothered with a plastic bag and strangled with a T-shirt by her own mother.

Stoni's body was placed in the a "deep freezer" next to Stephen, who had been placed there nearly nine months earlier and had been covered in a blanket. Blair ordered her oldest daughter put her little sister's dead body in the freezer, on top of Stephen's cold body. 

The bodies of Stoni and Stephen had to thaw for three days before autopsies could be done on them. Stoni died from multiple blunt force trauma injuries, while Stephen died from "multiple blunt trauma and thermal injuries. Both deaths were determined to be homicides.

The coroner received the remains on March 24, 2015, at 12:49 p.m., and that time was recorded by the medical examiner as the official time of death. When a "Wayne County Sheriff's Department bailiff went to Blair's old residence in the Martin Luther King Apartments, located just east of downtown Detroit", to carry out a court-ordered eviction about 11 a.m. Tuesday, the kids were discovered wrapped in plastic bags in a freezer.

The abuse

The 28-year-old neighbour Jessica Porter said she has only seen Stoni through a window and had never seen the youngest of the two living children. Porter claimed that Blair "loved those kids," taught them at home, and "super-glued" their homework to the living room walls.

The surviving children underwent medical examinations on the day the bodies of their siblings were found, and they confessed to their mother abusing them as children. The 8-year-old's back had 25 scars and injuries, both old and new, as well as loop-shaped scars and injuries that were consistent with being whipped by an extension cord on his back and buttocks.

When asked about the visible cut above her left eye, the 17-year-old told the interviewer Blair struck her in the head with a 2-by-4; the broken front tooth was from the time the teen's mother hit her with a curling iron. The teen, who also had scars from being burned with irons and whipped with cords, said Blair refused the children medical treatment.

Home-schooling

Blair was accused of neglecting or abusing children twice, once in September 2002 and again in February 2005, yet she was still allowed to keep custody of her kids. The 17-year-old daughter claimed that two years ago, their mother took them out of school.

When the girl was in the seventh grade, she last attended a Detroit public school. According to the state website, parents in Michigan are not required to tell their school district or the state Department of Education if they intend to homeschool, although doing so is advised to prevent truancy suspicions. Administrators and childcare providers are not informed on a statewide level to check on pupils who have been removed from a school system.

Blair never provided the state Department of Education with the optional documentation required to confirm that she was homeschooling the kids. Parents who homeschool their kids only need to register with the state if they need special education support.

Mitchelle Blair was described as an angel by her friends and neighbours because of how polite she was. One of the neighbours even said, "The mother is a beautiful person," in reference to Blair. They did see that Stoni and Stephen had not been seen in more than a year, but they made no inquiries because "they were always in the house."