The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office on Wednesday said it has received a request for a criminal warrant related to the deaths of two children who died in February in a van parked in a Greektown casino parking structure.
The prosecutor’s office didn’t disclose a suspect’s name or any other details because no charges have been issued.
“No further information will be released until the warrant review process has been completed,” said Maria Miller, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office.
Detroit Police Sgt. Daren Zhou said it was too early in the case to comment.
“We sent the warrant to the prosecutors, and they’re reviewing it,” Zhou said. “It would be premature to comment further.”
Two children, Darnell Currie Jr. and his sister, A’Millah Currie, died Feb. 10 of carbon monoxide poisoning after spending the night in the Hollywood Casino parking structure in Greektown as temperatures dipped below freezing. Police originally thought the children died of hypothermia, but an autopsy revealed it was carbon monoxide poisoning.
The children, who were 2 and 9, had been living in a van with their mother, Tateona Williams, who was homeless and rotating between various casino parking structures. Two other children were also in the van at the time of Darnell and A’Millah’s deaths, along with Williams and her mother.
Williams said she tried to wake her son around noon on Feb. 10 when she realized he wasn’t breathing. He was rushed to Children’s Hospital of Michigan where he was pronounced dead. At the hospital, Williams learned A’Millah also wasn’t breathing. She was also pronounced dead.
After the kids’ deaths, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan vowed to improve the city’s homeless services, including requiring outreach workers to connect in person with families with children facing homelessness and expanding the city’s homeless help line.
In a report released late last month, Duggan said the city’s first contact with Williams was in 2022, when she reached out about rental assistance. He said she made contact again with the city in December 2023, this time seeking shelter and the family was offered temporary shelter beds, which “they did not use.”
Employees from the city’s shelter intake and referral system, known as the Coordinated Assessment Model, or CAM, reached out in March, April and May last year to follow up on Williams’ housing situation, but records indicate they did not reach her, according to the city’s report.
Outreach workers typically don’t look for homeless families living in vehicles, Duggan said at the Feb. 27 press conference.
Come back to The Detroit News for more on this developing story.
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