Rowan Morey was 6 years old, just shy of his 7th birthday, when he was killed by his father in Isabella County, Michigan in August 2024. Because his case didn't meet Michigan's legal definition of an abduction, the state's Amber Alert system couldn't be used to search for him. His mother turned that gap into law.
In August 2024, Rowan's father, Michael Winchell, failed to return him to his mother, Brandi Morey-Pols, after a scheduled visitation. Brandi has said she immediately raised concerns with the Isabella County Sheriff's Office and Michigan State Police, warning that she believed Winchell was capable of harming Rowan as a way to hurt her. She has said she was met with resistance rather than urgency, and that a judge indicated he would revisit her emergency motion at the 72-hour mark. Rowan was missing for 52 hours before his body was found in a camper on Winchell's property in Chippewa Township; authorities determined Winchell killed Rowan and then himself.
At the time, Michigan's Amber Alert law only applied to abduction cases, and Rowan's disappearance during a custody dispute didn't qualify — regardless of how much danger he was believed to be in. Brandi has said this gap cost her son his life.
Following Rowan's death, Brandi co-founded The Rowan Project with Heidi Britten-Zent, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing filicide, supporting families who have lost children, and pushing for stronger child safety laws. She worked with Michigan lawmakers to draft Rowan's Act, which lets Michigan State Police issue an Amber Alert whenever a child is believed to be in danger, not only in confirmed abduction cases, expands eligibility for children with special needs, and adds social media distribution to speed up alerts. In July 2026, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed the bill into law.
"Parents won't have to sit in the agony that I did for 52 hours and wonder, is he OK?" Brandi has said of the new law. The Rowan Project has also built Rowan's Promise, a real-time tracker for filicide cases, and has designated Filicide Awareness Month in Rowan's honor — the same month he was born and the month he died. The organization is now expanding its advocacy work beyond Michigan, meeting with lawmakers and advocates in other states to push for similar protections.