On the eastside of Detroit, a woman named Mitchelle Blair lived with her four children. She had money problems and relationship problems and as you’ll soon see, some severe mental issues.
Blair is currently serving a life sentence at a women’s prison in Pittsfield after admitting to the murder and torture of two of her children, but only after their bodies were discovered wrapped in plastic bags and blankets in a chest freezer. They had been there for years. The grisly crime earned Blair the chilling moniker “Freezer Mom.” This is the story of what happened, and where her surviving children are now.
‘Freezer Mom’ Mitchelle Blair had a troubling childhood of her own
Blair didn’t have an easy childhood. In a prison interview, she revealed that she suffered physical abuse at the hands of her mother, and sexual abuse from a woman who lived “around the corner.”
“That definitely did happen to me. … I told my mother what happened to me and the only thing she said was (expletive) is over with so what the (expletive) you want me to do about it?” Blair said all she could do was sit in her room and “look stupid. I’m a kid. I’m telling you what happened and you still didn’t do (expletive) about it.” Blair shared that she “still had to see that person every day.”
Even as she sits in prison, there is a palpable rage emanating from every part of her being. “I would kill them again,” she said.
An eviction team makes a grisly discovery
Fast forward to March 24, 2015. Blair was out of a job and struggling to pay bills. She asked her family for money but still couldn’t pay the rent. An eviction team from the court showed up to start moving things out of the apartment. When they showed up, Blair was gone so the crew just went inside on their own.
There was a freezer in the living room. When officials opened it, they found two bodies: one a teenage girl in a large plastic bag and the other a young boy in a blanket. Their names were Stephen Gage Berry, 9, and 13-year-old Stoni Ann Blair. Police quickly located Blair at a different apartment with her other two kids, a 17-year-old girl and a young boy of 8. She was babysitting and on the phone when police arrived. “They’re both dead! I did it!” she said.
While being handcuffed she told police she wasn’t evil, she had simply committed an “evil act.” The bodies were so frozen it took three days for them to thaw at the morgue. The medical examiner cited blunt force trauma as the cause of death for the children, but also said Stephen, 9, had suffered “thermal injuries” as well.
Freezer mom confesses to both murders in court
In the Wayne County Circuit Courthouse, Blair told Judge Dana Hathaway that her children were “demons” who sexually abused the youngest son. That claim, by the way, was thoroughly investigated and found to be unsubstantiated. Blair said she walked in on her youngest son using toys to simulate sex acts, and then asked him if he’s ever been touched. Blair said he told her Stephen did.
What happened next was troubling, to put it mildly. Blair then told the judge that she ran into Stephen’s room and he confessed so she started kicking and punching him. Over 14 days, she made him drink Windex, starved him, suffocated him in a plastic bag and poured water on his genitals that was so hot it made his skin peel.
Court documents to end her parental rights show that she “lifted Stephen off the ground by holding onto the ends of [a] belt while the belt was still wrapped around Stephen’s neck.” She said, “Do you like how this feels?” She used trash bags to suffocate the child until he passed out and then slapped him awake. When he died in a pool of his own vomit, she wrapped him in a blanket and put him in the freezer.
Stoni suffered a similar fate, with Blair goading the 13-year-old to admit to sexual abuse of her brother. Stoni was starved and tortured until she also succumbed to her injuries, which included beatings with a two-by-four and suffocation with garbage bags. Blair repeatedly called them “demons” in interviews and said she had no remorse. No one noticed the kids were gone for three years.
‘Freezer Mom’ is sentenced in court
Blair was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to felony and premeditated first-degree murder. She’s serving her sentence with no possibility of parole.
Where are the ‘freezer mom’ kids now?
The children went to live with their great aunt and were treated to therapy after facing those horrors. The children have reportedly been doing better. The boy was adopted and the girl finished college and moved into an independent living facility. Wayne County Circuit Judge Edward Joseph, the judge in the children’s care case, said the kids were resilient and overcame a lot. “They both definitely exceeded expectations.”
