WARREN, Mich. – After nearly two weeks of searching, police found a mother and her 1-month-old daughter in Warren after they went missing from Auburn Hills, sparking concern among the family.
Warren police on Saturday, Feb. 17 responded to a tip that Amanda Prowell-Smith and her daughter Eliza were at a laundromat in the city. The pair had not been seen since Feb. 2 when Prowell-Smith allegedly assaulted her mother at an Auburn Hills apartment. Family members reported them missing to police.
Auburn Hills police issued an endangered missing advisory on Feb. 5 due to their belief the mother and the newborn could be in danger. The mother was said to have a “long history of mental illness and was not stable enough to care for a child,” officials report. Prowell-Smith previously had two other children taken from her custody due to her “mental state.”
Authorities didn’t have any reason to believe the mother had any intent to harm her daughter, officials said earlier this month. Police did not issue an Amber Alert because the infant was not abducted, which is a requirement for such an alert. Still, police determined the mother was “incapable of caring for herself or her child,” and were searching for them both.
Following the assault at the apartment on Feb. 2, investigators learned the child was not born in a hospital, had no documented birth record, and had not been seen by a doctor.
“She apparently had given birth to Eliza in the [same] apartment in December,” Auburn Hills police Deputy Chief Scott McGraw said earlier this month. “The child has not been to a doctor, and Amanda has not been to a doctor.”
Multiple law enforcement agencies arrived at the laundromat on Feb. 17 and found the mother and her child. Prowell-Smith was arrested by Auburn Hills police for “outstanding arrest warrants,” officials said, though they did not specify what the warrants were for.
The newborn was taken by Child Protective Services and evaluated at a hospital. She had no injuries from the incident, officials said.