PONTIAC (WWJ) -- A 35-year-old Pontiac mother who abandoned her three children in a squalid apartment for years was sentenced Tuesday to six to 30 years in prison for First-Degree Child Abuse.
Kelli Bryant pleaded no contest as charged in July for the severe neglect, sparing the children from having to testify at trial. A no contest plea is treated as an admission of guilt for the purposes of sentencing, though the defendant does not explicitly admit wrongdoing.
Oakland County Sheriff’s deputies first discovered the children in February 2025 while performing a welfare check at the Pontiac apartment.
Investigators found the kids living alone in what were described as horrific conditions — without running water or functioning toilets. The children's bodies and clothes were covered in feces, and the girls had difficulty walking.
According to Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald, Bryant had originally lived in the apartment with her four children in 2019. Sometime in 2020 or 2021, Bryant moved out, leaving three of the children behind while sending the fourth child to live with their father.
For several years, the three abandoned children did not go outside, never attended school, and survived on food that Bryant would only periodically drop off at their doorstep.
"This sentence holds Kelli Bryant accountable for the horrific neglect of three children," Prosecutor McDonald said in a statement. "Her plea spared the children from testifying at trial and ensures she remains incarcerated until they are all adults. I’m hopeful her victims will continue to have the space and resources to heal from this abhorrent trauma."
The prison sentence follows a series of legal actions against Bryant regarding the case.
In December, she pleaded as charged to three counts of Welfare Fraud and was sentenced to two years of probation.
Later, in April, her parental rights were officially terminated in family court.
