Family of Pontiac mom, 2 kids who died of hypothermia urged her to seek care

Pontiac — Relatives noticed something had changed in Monica Cannady recently, with signs the 35-year-old Pontiac woman was experiencing issues with her mental health.

On Friday, she and her three children showed up at her mother’s door. Cannady was having paranoid thoughts and the children were shivering.

Concerned family members urged Cannady to get help and were in the process of trying to get her psychiatric care, but she fled with the children, according to the Oakland County Sheriff's Office. They ended up spending the weekend wandering around their Pontiac neighborhood without jackets or other winter clothing — and avoided help even after community members alerted law enforcement about their conditions.

On Sunday afternoon, relatives learned their fate: Cannady and her young sons — Kyle Milton, 9, and Malik Milton, 3 — were found in a field near the 200 block of Branch St., dead from hypothermia. A young daughter, 10, had survived and alerted neighbors about her mother and siblings.

The tragedy, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said Monday in announcing the deaths and what led to them, underscores the country's mental health crisis.

The crisis unfolded in full view: Throughout Saturday, Cannady and her children reportedly knocked on strangers' doors asking for food. Police received multiple calls from the community about concerns for the family walking around in the cold without winter clothing.

Every time officers arrived in the area, however, they were unable to find them, Bouchard said.

“This tragedy was based in a mental health crisis,” said Bouchard at a Monday afternoon news conference, explaining their deaths were “fundamentally evidentiary of the breakdown of our mental health system in America.”

Cannady on Sunday took the children to the field and told them to lie down. She and the sons did not wake up. Her daughter went to a nearby home to get help, Bouchard said.

The girl is hospitalized in stable condition, the sheriff said.

“Over the course of a couple of days, we actually had been getting calls about a woman and kids not dressed appropriately for the conditions. Deputies would go there, look all through the area and couldn’t find anybody,” Bouchard said.

“We later learned from the surviving daughter that she had told her kids that anytime anybody approached to run.”

Bouchard on Monday called on state and federal leaders to provide communities with grants to be used to help provide mental health resources.

“We’re seeing death every day as a result of the mental health crisis in this country, and it sure would be nice if Lansing and Washington tuned in on it,” said Bouchard, noting that despite the work the county has done to provide resources, many of the programs remain underfunded and mental health resources cut in recent decades.

“We have some of the best partnerships in the country … but there could be so much more, and this is evidence of it.”

Michigan's $3 billion mental health system, using a mixture of federal and state money, contracts services for low-income residents with 10 state-created prepaid inpatient health plans, which manage care for about 300,000 eligible residents in Medicaid.

The health plans then contract with one of 46 community mental health authorities, which are arms of their respective county government. Those agencies in turn contract with clinics, hospitals and behavioral health care providers for services.

According to the sheriff and deputies involved in the investigation, the woman’s family began noticing changes in recent weeks and became more concerned Friday when Cannady arrived at her mother's house.

Family members told investigators that Cannady was exhibiting signs of paranoia and believed someone was trying to kill her, and that everyone around her was involved, the sheriff said.

In 2021, the children's father was slain, according to police. Public records show Cannady had lived with Kyle Milton, who was listed as 30 years old when he died on Nov. 4, 2021.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office reported Milton and another man were fatally shot in Pontiac on that date by a suspect identified as Torris Neal Green. Green was charged with two counts each of open murder, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony and a felon in possession of a firearm.

He remains in the Oakland County Jail. A jury trial was scheduled to have begun last week, according to Oakland County Circuit Court records.

Bouchard said investigators did not yet have a sense of what might have sparked Cannady's mental health crisis, but acknowledged that providing support for crime victims was important.

"Again, that goes to resources. I would love to be able to assign follow-up to everybody that's ever been a victim of a serious crime," he said. "... When you're a mom with three kids and the father of your kids has been murdered, and you've got things going on, there needs to be more integration of those services. "

While an autopsy concluded the deaths were accidental, Bouchard noted that he would qualify them as “preventable.”

Meanwhile, a GoFundMe campaign was launched Monday seeking to raise $50,000 for Cannady's daughter.

The sheriff encouraged families to have “tough conversations” and seek help when a loved one appears to be experiencing a crisis.

Other city officials Monday spoke about the importance of addressing the mental health crisis.

"We have to start having candid conversations about mental health, especially in the African American community," said Pontiac council member Melanie Rutherford, who represents District 1, which includes the southwest side of the city where the incident took place.

Oakland Community Health Network's Chief Operating Officer Adam Jenovai stressed that the county has resources, regardless of whether someone has health insurance.

Jenovai urged people to call the non-emergency crisis line at (248) 464-6363 or customer service at (800) 341-2003. The customer service line offers trained staff ready to provide support and resources.

Support also is available through Common Ground, which partners with the county for mental health resources. Common Ground's offices are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are located at 1200 N. Telegraph, behind the County Health Department building.

The organization's mobile health team manager, Kristin Blevins, said people can call or visit for help and staff will help people find and get resources.

“In the past, we were not always taught that mental health is an asset," Rutherford said. "Sometimes you're mislabeled when you call, sometimes you're scared, or in the past, you've been shunned when you say you're having a mental health crisis.

“What I believe is when you start having real conversations and making mental health a normal conversation, that's how you can change the community.” 

KRuble@detroitnews.com