Mom Suffocated 3 Young Children, Moved Bodies to Look Like They Were Napping on Couch: Attorney

Three young lives were snuffed out way too soon and now their mother will spend the rest of hers behind bars for their deaths.

Rachel Henry, 27, was handed three consecutive life sentences February 14 on three felony counts of first-degree murder and dangerous crimes against children after pleading guilty. As part of her plea agreement, the death penalty was taken off the table, but she does not have the possibility of parole.

“I’ve dedicated my career to protecting children, and it’s hard to comprehend how any parent could take the life of their own,” said Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell in a press release.

The case began when Phoenix Police were dispatched to Henry’s residence on January 20, 2020, after the children’s great aunt called to report that she had found the children dead on the couch.

When police first arrived at the scene, Henry was captured on body camera video telling them, “I put them down for a nap and thought that they were sleeping,” per Fox affiliate KSAZ.

According to a police statement then, Henry later confessed in an interview to killing her children, 3-year-old Zane Henry, 1-year-old Miraya Henry, and 7-month old Catalaya Rios and was arrested.

Henry reportedly admitted to smothering the children one by one, with the County Attorney saying she even “sang [her son] a lullaby and suffocated him as the boy fought back.”

According to a police report reviewed by AZ Family, the murders of Henry’s three children allegedly began when she was “playing” with her older daughter, “wrestling on top of her,” while the children’s great aunt was picking up the children’s father from work around 2 p.m.

Henry felt Miraya’s “breathing was obstructed but continued to impede her breath by placing her hand over the 1-year-old female’s mouth,” per the report. Miraya was two weeks shy of her second birthday.

The toddler was reportedly kicking, while her older brother Zane was yelling and punching at his mother “in an attempt to get her to stop,” according to the filing. Police stated that Henry “knew she had killed the 1-year-old female when she stopped kicking.”

Henry then allegedly “chased” her son, but was “interrupted” by the arrival of the children’s great aunt and father returning to the home at approximately 3 p.m., per the MCAO press release, and reportedly spending some time playing with the boy.

It was a short time later, according to Henry’s statement, that she took her son to a “back bedroom where she changed his underpants” and prepared to set him down for a nap. Once there, the suspect allegedly “straddled him with one of her legs” on the bedroom floor.

According to the police report, Henry was “singing” to Zane as “he was scratching her chest and pinching her while she placed her hand over his nose and mouth.” She allegedly “used her weight” to “smother him until he died.”

Henry told police that she then fed her 7-month-old daughter from a bottle until she fell asleep. She again sang a song, per the report, as she placed her hand over the baby’s face and blocked her breathing “until she became unconscious and died.”

After their deaths, according to the report, Henry “placed all of the children in a position on the living room couch as if they were taking a nap.” She told police she didn’t say anything to anyone else in the family about what had happened.

Initially held on a $3 million bond, prosecutors justified it by arguing the recent Oklahoma transplant had no real ties to Arizona, and her children had previously been taken away from her due to a meth addiction. The prosecution also explored if postpartum depression had any bearing on the tragedy.

In the spring of 2020, the great aunt who called 911, Pearla Rebolledo, decided to set up a video visit with Henry in an attempt to find out why she allegedly killed her three children.

When asked directly why she did it in the video obtained by NBC affiliate KPNX, Henry replied, “I didn’t know what was going on. I told you I felt like I was losing my mind, because I didn’t understand why you guys, why everyone was acting the way they were.”

“I didn’t, I was on drugs,” she continued. “I was freaking out and I didn’t know what to do. I know I was scared.” She told Rebolledo she felt she was going crazy and that no one would listen to her, per the outlet.

“I felt like I was losing my mind. I didn’t know what was going on, I tried to talk to someone they said I was stupid or I was scared, and I didn’t know what I was talking about,” Henry argued.

But as Rebolledo continued to push for answers in the six-minute call, she got a different explanation for the murders of Henry’s children.

“Do you know how bad I wanted to go to the store? I wanted to go outside. I wanted to do this and I wanted to do that,” Henry said. “You said I couldn’t be seen by Fransico. You said I couldn’t go to the store because of the babies and this and that. I was trapped in the house and I felt like I was going crazy.”

At another point in the call, Henry said, “I don’t remember doing it … because I don’t, it really wasn’t me.”

Henry’s defense attorney Alan Tavassoli argued that postpartum depression, addiction, and other mental health issues, as well as a lack of support as a new mother, were factors in her actions, per CourtTV, emphasizing “this is an explanation … not an excuse” and “in no way does it justify what she’s done.”

Prosecutor Christopher Sammons called the murders “senseless and cruel,” telling the court, per KSAZ, “The defendant is obviously going to prison for the rest of her life because she did the unthinkable in this case, judge. She had a duty to protect her children from anyone or anything who would try to harm them. But unfortunately, in this case, she was that thing.”