The 3-year-old suffered additional broken bones after child-protection interventions, prosecutors told a court.
DETROIT, Mich. — Child-protection workers repeatedly removed a 3-year-old Detroit boy from his mother, but he returned to the same household and suffered new injuries before he was killed, according to prosecutors in a case that ended with a murder conviction.
A jury found Michael Yharbrough guilty of felony murder, torture and first-degree child abuse. The child’s mother, Brianna Simmons, pleaded guilty to a reduced abuse charge and testified against him. Their criminal cases established responsibility inside the home. They did not explain why earlier interventions failed to produce lasting safety for a child who prosecutors said returned with additional broken bones.
The pattern was described publicly during Simmons’ arraignment in June 2025. Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Brittany Johnson said Children’s Protective Services removed the boy “again and again.” Each time he returned to Simmons and Yharbrough, Johnson said, he suffered more broken bones. Her account showed that authorities had received concerns serious enough to separate the child from his mother before the fatal incident. Public reports have not disclosed how many removals occurred or what circumstances led to each one.
Those decisions may have involved several parts of Michigan’s child-welfare and court systems. An investigator can assess an immediate allegation, but longer-term placement decisions may require agency review, legal proceedings and approval from a family-court judge. Relatives, medical professionals and lawyers can also provide information. The public record does not identify who participated in this child’s cases, what evidence they reviewed or what conditions Simmons was required to meet before her son returned.
It is also unknown whether Yharbrough was included in any safety plan. Prosecutors said the abuse began after Simmons allowed him to move into the Rutherford Street home on Detroit’s west side. A key unanswered question is whether child-protection workers knew he remained there after the boy was returned. Public reports do not say whether Simmons claimed that Yharbrough had moved out, whether officials checked his access to the home or whether a court order restricted contact between him and the child.
The repeated medical treatment should have produced another source of information. Prosecutors said Simmons took her son to at least five medical facilities while Yharbrough was injuring him. They alleged that she used different locations to keep providers from understanding the full extent of the abuse. The facilities have not been identified, and it is unclear whether their records were later combined in the child-welfare file. The public record also does not show whether each provider made a report or knew that the boy had previously been removed.
Prosecutors did not describe Simmons as merely overwhelmed by separate systems. They accused her of deliberately concealing what was happening. Johnson said Simmons allowed Yharbrough to stay in the home as he continued assaulting her child. She said Simmons’ actions helped Yharbrough and contributed to the boy’s death. That theory supported the original charges of first-degree murder, torture and first-degree child abuse filed against Simmons.
The child died March 1, 2025, after authorities said Yharbrough inflicted fatal injuries during an assault in late February. Complete autopsy findings have not been released through the public reports on the case. The child’s name has also been withheld. The available accounts do not state whether he died at home, in an ambulance or at a hospital. They do show that his death followed a history of earlier injuries and protective removals that had already placed the family on the government’s radar.
Simmons was held without bond after her arraignment and ordered to have no contact with her older children. Prosecutors identified those children as potential witnesses. Their involvement suggests investigators believed they could provide information about the adults, the home or earlier incidents. Because they are minors and child-protection records are confidential, the public does not know what they told authorities or whether they eventually testified.
Yharbrough was not immediately jailed when the charges became public. Records later showed that he was arrested in August 2025. Prosecutors then prepared a case that involved evidence from inside the home, multiple treatment sites and a child-welfare history. The time required to assemble those materials may partly explain the months between the death and later court proceedings, although authorities have not given a complete public account of the investigative timeline.
Simmons accepted a plea agreement on May 8, 2026. She pleaded guilty to second-degree child abuse, while prosecutors dismissed the murder, torture and first-degree child-abuse charges. She agreed to testify at Yharbrough’s trial. Prosecutors recommended one year in jail and three years of probation. That agreement distinguished her criminal role from the conduct attributed directly to Yharbrough, but it did not withdraw the allegation that she knew her son was being harmed and helped conceal the abuse.
Jurors convicted Yharbrough after hearing approximately two weeks of evidence. The felony-murder count tied the child’s death to the commission of first-degree child abuse. The torture charge focused on deliberate conduct causing extreme suffering. The child-abuse charge addressed serious harm intentionally inflicted on a child. The verdicts meant jurors found that prosecutors proved each offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Public summaries do not provide a full account of the defense or the precise testimony Simmons gave.
The verdict answered the question placed before the criminal jury. It did not determine whether child-welfare employees followed agency policy, whether medical providers complied with reporting duties or whether a court made an unreasonable placement decision. Those issues would require separate reviews based on the information available to each person at the time. A later conviction cannot by itself show that officials should have known every fact before the child died.
Confidentiality makes such a review difficult for the public. Child-welfare records contain medical details, family histories, witness statements and information about surviving children. Michigan agencies generally cannot disclose those files freely, even after a fatality. That protection limits harm to other children but can also prevent a family and the wider community from learning why officials made particular decisions. No detailed state fatality review was included in the public materials available for this account.
The available facts point to several possible breaks in the flow of information. Medical records may have been scattered across five facilities. Caseworkers may have reviewed incidents separately rather than as one pattern. Simmons may have given false or incomplete explanations. Yharbrough may have been absent during official visits. These possibilities remain unproven without the underlying files, but each reflects the kind of issue that a complete administrative review would need to examine.
The criminal sentences were expected to become the next formal stage. Simmons’ sentencing was scheduled for June 23 and Yharbrough’s for June 26 in Wayne County’s Third Circuit Court. Michigan law allows life imprisonment without parole for felony murder. Public news reports reviewed through July 10 did not provide verified sentencing outcomes or final judgments for the defendants.
Even after sentencing, the history of removals and returns would remain unresolved. The boy’s death shows that temporary separation did not end the danger. The unanswered institutional question is what information officials possessed each time they decided that he could return to Simmons and whether the conditions of those returns were monitored or enforced.
Yharbrough now stands convicted, and Simmons has admitted criminal child abuse. A complete public accounting still depends on records explaining the medical reports, protective placements and return decisions made before the child’s death on March 1, 2025.
Author note: Last updated July 10, 2026.