Before Stephen Berry and Stoni Blair's frozen bodies were discovered in a deep freezer at their Detroit apartment, the siblings suffered horrific abuse at the hands of their mother, a court document filed today alleges.
So did their surviving brother and sister, who knew their siblings were in the freezer.
The record also revealed another disturbing allegation – that the oldest child was forced by her mother to place Stoni's body in the freezer after she died.
The children's mother, Mitchelle Blair, has been arraigned on child abuse charges and is being held on a $1-million bond due the "heinous" nature of the allegations against her, 36th District Court Magistrate Renee McDuffee said today. She could end up facing murder charges, an assistant prosecutor said.
As first reported by the Free Press, the petition filed in Wayne County Juvenile Court details allegations of the abuse that led up to Stephen and Stoni's deaths at their home in the Martin Luther King Apartments. The causes of their deaths are not yet known, as the Wayne County Medical Examiner's Office waits for their frozen bodies to thaw before performing autopsies.
The petition – which includes information from interviews with both surviving children – alleges that Blair, 35, tortured Stephen in the two weeks before his death by tying a belt around his neck, throwing hot water on him and putting a plastic bag over his head.
It says that on Aug. 30, 2012, Stephen, then age 9, was found unresponsive and Blair wrapped his body in a bed linen and placed him in the freezer.
About nine months later, the petition alleges, Stoni suffered the same fate – being killed and stuffed in the freezer.
Blair is accused of burning Stoni on the back with a clothing iron, hitting her with a two-by-four, causing a cut above her left eye and striking her with a hot curling iron, breaking one of her teeth.
"Her mother refused to provide her with medical treatment," the petition alleges.
According to the petition, on May 25, 2013, Stoni told her mother that she did not like her siblings. "Mitchelle Blair became enraged and strangled Stoni with a black T-shirt and suffocated her with a plastic bag," according to the document.
After the then 13-year-old died, Blair is accused of then making her older daughter "put Stoni in the deep freezer."