Newly released body camera footage showed the harrowing words an Arizona mother told police when they discovered the murdered bodies of her three young children.
Rachel Henry, then 22, was arrested in January 2020 for strangling her children while singing them lullabies.
According to investigators, the mother confessed to killing her one-year-old daughter, her three-year-old son and her seven-month-old girl.
Police bodycam footage from the fateful night obtained by AZ family shows Henry telling officers that she was concerned about her family’s future and that she tried to blame the child’s father for their deaths.
“He couldn’t handle the babies, but no one would… I thought they were just sleeping,” Henry said.
Police body camera footage showed Arizona mother Rachel Henry trying to blame her children’s father for their deaths
Henry, then 22 (pictured), was arrested in January 2020 for strangling her children
“I put them down to take a nap, I didn’t look at them and thought they were sleeping.”
On January 21, 2020, officers were called to a home in Phoenix, near 24th Street and Baseline Road, when a family member found the children unresponsive.
“They say the mother put the children, all under the age of three, to bed for a nap and gave them medication,” the operator said.
At the scene, Henry told police she thought the children were asleep and that she was making plans for their future.
“I wanted to get my driver’s license and get a job so I could have my own place and be okay with the babies,” she said.
According to police, the mother confessed to killing her one-year-old daughter (right), her three-year-old son (left) and her seven-month-old baby girl (center).
Henry, now 26, has pleaded not guilty to the murder and his trial is scheduled for March 2025. If he is found guilty, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
According to police, Henry admitted to strangling the children, starting with her one-year-old daughter, by holding her hands over the girl’s mouth and nose until she stopped moving.
Henry said the girl kicked as she was being strangled in front of her 3-year-old brother, who screamed “no” and hit her, but to no avail.
She told officers she left the girl’s body behind the house and chased her son until two family members arrived at the home.
While they were in the living room, Henry caught the boy and took him upstairs, pretending to take him to bed, where he would strangle him as well.
Henry – now 26 – has pleaded not guilty to murder, with a trial scheduled for March 2025 where she faces the death penalty
According to investigators, the boy died after pinching and scratching her, but he was unable to save himself.
She then went looking for the seven-month-old girl, bottle-fed her until she fell asleep, and then strangled her.
Henry claimed she sang lullabies to all three children as they died.
She then placed all three bodies on the couch “as if they were asleep.” Police were called to the property some time later to reports of unspecified “trouble.”