DETROIT – 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 Latrice Cannady, 35, “believed someone was trying to kill her and everybody was in on it … including police,” Oakland CountySheriff Michael Bouchard said at a Monday news conference. “Family members attempted to get her help, but she refused and she fled with the children.”
Cannady, Kyle, 9, and Malik, 3, Milton were found a mile from their apartment, in Pontiac, a Detroit suburb, after Cannady’s daughter, 10, knocked on a door for help, reporting her “family was dead,” Bouchard said. They died of hypothermia, Bouchard said.
The family had been wandering since at least Friday when the mother told the kids to lay down and rest in a field in the near Crystal Lake, Bouchard said. The surviving girl woke up and is in stable condition in the hospital. Child Protective Services is involved and she’s expected to be released to family members.
According to Bouchard, Cannady’s mother said she’d begun acting strangely several weeks earlier. The father of her children was murdered in 2021 and his alleged killer had recently been on trial. Family members tried to connect Cannady with counseling or get her “committed,” but she refused, he said.
