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Kelli Bryant (Sheriff's photo)
It's still a mystery as to how no one discovered that three children in Pontiac were living on their own in squalor in a rental home for years after their mother abandoned them.
And now comes a report from the Detroit Free Press that the city missed a couple opportunities to discover the nightmare.
Violet Iknonomova of the Detroit Free Press reports that the city of Pontiac on at least two occasions ordered inspections of the rental townhome where the children lived. In both instances, no interior inspections were conducted. One was in 2022 and the other last summer.
This past week the mother Kelli Bryant, 34, was arraigned on three counts of first-degree child abuse before 50th District Court Judge Ronda Fowlkes Gross. She's being held on a $250 million cash bond.
The children are 12, 13, and 15, and had been living on their own since around 2021. The mother would drop food off on the porch.
Ikonomova reports:
Last summer, a city building inspector visited the home to check out a newly installed front porch, city records reviewed by the Detroit Free Press show. And in 2022, another inspector reported a "reinspection" at the townhouse at 660 Lydia Lane after it was cited for being an unregistered rental in 2020.
The flagging of the property in 2022 did not involve inspectors going out to the property, Jacob Jefferson, a spokesperson for the city of Pontiac, said Friday. It entailed a letter being sent informing the owner the rental needed to be registered, he said.
