Michigan Department of CorrectionsMitchelle Blair is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murder of two of her children. In 2015, 35-year-old Mitchelle Blair was living on the east side of Detroit with her four children when she was evicted for not paying rent. At first glance, nothing about Blair’s case seemed particularly unusual. She was unemployed and had been struggling financially. Relatives say she had previously asked them for money. When the eviction crew from the 36th District Court showed up at Blair’s home on the morning of March 24, 2015, she wasn’t there. So the crew went inside and began removing furniture from the home. But when they went to move her freezer, they stumbled upon a horrifying discovery that would send shockwaves through Detroit. The Bodies In Mitchelle Blair’s Freezer When the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department bailiff opened a white deep freezer located in Mitchelle Blair’s living room, they discovered the frozen body of a teenage girl, wrapped in a large plastic bag. And buried beneath her was another body: a young boy, wrapped in a blanket. A neighbor didn’t waste any time disclosing Mitchelle Blair’s whereabouts. Police soon found her at another neighbor’s house with two of her children, aged eight and 17. But her other children, Stephen Gage Berry and Stoni Ann Blair, were missing. After some brief questioning, Mitchelle Blair confessed to killing the children and stuffing them in her freezer. As she was being handcuffed, she reportedly told the police that she wasn’t evil. “It was just an evil act,” she said, according to WCNC Charlotte. Jim West / Alamy Stock PhotoA memorial on the steps of Mitchelle Blair’s Detroit home, where the bodies of two of her children were found stuffed in a freezer. Meanwhile, authorities took the bodies to a morgue, where they had to thaw for three days before an autopsy could be performed. The bodies were identified as Stephen Berry and Stoni Blair. The medical examiner ruled their deaths homicides, naming blunt force trauma as their cause of death. The medical examiner also ruled that “thermal injuries” had contributed to Stephen’s death. It was determined that Stephen was killed in August 2012 at the age of nine, and Stoni was killed in May 2013 at the age of 13. They had been in the freezer for over two years. The Murder Of Stephen Gage Berry Mitchelle Blair confessed to the murders at the Wayne County Circuit Court. According to the Times Record, she told Judge Dana Hathaway that she killed the “demons” after finding out they were sexually abusing her youngest son — a claim that has never been substantiated. Blair said that one day in August 2012, she walked into a room of her Detroit home to find her youngest son simulating sexual activity using toys. Horrified, Blair asked him if anyone had ever touched him that way. The boy allegedly told her that his nine-year-old brother Stephen had. Blair stormed into Stephen’s room in a rage. After Stephen allegedly confessed to sexually abusing his younger brother, Blair immediately began punching and kicking him. She said she continued to torture her son over a period of about two weeks, starving him, making him drink Windex, asphyxiating him with a plastic bag, and repeatedly pouring scalding hot water on his genitals, causing his skin to peel off. At one point, she wrapped a belt around his neck, lifted him up, and asked, “Do you like how this feels?” “Blair lifted Stephen off the ground by holding onto the ends of the belt while the belt was still wrapped around Stephen’s neck,” said a petition to terminate Blair’s parental rights to her surviving children, as reported by USA Today. “Blair used ‘Force Flex’ bags to put over his nose and mouth, suffocating Stephen until he lost consciousness, and Blair then ‘slapped him awake.'” Stephen succumbed to his injuries on August 30, 2012. After finding him unresponsive beside a puddle of vomit, Mitchelle Blair wrapped his body in a blanket and hid him in her deep freezer. How Mitchelle Blair Killed Her Daughter Stoni Ann Family handoutMitchelle Blair pleaded guilty to the murder of two of her children, Stephen and Stoni. Nine months after murdering Stephen, Mitchelle Blair claimed she found out that her 13-year-old daughter Stoni was also raping her youngest son. Blair reportedly asked the boy repeatedly if Stoni had abused him; he repeatedly said no — until Blair threatened