UPDATE 1/31/23 2:25 p.m.
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A sheriff’s deputy sent to search for a Detroit-area mother and her two young sons whose bodies later were found frozen in a field has resigned.
The Oakland County sheriff’s office said the deputy stepped down Jan. 22, The Detroit News reported Monday.
The deputy’s name was not released.
The bodies of Monica Cannady, 35, Kyle Milton, 9, and Malik Milton, 3, were found Jan. 15 in Pontiac after Cannady’s 10-year-old daughter went to a home near the field and told someone her family was dead.
They were not dressed properly for the cold weather. An autopsy report listed hypothermia as the cause of their deaths.
Cannady had been experiencing mental health issues and family members were trying to get her psychiatric care.
She “believed someone was trying to kill her and that everybody was in on it” before she and her children died, Sheriff Michael Bouchard told reporters Jan. 16.
Authorities first were notified about the family on Jan. 13. At the time, Cannady refused help. The family was spotted again later that afternoon and a deputy was sent to check an area about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Detroit, for the family.
The area was not completely searched and the deputy also did not find or make contact with them, the sheriff’s office said.
Other deputies later searched that day, but also failed to find the family.
1/17/23 11:45 a.m.
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan mother and her two children were found frozen to death over the weekend after the mom experienced a “mental health crisis,” a county sheriff said Monday.
Monica Cannady, 35, “believed someone was trying to kill her and that everybody was in on it” before she and her children died, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said in a Monday news conference.
Authorities found the sons, ages 9 and 3, and their mother on Sunday in a wooded area of Pontiac, which is around 20 miles (about 32 kilometers) northwest of Detroit.
Investigators also found a 10-year-old girl and brought her to a local hospital, where Bouchard said on Monday she was in stable condition. The girl had knocked on a door and said that her “family was dead in a field,” Bouchard said.
Family members attempted to help Cannady before she left with her children, but she refused, Bouchard said. When the family arrived in the wooded field, Cannady told her children to lie down and sleep. The two sons and their mother died of hypothermia, according to an autopsy report.
Bouchard advocated for better mental health support at the Monday press conference, saying there is “so much more” to be done regarding crisis response and long-term solutions.
“It takes strength to ask for help. It’s not weakness,” he said. “It’s encouraged.”
© 2023 - 910 Media Group
