Editor’s Note: Explicit details have been omitted in this article. A complete description of Mitchelle Blair’s confession can be found here.
After the discovery of a child who had been murdered, the last person anyone suspects is a parent. Parents are supposed to have unconditional love for their children; no matter what happens. What if a mother took the life of her child? If a parent has unconditional love for their own, there would be no way something as tragic would happen. The truth is, there are people who were never meant to be parents, people like Mitchelle Blair.
On March 24, 2015, Mitchelle Blair was about to be evicted from her apartment in Detroit. However, she decided to take two of her children — her 17-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son — and hid at a neighbor’s apartment before the District Court could kick her out. While the District Court began taking everything from the home, they made a shocking discovery in Blair’s freezer: a girl wrapped in a plastic bag. After the police were called, the body of a young boy was found underneath the girl. These two children — 13-year-old Stoni and 9-year-old Stephen — were the children of Mitchelle Blair.
Mitchelle Blair presented herself as nice and friendly, which is why no one suspected her as a killer. However, in 2002 and 2005, allegations of child abuse were held against Blair because of the bruises and burn marks on her girls’ bodies. Despite the markings, Blair was allowed to have custody of her children but was ordered to attend counseling.
Stephen had been dead for two years before he was found and Stoni had died a year earlier. When asked where her children were, Blair simply explained Stoni and Stephen preferred to stay inside their home, and neighbors believed her. None of her children went to public school, which is why when Stoni and Stephen no longer appeared in the outside world, there were no questions from the public.
Blair admitted her crimes after being arrested. There was no sign of remorse in her tone of voice, in the words she said, and how she acted. In fact, she said she did not regret her actions and repeatedly called the two dead children “demons.” She mentioned that she didn’t mean to kill her son but definitely meant to kill her daughter. In fact, she said if she had the chance to kill Stoni again, she would.
During the guilty plea, when asked why she murdered her children, Mitchelle Blair did not hesitate to explain her reasoning. Apparently, her youngest son confessed that he was being sexually abused by Stoni and Stephen.
Stoni started the abuse on her younger brother Stephen. She raped and then beat him, making sure he wouldn’t tell their mother. Nine months before discovering Stoni’s abuse to both her brothers, Blair discovered that Stephen was raping her youngest son.
The bodies of Stoni Blair and Stephen Berry had to defrost before autopsies could be performed. However, Mitchelle Blair listed every single thing she did to Judge Dana Margaret Hathaway during her plea. This is what she said she did to Stoni:
Blair: “I repeatedly punched her, on many occasions my son, I told him to tell me every single thing she did to him so he was telling me more and more things that she did, I assaulted her every time he told me what she did to him. By assault I mean I punched her, I put a bag over her head till she lost consciousness, I threw hot water on her-scalding hot water from the faucet…”
Judge Hathaway: “Did you hit her in the head with a wooden stick?”
Blair: “Yes, I hit her in the head multiple times, over and over…That was actually days before she died and the day she died. I hit her on her back, on her tailbone. I kicked her.”
Judge Hathaway: “You said you killed her by putting a grocery bag over her head?”
Blair: “…Yes, I put a bag over her head.”
After describing Stoni’s murder, Blair was asked what she did to Stephen. This is what she said:
Blair: “The reason I put bags over Stephen’s head was because my son told me that the plastic on his bed because I thought he was a bedwetter, he said “sometimes, mom, I couldn’t breathe. Stephen was laying on me and he had my face down in the plastic on the bed, I couldn’t breathe…” That’s when I got a garbage bag and started putting it over Stephen’s head and I started asking him, “b*tch, you see what this feel like, you can’t breathe?”…So I put a bag over his head, he lost consciousness; I did that a couple times…So I grabbed Stephen, I grabbed a belt and I put a belt around his neck and I lifted him up like, “do you like how this feels, being choked with a belt?” So I dropped him, I held him up until he lost consciousness as well…”
After her trial, Mitchelle Blair lost custody of both of her surviving children; her oldest is living independently while her youngest was adopted by a family who requested to remain secret. She is serving a life sentence without the chance of parole after pleading guilty of two counts of first-degree premeditated murder.
As a person who is truly invested in the true crime community, it is extremely difficult to decide if Mitchelle Blair’s crime was justified. On one hand, she deeply believed Stoni and Stephen were sexually abusing her son. In an interview, she told the story of how she was molested as a child and her mother did nothing about it so that was why she reacted the way she did. On the other hand, she took two of her children’s lives, she snatched their opportunities to grow and learn what they did was wrong. Plus, we do not know if she was telling the truth. While describing the acts of sexual abuse, she was on the edge of tears multiple times. However, she could have put on an act or maybe she was lied to.
The only person who knows everything is her youngest son.
Photo: People.com
