A little girl knocked on a neighbor’s door in Michigan and told the occupant that her mother and younger siblings had frozen to death in a nearby field during the night. She managed to escape, suffering from hypothermia.
The girl’s mother was said to be undergoing a paranoid mental health crisis and was hiding her children because she believed someone was trying to kill her.
They wandered into a field for the night, and the mother froze to death with two of her young children in an overgrown field. The third child, a 10-year-old girl, managed to get away and the neighbor alerted police.
Michael Bouchard, Oakland County Sheriff, identified the dead woman as Monica Cannady, 35, and her two boys, Kyle and Malik Milton, nine and three. Autopsies revealed that they died from hypothermia.
Sheriff Bouchard said Cannady had previously been living with her three children in an apartment but fled her home with her children. Relatives noticed her paranoid behavior and tried to help her, but they were unable to change her mood or behavior.
Witnesses said they saw Cannady and her children knocking on people’s doors asking for food. She refused help and money and wandered into the field with the children, underdressed and not prepared for the cold.
Sheriff Bouchard said his office had received calls from residents about the family’s situation and had tried to locate the family but were unsuccessful because they were hiding. Cannady had instructed her children to hide if they saw or heard anyone trying to approach them.
Sheriff Bouchard said they learned that the family at first was hiding in an abandoned car.
Cannady’s brother, Andre Harsten, said he had been searching for his sister the entire weekend.