Officials say that on the weekend, a woman and her two children were found dead from being frozen. A third kid made it out alive by asking a stranger for help. Fox 2 Detroit says that an autopsy showed that all three people died of cold.
The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office says that Monica Cannady, 35, and her two kids, Kyle Milton, 9, and Malik Milton, 3, were found at a park in Pontiac, Michigan, on Sunday afternoon.
The bodies of Monica Cannady, a mother from Michigan, and her two sons, Kyle Milton, and Malik Milton, were found frozen in a park.
Officials say that around 3:10 p.m. on Sunday, January 15, deputies were called to the 200 block of Branch Street after Cannady’s daughter told someone that her family had died.
Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said, “A 10-year-old girl knocked on a door and said her family was dead in a field.”
Officials went through the empty fields near Lakeside houses. Bouchard says that the bodies of Cannady and her two boys were found in a field near Crystal Lake, about a mile from their apartment in Pontiac.
Ms. Cannady’s 10-year-old daughter, who was the only one left alive, went to a stranger who lived near the park for help and told them that her family had died. They called the police, and the child was taken to the hospital, where she is currently in a safe condition.
“This tragedy was the result of a mental health crisis,” Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said at a press conference on Monday.
Authorities say that Lillie lived and is being treated in the hospital for signs of hypothermia. Her granny is beside her. Bouchard says that she is steady and seems to be getting better.
Lillie told the police that she and her family went to the field and that her mother told the kids to lie down and sleep. Officials also said that when Lillie woke up, neither her mother nor her brothers did anything.
Was Monica Cannady going through a crisis in her mental health?
Bouchard says that Cannady’s family just recently found out about his mental health problems. Investigators say that her mother has seen a change in her daughter’s behavior over the last three weeks, but she doesn’t know why.
Cannady’s mom noticed on Friday that her grandchildren were cold. Bouchard says that Cannady’s family tried to help her, but she turned them down.
“This was a mental health disaster,” said Bouchard. “The mother, who was a woman, was having a mental health problem. She thought that someone was trying to kill her and that everyone was the one trying to kill her. She thought it was a plot and that everyone, even the police, was in on it.
“Her family tried to help her by putting her in jail and getting her help, but she refused and ran away,” Bouchard says that this could have been avoided if there had been better tools for mental health.
“I’d say accidental/preventable,” said Bouchard. “If we have more conversations, sometimes hard ones, we need to ask for help. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. I think it will help a lot if it gets more attention and more people have access to mental health care.
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