Detroit mom pleads guilty to killing 2 children found in basement freezer

A Detroit woman who was arrested after two of her children’s bodies were found in a basement freezer pleaded guilty to their murders Monday, prosecutors said.

Mitchelle Angela Blair, 35, pleaded guilty to two counts of murder for the deaths of son Steven Gage Berry, 9, and daughter Stoni Ann Blair, 13, according to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office.

Blair said she had “no remorse” for the killings during a court appearance on Monday, according to the Detroit Free Press. Blair, who allegedly tortured all four of her children for years while preventing their biological fathers from visiting, said she meant to kill Stoni Ann Blair, according to the report.

She will be sentenced July 17 and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to Asst. Prosecuting Atty. Maria Miller.

Blair was arrested in late March, after a court bailiff discovered the corpses while serving an eviction notice at Blair’s east Detroit home. Subsequent court filings revealed that Blair confessed to the killings and routinely abused her children in recent years.

The woman’s oldest daughter, identified only as a 17-year-old, told police her mother strangled Stoni Ann “with a black tee-shirt and suffocated her with a plastic bag,” according to a family court filing released by the Michigan attorney general’s office earlier this year.

The surviving daughter then was forced to place her sister’s body in the freezer, court records show. The 17-year-old also told investigators that Mitchelle Blair “tortured Stephen for approximately two weeks prior to his death” by tying a belt around his neck, burning him with hot water and placing a plastic bag over his head, according to the court filing.

The 17-year-old girl and her youngest brother, an 8-year-old, also suffered bruises, cuts and broken teeth as a result of their mother’s alleged abuse, court records show.

Blair had kept the children out of school for two years and largely shielded them from visits by their fathers. State child protective services investigated abuse complaints in 2002 and 2005, court records show, but it remains unclear why Blair was allowed to retain custody.

The woman had numerous outbursts during trial, including one incident where she seemingly confessed to the slayings in the middle of the courtroom last month.

But Miller said those outbursts had no influence on Blair’s decision to plea. Her surviving children remain in the custody of a relative, Miller said.

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