MOUNT PLEASANT, MI — For days, police repeatedly visited a rural Isabella County home in hopes of finding a 6-year-old boy after his father did not return him to his mother.

Unable to legally enter the house without a warrant, their hands were tied on how thorough they could search.

The boy’s mother, meanwhile, anxiously awaited updates and sought intervention from the courts.

Their hopes were dashed with the discovery of the boy’s body, along with his father, both dead from gunshot wounds, in a camper secluded on the father’s property.

Available evidence indicates the child, Rowan M. Morey, was killed by his father before police were first alerted to his potential peril.

As Sheriff Michael Main told Rowan’s sobbing mother in a phone call, what the evidence did not indicate was “any sort of motive or reason that would explain this tragic incident.”

The Isabella County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, Aug. 29, provided MLive with a 27-page police report in response to a Freedom of Information Act request related to their investigation into their search for Rowan and the subsequent discovery of his body.

The agency also provided seven video clips from deputies’ body-worn cameras showing them inspecting the property and a 24-minute phone call between Sheriff Main and Rowan’s mother and stepfather, in which he explains the probe’s timeline.

The reports state a Michigan State Police trooper was dispatched to the property of Rowan’s father, Michael S. Winchell, at 8220 E. River Road in Chippewa Township for a well-being check around 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 19. Winchell and Rowan’s mother, Brandi Morey-Pols, shared custody of the boy.

Winchell was supposed to return Rowan to his mother that morning but did not do so and wasn’t taking her calls, reports state.

The trooper found nothing amiss and left. A deputy returned to the property that evening and again the following morning, finding nothing appeared different, reports state.

About 2 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 20, Morey-Pols and her husband Brian Pols visited the sheriff’s office and filed a missing person report with deputies. The mother had last seen Rowan on Aug. 12, she said.

A concerned Morey-Pols described her and Winchell’s relationship as contentious but said he had never disappeared with their son before. She advised Winchell had a camper, with deputies telling her they didn’t see it on his property.

Her husband alleged Winchell would often mistreat Rowan, such as shaving his head before gatherings with his mother’s family. Brian Pols told deputies his was worried that her son could be killed.

Deputies returned to Winchell’s property on Tuesday morning, knocking on doors and looking through windows, the reports and video show. They found nothing amiss and left but returned that afternoon. On this visit, deputies ventured further back on the property, following a pathway through tall grass and found a camper behind a thicket of trees and brush.

Deputies knocked on the locked camper but received no response. The same day, deputies obtained a cellphone number for Winchell from a relative. Deputies’ calls to it went directly to voicemail.

Also on Tuesday, Morey-Pols filed a motion with the Isabella County Friend of the Court seeking an emergency ruling from a judge regarding her son’s custody. The judge denied the motion that afternoon.

The morning of Wednesday, Aug. 21, deputies again returned to the property and found no changes, according to police.