PONTIAC (WWJ) — Three counts of first-degree child abuse have been filed against the woman who allegedly abandoned her three children at a Pontiac apartment for several years.
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald on Wednesday announced the charges against 34-year-old Kelli Bryant, who could spend the rest of her life in prison, if convicted.
“This is the most serious charge for child abuse,” McDonald said at a press conference, noting the children — ages 12, 13 and 15 — suffered “unimaginable abuse and neglect over a long period of time.”
Authorities previously said the woman’s name would not be released because she has the same name as her 12-year-old daughter and officials wanted to protect the child. But McDonald on Wednesday said her office has made the decision to name the defendant because she was “quickly identified on social media” and in some news outlets.
The children are currently staying with a relative after receiving medical care at a hospital and conducting interviews with trained forensic interviewers at CARE House of Oakland County.
“Considering what they’ve experienced, they appear to be doing OK,” McDonald said.
The children were discovered at an apartment in Pontiac on Friday, Feb. 14 after the landlord called police to report they were “concerned for the welfare of Bryant, who had not paid rent on the property since October 2024,” McDonald said.
Bryant had been living there with her four children in 2019 and at some point in 2020 or 2021 she moved out, leaving three of the children behind and sending the fourth to live with their father, according to McDonald.
On Friday, police entered the home with the landlord and found her daughters, ages 12 and 13, hiding in a bathroom that was “filled with feces, piles of trash and completely non-functional,” McDonald said. Their 15-year-old brother was hiding in another room.
McDonald said police were “astonished to find anyone in the location because it appeared to be uninhabitable with piles of garbage and refuse several feet high, including large amounts of human excrement.”
“The children were afraid to come out of their hiding places and to speak with the police. The police had to repeatedly advise the children that they were there to help and they were safe,” McDonald said.
The prosecutor said their bodies and clothes were covered in feces and the girls had difficulty walking outside the home and they were “immediately overstimulated” when they went outside.
All three children were taken to the hospital in an ambulance, where they “struggled with completing basic hygiene tasks like flushing the toilet and brushing their teeth because they had not done it in years,” McDonald said.
They were then forensically interviewed and told authorities they had “virtually no physical contact with their mother or the outside world in several years.”
The prosecutor said the girls had not gone outside in several years, while the boy went outside “approximately two times” to feel the grass, but never ventured further than to check the mailbox.
The boy told authorities he would text his mother when their food supply was running low and she would have food delivered to the home. The children shared that during the years they were concealed in the home, she failed to provide toilet paper, soap or shampoo, McDonald said.
Bryant allegedly told her kids not to answer the door or leave the home and all three “expressed fear about what her response would be if they left the home,” the prosecutor said.
McDonald said her office has already requested to terminate Bryant’s parental rights.
Bryant is expected to face a judge on Thursday.
Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard on Tuesday thanked community members who have stepped up to donate clothes, toiletries and money to help the children. Bouchard also asked for a local law firm to help set up a trust fund for the children to assure they have money to cover medical and mental health costs, as well as possible funds for future education.
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