In 2014, Alicia Fox lived in the 1800 block of Ardmore St in Detroit, Michigan with her two children, 6-year-old Kaylah, and 18-month-old Kristian, and her husband of 4 months, 29-year-old Erin Justice. Erin is also the father of Kristian.
Sometime before mid-May, Alicia and her children moved out of their home. Then, on May 24, 2014, the trio suddenly vanished.
On June 2, 2014, Erin, who has a criminal record for weapons, drug offenses, and violence against women, appeared in court and pled guilty to several traffic violations.
Investigators questioned him about his missing family. He claimed that he received a text from Alicia on June 3, 2014, but authorities don't believe Alicia sent the text.
On June 6, 2014, two weeks after they vanished, family members reported the three missing when Kaylah failed to appear at her kindergarten graduation.
“Everyone was excited for her to graduate,” Kaylah’s aunt, Christene Doughty, told Fox Local 4. “Her mom was so excited. She even got her a custom cap and gown made.”
They went to their house, where Christene looked through a window.
“I could see only into the window in the kitchen, where you can see the dining room and part of the living area, where she usually has her pictures and coffee table,” Christene told Fox Local 4. “It was empty. There was nothing there besides a bottle of bleach in the kitchen. To be honest with you, I was pretty confused, so my mind wanted me to believe that maybe she did move and was going through a phase and didn’t want anyone to know.”
“I could see only into the window in the kitchen, where you can see the dining room and part of the living area, where she usually has her pictures and coffee table,” Christene told Fox Local 4. “It was empty. There was nothing there besides a bottle of bleach in the kitchen. To be honest with you, I was pretty confused, so my mind wanted me to believe that maybe she did move and was going through a phase and didn’t want anyone to know.”
The police gave the family access to the house, which was completely empty and thoroughly cleaned. They found Alicia's clothes, belongings, and pictures of Kaylah and Kristian in a nearby church donation bin.
On June 9, 2014, the family, searching for Alicia, found her badly decomposed body in the basement of an abandoned house on Penrod Street on Detroit's west side.
“So my uncle lifts the door up and her body’s in the tarp. I could tell it was her. Her head was covered with a black garbage bag. Something black, it was covered with, and it looked as if he tried to cut her legs off. But I could tell it was her because she had a favorite pair of purple basketball shorts and she had those on,” Christene told Fox Local 4. “I couldn’t believe it at all, and even when they confirmed it was her, I said, ‘No, that’s not her.’ After that, I just immediately thought, ‘Where is Kaylah and Kristian?’”
The mother of two had been shot twice in the head. Kaylah and Kristian were not with her. Alicia's body was in the abandoned home a few doors down from Erin's cousin's house.
On June 11, 2014, Erin was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, and charged with murder. His friend, Timothy Jones, was also charged. Authorities found a bullet hole and blood splatter in the family's home on Ardmore Street. Timothy Jones told police he originally helped Erin hide Alicia's body in a crawl space in their home. He said the children were alive when he did this and when he left the home.
On June 19, the pit bull Alicia owned was found wandering on Vanderbilt and West End in Detroit. The dog, who was very protective of the children, had strangulation marks around his neck and cigarette burns on his body.
Police discovered Erin rented a U-Haul truck on May 27 and drove 300 miles within Detroit, before returning it on May 29, 2014. He sold Alicia's car to a junkyard and then took the flight to Atlanta. By the time police located the vehicle, it had been stripped down.
In September 2015, after confessing to the murder of Alicia, Erin was sentenced to 45-80 years for Alicia's murder. Kaylah and Kristian have never been found.
“Erin Justice was sentenced to 80 years plus and he hardly said a word,” grandmother Travea Fox told Local 4. “He’s just hush mouth. He won’t say anything.”
The family believes the children could be alive and that Erin was aided by a family member or close friend.
“The reason I believe that is because we have recovered all of Alisha’s belongings -- clothes, personal items, all of that. We have not (found) one item of the kids’ -- not their bedroom furniture, their clothes, toys, anything. He took all of it,” Christene told Fox Local 4.
Kaylah Hunter was 4'5" and weighed 65 pounds when she vanished. Kristian Justice was 2'0" and weighed 17 pounds when he vanished. Please contact Detroit Police Department at 313-596-5600 with any information.
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