Kids Who Died in Detroit Van Didn't Freeze

UPDATE Mar 6, 2025 2:00 AM CST

The two Detroit children originally believed to have frozen to death while sleeping with their family in a van at a casino parking structure last month were actually killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. Darnell Currie Jr., 9, and A'millah Currie, 2, were in the van along with three other children and two adults; their family did not have a home, the AP reports. Detroit last week announced policy changes spurred by the tragedy, including a 24-hour hotline, police checks of parked cars, and in-person follow-ups for any families who report they will be losing their housing.

Feb 11, 2025 9:24 PM CST

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan says he has ordered a review of city services for homelessness to make sure a tragedy that happened Monday is never repeated. Two children, ages 2 and 9, froze to death while sleeping in a van in a casino parking structure, the Detroit News reports. Duggan said Tuesday that their mother reached out to the city's homeless response team, most recently in November. Police say five children, their mother, and their grandmother were in a van that parked on the ninth floor of the Hollywood Casino's parking structure around 1am Monday, reports the Detroit Free Press. The van stopped running in the middle of the night, apparently due to a mechanical failure, police say.

Police say that after a family friend came to help, the mother discovered around noon that her 9-year-old son wasn't breathing. After the friend took the boy to a hospital, the grandmother found out that a 2-year-old girl also wasn't breathing. The three other children were hospitalized. Interim Police Chief Todd Bettison said the family had been living in the van for around three months, moving from casino to casino, WXYZ reports. Duggan said Tuesday that beds were available at a shelter a few miles from the casino. He said the city needs to work to make sure people know how to access services. "We have to make sure that we do everything possible to make sure that this doesn't happen again," he said.

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Duggan said the family didn't contact the homeless response team again after the November call and outreach workers didn't follow it up because their situation was not deemed to be an emergency. Detroit Board of Police Commissioner Tamara Liberty Smith says the family contacted multiple shelters before the tragedy and were told they were full, the Free Press reports. She says the grandmother works at Popeye's and the mother had been due to start a job in Flint on Wednesday. "They're a family that's trying. They didn't want to abandon each other," Smith says. (More Detroit stories.)