Mother Admits She 'Sacrificed' Children to Live by Themselves In Squalor for 'Selfish' Reasons: Sheriff

Kelli Bryant, 34, is now facing three counts each of first-degree child abuse and welfare fraud after authorities recovered her three children -- a boy, 15, and two girls, 13 and 12 -- from a mold-ridden, feces-covered home where they said they'd been living alone since 2020 or 2021.

In a preliminary hearing on May 16, a judge ruled there was enough evidence against Bryant to move forward with a jury trial. In that hearing, which was covered by NBC affiliate NBC affiliate WDIV, four separate witnesses testified to their involvement in the case, from the welfare check on the home through medically examining the children later.

These included the deputy who responded to the welfare check at the apartment where the children were found, the pediatrician who checked them out, the investigator from the prosecutor's office who looked into the case, and a detective who was part of the investigation.

"Throughout my extensive career in this field, I have never encountered a scenario as dire and prolonged as this one, involving abandonment, neglect, and abuse of the highest order, said Sheriff Mike Bouchard in a press release. "This situation would be deemed deplorable and intolerable for an animal, and it is utterly unacceptable for your three children. The young girls have been deprived of any interaction with their mother and have not received an education for years. The far-reaching consequences of this abuse must be acknowledged."

Oakland County Sheriff's Office Detective John Brish testified in court that he was monitoring the welfare call to the apartment when he heard the report that they'd said they'd not seen their mother in years.

Brish said he then went to the home to meet the children for himself. What he saw, according to his testimony, was that the two younger girls had some difficulty walking and seeing in the light. He said they appeared overwhelmed by everything going on. He also said they were covered in feces.

According to Brish, the smell in the home was like nothing he'd ever experienced in a case that didn't involve a decomposing body, as police were reportedly advised to wear hazmat suits. He kept expecting there to be more children, and perhaps one or more deceased, as police searched the home.

After touching base with the children at the home, and seeing the state of the home, Brish said he was able to make contact with Bryant, who agreed to meet with him at the police station for an interview. He expressed concerns about the health and welfare of her children.

What he didn't expect was how Bryant walked in. Based on how he'd found the children and the state of their home, Brish said in court that he was surprised to see Bryant walk in very put together, with her hair done and long fake nails.

He said that the defendant was read her Miranda rights and then admitted she'd sacrificed her children for herself, saying "her actions were selfish."

"I hurt my children," he quoted her saying. "I sacrificed my children, probably."

"She knew that her actions were selfish, that's her wording and that it made her children sick and that she had ultimately sacrificed her children for her own purposes," Brish testified, per Law & Crime.

According to Brish's testimony, Bryant told him a bit of how she'd managed her household from afar, mostly communicating with her oldest son to do so.

She shared that one time she went to the apartment because the smoke alarm was going off. She said she pulled the batteries out to stop it. Bryant also said that she had instructed her children to hide if police came to the home as she didn't want anyone to know they were there.

The children's grandfather purportedly believed that the children were living with their father, while Bryant allegedly told Brish that he was unwilling to help her with the children.

At another point, she claimed she was the victim of assault and had mental health issues. She said she lived at different places throughout the city, but all of them were within walking distance of where her children were living.

Another quote Brish recalled vividly was that when confronted with the severity of the situation, and how her children had been living, Bryant allegedly asked for advice for herself.

"I would speak on the severity of the situation and my concerns for the children and their path to recovery and moving forward and typically, her response would be 'is there anything I can do to help myself?'" Brish said, according to ABC affiliate WXYZ.

The prosecutor's office investigator, Brian Martin, looked into phones confiscated from Bryant, as well as the children. The first thing he testified to noticing was how she and her children referred to one another in their contact lists.

He testified that the children had their mother listed as "World's greatest mom," or something similar. In her phone, however, Bryant had her son listed as "My oldest," and her daughters as "Kid 1" and "Kid 2." Prosecutors said the children were unable to reach out to other family members as they did not have their contact information.

Martin observed that most text communications were between the mother and her son, and most of those were about food deliveries, with Bryant wanting him to let her now that he had received the packages and taken them in.

"I don't feel comfortable with you opening the door without me knowing," Martin read one purported text from Bryant in court dated November 30, 2024.

In one instance, the boy had purportedly befriended a girl online and they had agreed to exchange gifts, leading him to send her his physical address. When he let his mother know, she replied, per Martin, "You should have asked first, I would have gave you an address but not that one."

On the day the children were rescued from the home, the son had messaged his mother that police were there. According to Martin in court, Bryant had replied for the kids to hide and be quiet. She admitted telling her children to never leave or open the front door.

According to subsequent interviews with the children, as detailed by WXYS, all three children spoke "of their irrational fear of strangers, pedophiles and being blackmailed."

Oakland County Sheriff’s Deputy Quincy Curtis was on the other side of the door that day, having responded to a welfare check to the home. The landlord was also there with a locksmith. According to Curtis' statements in court, the landlord had not received a payment since October 2024, and had not heard from Bryan since December.

Curtis described what he saw when the finally gained entrance to the home. The first thing he noticed was a large mold stain on the ceiling, and that the home was covered with piles of trash as high as four feet and cobwebs. There was also feces everywhere, including the bathtub filled and toilet overflowing. There was also mold everywhere.

Due to the overwhelming smell, Curtis said they anticipated "checking the apartment for a dead body." As they began to check doors, they heard crying coming from behind a locked on. Curtis said he spoke aloud that they were safe and that he was there to check on them.

Ultimately, the son came out of one of the bedrooms, with Curtis saying he immediately noticed that he struggled to walk straight, perhaps due to his extremely long toenails.

According to Curtis, the boy told them that he and his younger sisters had been living alone in the home since 2020 or 2021. He said the boy then convinced his younger sisters to also come out of a locked bathroom.

The girls, according to Curtis, came out hunched over, holding hands and standing close together. He said they would not look up, describing them as "very frightened." They also had long nails and matted hair, per the sheriff's department. Deputies discovered that the boy had been sleeping on a mattress while the girls slept on pizza boxes.

As he began to talk to them, Curtis recalled the children struggling to figure out how to spell their names, having to consult together to figure it out.

He also said they struggled to use toothbrushes and didn't understand how to flush the toilet after they'd been taken from the home by Child Protective Services. Curtis said deputies did not recall seeing any hygiene products in the home.

Prosecutors noted that one of the children said she had never used soap in her hair because she didn't have any available, and also because she believed it caused cancer.

The pediatrician, Dr. Smith, who performed a basic examination of all three children after they moved from the hospital to an outpatient clinic, said that the children did not appear underweight, but they did have some health issues.

Smith stated in court that the boy had brown spots inside his mouth, which could be lesions.

She said that the middle child, who she described as "high-spirited" but confused as to why all of this was happening, had a hard time standing up straight. She also said her skin was darkened.

The youngest also struggled to sand up straight, with Smith concerned she might be developmentally delayed. She said she was not able to get on the examination table.

Smith said that all three children appeared to be weakened and had extremely low levels of Vitamin D, recommending physical rehabilitation. After noticing that all three children were squinting, Smith was also able to determine that they were all near-sighted.

The children were placed in the custody of a relative by CPS, according to Oakland County's press release.

"There is no question that this is an extraordinary case," Judge Cynthia Thomas Walker said, also citing unseen interviews she described, per WXYZ, as "overwhelming in terms of showing the mental and physical harm inflicted on the children."