Abandoned girl to stay with relative during investigation

Abandoned girl to stay with relative during investigation

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Serenity with Rachel Howell  (Credit: WJBK | myFOXDetroit.com) Serenity with Rachel Howell (Credit: WJBK | myFOXDetroit.com)
DETROIT (WJBK) -

Fox 2 was there as child care workers did the final walkthrough of baby Serenity's new temporary home.  Her mother told us not seeing her kids will be torture.

"It hurt(s), but it will be all right," Nicole Howell told us.

The 20-year-old said she is being ripped away from her kids.  Social workers issued a no visitation order while they investigate why her one-year-old daughter Serenity was abandoned at a Detroit bus stop, allegedly by her father.

Fox 2 was there for the tearful good-bye.  Serenity cried and tried to open her mother's car door, but she couldn't.

"I don't know what happened.  I talked to him.  Everything was fine.  I talked to my daughter on the phone.  Everything was fine.  He never said anything was wrong, so I don't know where this came from.  I don't want to talk to him.  I don't want to ask him why," her mother explained.

Howell said her only mistake was letting Serenity's father, 20-year-old Omari Stevens, be a part of their child's life.

"I'm a single mom.  I need help.  He didn't have a place to stay, so I welcomed him into my home because I wanted him to be in his child's life, but look at what he did."

Police sources said Stevens has a history of mental illness.  He turned himself in to the psychiatric ward at St. John's Hospital, but gave his family no answers.

"I was told that he's in St. John Hospital.  I don't really know what's going on with that, but the police have caught up with him," said Rachel Howell, Nicole's aunt.

She will have custody of Serenity and her brother until the investigation is complete.  Nicole Howell said it's a tough pill to swallow.

"All she know(s) is me.  I love my kids.  I (would) never do (anything) to harm them.  For what?  I brought them into the world.  If I didn't want them, then I wouldn't have had them."

"Serenity's happy.  She's not really sure what's going on right now, but she's happy to see some familiar faces," Rachel Howell said.

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