Tateona Williams is speaking out after two of her children likely froze to death while sleeping in a vanat a Detroit parking garage.
According to the Detroit Police Department, the incident occurred on Monday, Feb. 10 on the ninth floor of the Hollywood Casino parking garage, where the family was seeking shelter inside the van. At the time, there were five children and two adults in the vehicle.
Williams, 29, told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview that the deceased are her children Darnell Currie Jr., 9, and Amillah Currie, 2. The other adult in the van was Williams’ mother, Yvette Goodman, 48. Four of the children were Williams’ and the fifth was Goodman’s. Williams spoke with PEOPLE alongside Detroit Board of Police Commissioner Tamara Liberty Smith, who is also the director of Detroit Power Detroit Community Outreach, a transitional housing service Williams was referred to on Monday evening.
“The mother realized that her 9-year-old son wasn’t breathing,” said interim Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison at a press conference on Tuesday, Feb. 11. “Previous to that, she had already called a friend, another close relative, to help because with the vehicle not running.”
Bettison said the mother realized that the 9-year-old was not breathing. The friend, who had already arrived, took the boy in their car and headed to the hospital.
“While en route to the children’s hospital, as they checked on the other children that were in the van…they realized at some point that the 2-year-old wasn’t breathing,” added Bettison, who said that once the friend returned, the entire family got into the car and rushed off to the hospital.
According to Bettison, authorities were later notified by the hospital that the two children had died.
Williams told us she woke up and saw “stuff coming out” of Darnell’s mouth and rushed him to the hospital. “They really couldn’t do much because I guess it was too late,” she said, adding that she did not notice something was wrong with Amillah until her mother rushed into the hospital with the child.
“We do know that on that day and time the temperatures were below 32 degrees,” Bettison said. “Of course ultimately the medical examiner will determine the cause of death, but just on the surface right now it appears it was exposure to hypothermia.“
Bettison went on to note that the investigation is ongoing and that police have spoken with the children’s mother and grandchildren. He went on to note that the other three surviving children were with other relatives and nobody was currently being detained.
Authorities believe that the family had lived in the van for two to three months prior to the tragedy and chose the parking garage at the Hollywood Casino because it was free and provided safety and access to the casino’s restroom.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who was also at the Feb. 11 news conference, said that “the heartbreaking part of this is that there were family shelter beds available just a few miles away…[It] brings home the point that having services available doesn’t mean very much if the residents who need them don’t know how to access them.”
Based on preliminary information given to him, Duggan said the family had contacted the city’s homeless response team multiple times, most recently on Nov. 25, 2024.
On Nov. 25, Duggan said the family told the response team they had been living with another family and wouldn’t be able to continue to stay with them, so they needed to find a new place to go.
“In the course of that conversation there was no resolution reached on where they would go,” said Duggan. “And one of the things when you call our homeless services folks is that if it’s an emergency situation, we send out one of these outreach workers….For whatever reason, this wasn’t deemed an emergency that caused an outreach worker to visit the family.”
He added that, based on what authorities could determine at the time, “the family never called back again for service,” nor did any member of the response team reach out to the family.
In her interview with us, Williams said she “kept calling” homeless services after Nov. 25.
“I kept calling. I called out of state, cities, different states. I asked Detroit for help,” Williams said. “And they still would say, when I called, they didn’t have no beds. But it took two [of] my kids to die… for them to want to help.”
When Williams called Detroit’s Homeless Services on Nov. 25, they told her no family rooms were available, but they would let her know when one did. They never did, she told us.
Smith explained to us that Williams and her family had a “unique” situation because shelters would have to make “special accommodations” for the family. Smith said Williams and her family are staying at Detroit Power Detroit Community Outreach, an independently-owned shelter.
In his news conference, the mayor called on Deputy Mayor Melia Howard and Housing and Revitalization Department director Julie Schneider to furnish a review about this case within two weeks.
