A woman who suffered a severe mental health crisis took her children to a forest and there all three died due to low temperatures.
The Oakland County Sheriff identified the woman as 35-year-old Monica Cannady.
“She believed that someone was trying to kill her and that everyone was involved” before she and the children were killed, county sheriff Michael Bouchard said at a news conference.
Law enforcement officials found the children, ages 9 and 3, and the woman Sunday in a wooded area of Pontiac, which is about 20 miles northwest of Detroit. The sheriff confirmed that the cause of death of the three people was due to hypothermia, reported CBS Detroit.
Detectives found a 10-year-old girl and transported her to an area hospital, where Bouchard said she was in stable condition.
The infant had knocked on a door and pointed out that her “family was dead in the field.”
Family members tried to help Cannady before she left with her children, but she reportedly refused, the sheriff said. When the mother’s family arrived at the field, she told her children to lie down and sleep.
Investigators explained that the family could have been out in the open for at least three days, despite having a home within a mile of where they were discovered.