to beat him if he didn’t tell the “truth.” Blair began starving Stoni and brutally torturing her until she died in May 2013. According to the petition, Blair had punched Stoni in the face “a lot,” beat her with a two-by-four, and asphyxiated her with a garbage bag until she lost consciousness. Later, Blair would claim that while killing Stephen was an “accident,” she had meant to kill Stoni. “I don’t feel no remorse for the death of them demons,” she later said, according to PEOPLE. “At first, I cried but I would kill them again. There were no other options.” Mitchelle Blair put Stoni’s body in a plastic bag and stuffed her in the freezer on top of Stephen. Then, she continued on as if nothing were amiss. Stephen Gage Berry and Stoni Ann Blair were in the deep freezer for almost three years. No one looked for them. The children’s fathers were largely absent from their lives, and Blair had previously taken all of the children out of school. When neighbors asked about the children’s whereabouts, Mitchelle Blair always had an excuse. The “Freezer Mom” Faces Justice Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via APMitchelle Blair admitted to killing two of her children, claiming that they had sexually assaulted her youngest child. In court, Mitchelle Blair told the judge that she did not feel any remorse over her actions. “[They] had no remorse for what [they] did to my son,” she said. “There’s no excuse for rape.” Prosecutor Carin Goldfarb stated that they found no evidence of rape, and Blair’s oldest child, Gabi, said there was “no concrete evidence” that either of the children sexually assaulted her younger brother. “My mom became obsessed with this crazy notion that my siblings had sexually assaulted our youngest brother, and she started basically interrogating the youngest,” Gabi Blair said in January 2023. Gabi claimed that her youngest brother only told Mitchelle about the alleged sexual assault after incessant questioning because “he didn’t know any better.” “My mom was a ticking time bomb,” Gabi said. “She always had her fuse lit. So anything, the slightest tap, would set her off.” In June 2015, Mitchelle Blair pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree premeditated murder and one count of felony murder. She is now serving a life sentence at the Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan without the possibility of parole. Mitchelle Blair’s Surviving Children Recall Her ‘House Of Horrors’ Michigan Department of CorrectionsMitchelle Blair is currently serving a life sentence for the murders of Stephen Berry and Stoni Blair. Gabi Blair and her younger brother went to live with their great aunt after their mother’s conviction. They both went back to school, and the young boy was eventually adopted. They have since been in therapy to deal with the trauma and abuse they faced at the hands of their mother. “I was afraid to even walk by the freezer. Every time I came downstairs to eat breakfast or to play a video game, I had to walk right past the freezer,” Gabi recalled. “But there was nowhere else that my mom could hide the bodies. They were cooped up in a freezer like meat.” Mitchelle Blair continued to torture Gabi and her younger brother even after the deaths of Stephen and Stoni. Gabi said she was repeatedly burned with a curling iron and beaten with a wooden plank — and that she was constantly terrified she would become the next body in the freezer. “I made sure to watch what I said around [my mother],” Gabi said. “I already knew that one misstep and this is where I’d end up… I’m happy I was able to make it out alive.” After learning about the sickening crimes of “Freezer Mom” Mitchelle Blair, read about these serial killers who thought nothing of murdering children. Then, discover the disturbing story of Susan Smith, who drowned her own children in a lake. The post The Disturbing Story Of Mitchelle Blair, The Michigan Mom Who Killed Her Kids And Stuffed Them In The Freezer appeared first on All That's Interesting.

