4 arrested in twin newborn Amber Alert case in Michigan; many questions remain unanswered

DETROIT − Days after an early morning Amber Alert for two twin newborns shook up metro Detroit, law enforcement officials continued to offer few new details about what had happened Sunday night into Monday morning − and what its investigation uncovered.

Earlier this week, on Tuesday, Livonia police released a three-sentence statement that said it was continuing to investigate and had “made four arrests related to the kidnapping of Montana and Matthew Bridges,” and the case is being submitted to the Wayne County Prosecutor.

Neither the suspects nor the charges were identified.

As of Thursday morning no news developments had been announced in the case.

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Outstanding warrant request

The prosecutor’s office told the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, late Tuesday it had not received a warrant request.

Most of what law enforcement has said about the case so far has come from statements and a brief news conference on Monday, where police officials, including Detroit Police Chief James White, Livonia Police Capt. Gregory Yon and Acting FBI Special Agent in Charge Devin Kowalski, praised the alert’s outcome.

The closest official account of what happened Sunday night came from Yon, who said: “The lady left them with two friends and when she came back, they were gone.” He did not specify whether the woman he was referring to was the twins’ mother.

An Amber Alert was issued in Livonia for twins Matthew Jace and Montana Alexander Bridges, both 14 days old, on Monday, Aug. 21, 2023.

When asked to clarify what he meant by “friends,” he called them “friendly acquaintances.”

The Free Press left several messages Monday and Tuesday with Yon.

Grandmother offers information

In many ways, the police, and community, have much to rejoice. Unlike the Amber Alert last month involving the abduction of a 2-year-old girl, Wynter Cole-Smith, who was killed. In this case, the children were returned to police unharmed.

The twins’ grandmother, Lolita Vann offered more information in an interview Monday with the Free Press. She said she didn’t know how they ended up at a hotel in Livonia, but had heard someone may have broken into her daughter’s home.

She also heard people had offered to help her daughter with her newborns and find them a place to stay.

At the news conference, officials applauded agency cooperation and sidestepped a reporter’s question at the news conference of whether the incident was still being investigated as a kidnapping and declined to identify who dropped the children off.

White acknowledged that investigators didn’t have many answers.

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Police initially said twins taken by two women

Police initially said the two-week-old twin boys were taken by two women sometime after 10 p.m. Sunday from the Quality Inn hotel in Livonia where they were staying with their mother. Early the next morning, an Amber Alert, with photographs of the twins and two people, was issued.

The twins were dropped off at about 9:30 a.m. Monday to the Detroit Police’s 9th Precinct. The Amber Alert was canceled.

“Everyone put in a lot of work,” White said at the news conference, flanked by other officials and after naming several of the departments involved. He praised the community and added that the infants’ return was “the best outcome possible.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 4 arrested in newborn twins Amber Alert case in Michigan