In the 2007 film American Gangster, Frank Lucas is portrayed by Denzel Washington as an innovative heroin kingpin. And Frank Lucas’s wife, Julianna Farrait, is depicted as a strong woman who stood by his side without fail. But who was the woman who once described herself and her husband as the “Black Bonnie and Clyde”? Though Frank was happy to talk about his rise and fall — he published an autobiography in 2010 and was a paid consultant for American Gangster — Julianna Farrait stayed largely in the shadows. Yet she played a crucial role in her husband’s drug empire. This is the story of Frank Lucas’s wife, the Puerto Rican beauty queen who became Frank’s partner in crime. How Julianna Farrait Became Frank Lucas’s Wife Frank Lucas, Julie Lucas, and their baby daughter Francine. Before his death in 2019, Frank Lucas described his early years in rich detail. He says that his life of crime started after the KKK murdered his cousin, and he had to find a way — any way — to make ends meet for his family. But not as much is known about Frank Lucas’s wife. Born Julianna Farrait in Puerto Rico around 1941, Frank Lucas’s future wife lived the first part of her life in relative anonymity. All that changed when she crossed paths with Frank on a flight from Puerto Rico to New York. “Cute girl, too,” Frank wrote in his autobiography, Original Gangster: The Real Life Story of One of America’s Most Notorious Drug Lords. “Every time I turned around to check her out, she was smiling at me. I didn’t need any more of a hint.” The two struck up a conversation — and found that the attraction was mutual. In 1967, they married and welcome a daughter, Francine, in 1985. “The first time I met Frank, I was completely taken back by his confidence and coolness,” Julie Lucas told the Village Voice in 2007. “He was a very self-assured man, which I found very attractive. And I still do.” But Frank and Julie Lucas came from entirely different worlds. Though Julie was beautiful — she’d been a homecoming queen, not Miss Puerto Rico, as the film suggests — she had simple tastes. “I liked Julie, but she was a country girl,” Frank wrote. “There was nothing fabulous about her. Her clothes were boring and basic and not good quality. I had to get her fixed up so she could look the part of Frank Lucas’s wife.” Indeed, the time they married, Frank was on the precipice of building his drug empire. He’d soon start importing his “Blue Magic” heroin to Harlem from southeast Asia, an operation so lucrative that Frank later boasted he could pull in $1 million a day. And before long, Julie Lucas would understand how to dress to “look the part” of a kingpin’s wife. But Frank and Julie’s love of extravagant, eye-catching clothing would also bring about their demise. How A Coat Helped Trigger Frank Lucas’s Downfall Wikimedia CommonsFrank Lucas’s mugshot. As the 1960s shifted into the 1970s, Frank Lucas’s power grew. With plenty of money to burn, he frequently doted on his wife, giving Julie extravagant and expensive gifts. “I always remember the antique cream Mercedes that Frank bought for me after I had Francine,” Julianna told the Village Voice. “That ride was so gorgeous because the interior was pure leather and drove so smoothly.” Indeed, Frank Lucas was always looking to outspend the people around him. As such, he was infuriated to show up to a Muhammad Ali fight in 1970 in Atlanta and find other drug dealers wearing expensive mink coats. “There is no such thing as outtalking me, outhustling me, outthinking me, or outdressing me,” Lucas wrote. “I could not have people who made less money than me walking around thinking they ruled the world. I screamed it out to all who would listen: ‘Ya’ll think you gone outshine me? Bring that ass to New York City, and I will show every last one of ya’ll who the boss is.'” Frank Lucas’s wife, likely sensitive to this insecurity, came up with a solution. For the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden in 1971, she would get her husband a beautiful, expensive, new coat. Julie bought a chinchilla coat for $125,000, alongside a matching $40,000 hat, from a “Jewish shop” in Manhattan. Her husband proudly wore it to the fight — but attracted the wrong kind of attention. Frank Lucas wearing the chinchilla hat and coat gifted to him by his wife. There were several detectives in the audience that night that noticed Frank Lucas. Not only was he wearing an expensive coat, but he had better seats than Frank Sinatra and even Vice President Spiro Agnew. Both the Lucases and the police say that the coat didn’t exactly trigger Frank’s downfall — but it did put him in police crosshairs. “Law enforcement knew of him,” explained prosecutor Richie Roberts, who was played by Russell Crowe in American Gangster. “But certainly it brought a lot more attention onto him, that coat.” He added: “You don’t go around showing that kind of money when the people who are trying to arrest you are making in those days $25,000 a year, and you’re showing a coat that’s like five years’ salaries. It gets these guys a little angry. So, it was a bad mistake.” Julie Lucas seconded Roberts, telling the Village Voice, “I often think back to that particular gift many times. I don’t believe it helped the police notice who he was, because, by then, they were already suspicious, but I do believe it brought attention from others – both positive and negative.” And Frank Lucas put things more succinctly, writing: “I left that fight a marked man.” Over the next few years, police drew closer and closer to Frank and Julie Lucas. And in 1975, they made their move. How Julianna Farrait Became The Bonnie To Her Husband’s Clyde On January 28, 1975, the New York Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Administration raided Frank and Julie Lucas’s home in Teaneck, New Jersey. As the police swarmed through the premises, Julie panicked and threw several suitcases containing $584,000 out the window. “Take it all, take it all,” she screamed, according to New York Magazine. In the aftermath, Frank and Julie Lucas’s lives changed entirely. Frank was sentenced to seventy years in prison; Julie to six months. And when Frank started cooperating with authorities and naming names, Julie was forced to go into witness protection with Francine and one of Frank’s children. But when Frank got out of prison early in 1982, Julie Lucas played an even bigger role in his life of crime than before. About a year later, Julie took Francine to Las Vegas for what appeared to be a mother-daughter trip — but was actually a drug deal on Frank’s behalf. As Francine told Glamour, a man with a gun walked straight into their hotel room as Francine was watching TV. “I’m an FBI agent,” he told her. “Your mom is under arrest” Frank and Julie Lucas went back to prison — Frank for seven years, Julie for four and a half — and Francine was sent to live with relatives in Puerto Rico. But when Frank and Julie finally got out of prison, they settled into a quiet life — with a couple of exceptions. American Gangster And Julie Lucas’s Trouble With The Law Paramount PicturesDenzel Washington as Frank Lucas and Lymari Nadal as “Eva Lucas” in American Gangster. In 2001, Frank Lucas sold the rights for a movie about his life to a Hollywood firm. That movie, American Gangster, came out in 2007, breathing new life into Frank’s story — and the story of Frank Lucas’s wife. “I’m a very shy woman,” Julie Lucas said about the film. “I have never liked a lot of fuss. Even at the premier of American Gangster, I made myself unknown because I did not want people to know who I was, because I suffer from panic attacks.” She added that despite difficulties with her husband — they separated for a while after she left prison — her love for him endures. “I have always loved Frank,” Julie said. “Some call us the black Bonnie and Clyde because we have always stuck by one another.” In the following years, however, Julie Lucas acted more like Bonnie and Clyde than her husband did. While Frank kept a low profile, she was arrested in May 2010 for trying to sell cocaine to an informant at a hotel in Peurto Rico. In 2012, she appeared in Manhattan federal court and was handed a five-year sentence. Julie asked the judge for “mercy and compassion” so that she could take care of Frank, then 81 years old. “I want to apologize to my husband … My husband is 81 years old, and I would like to spend what time he has with him,” she said then. Sadly, neither Frank nor Julie Lucas had much time left. Frank Lucas died in 2019. And though much not is known about Julie Lucas’s death, the New York Times reported in his obituary that she died before him. Today, Frank Lucas is well-known. His exploits have been explored in both his autobiography and in American Gangster. But Frank Lucas’s wife remains in the shadows. And maybe Julianna Farrait, the Puerto Rican beauty and the Bonnie to his Clyde, preferred it that way. After discovering the story of Frank Lucas’s wife Julianna Farrait, read about Maria Victoria Henao, Pablo Escobar’s wife. Or, see how Blanche Barrow became Bonnie and Clyde’s anxious accomplice. The post The True Story Of Julianna Farrait, The Wife Of ‘American Gangster’ Frank Lucas appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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