Meth addicted Phoenix mother sang to her three young children as she smothered them to death, say police
PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Police have released horrific details in the deaths of three young children who were smothered and killed by their mother at their Arizona home earlier this week, including how she sang to some of them as she murdered them.
MEA WorldWide previously reported that Rachel Henry, 22, was arrested and charged after a relative who lived at their Phoenix home called the police on Monday, January 20, to report they had found a 7-month-old girl, 2-year-old girl and 3-year-old boy in a living room showing no signs of life.
The Phoenix Fire Department had also received a call from the home reporting a drowning involving three children. Officials administered CPR and fire officials provided first aid, but the children could not be saved.
While authorities considered the possibility that they may have succumbed to illness, it quickly emerged that they had not died due to an accident but had been killed by Henry, who "admitted to harming her three children."
Further details have now emerged, with documents obtained by AZ Family describing how Henry went about killing 3-year-old son Zane Henry, 1-year-old daughter Miraya Henry, and 7-month-old daughter Catalaya Rios.
The 22-year-old started with Miraya and was playing and wrestling with her before she snapped and started trying to kill her. "Rachel felt the one-year-old female’s breathing was obstructed but continued to impede her breath by placing her hand over the 1-year-old female’s mouth," a police report said.
Henry reportedly revealed the young girl, who was set to turn two next week, was kicking her during the act, and that Zane was yelling at her "in an attempt to get her to stop." He even tried to punch her, she said. After killing Miraya, she "chased" Zane to kill him, but was interrupted by the relative at the home who started playing with the boy. She had to wait before she could take him to a back bedroom, where she "straddled him with one of her legs and placed her hand over his nose and mouth and used her weight on the 3-year-old male" until he died.
The report said Henry was "singing to the 3-year-old male as he was scratching her chest and pinching her while she placed her hand over his nose and mouth."
She finally turned her attention to Catalaya, who she fed until the infant fell asleep. Then, she "sang her a song as she placed her hand over her face and impeded her breath" and continued singing until "she became unconscious and died."
Henry was booked into a Phoenix jail on three counts of first-degree murder and made a brief court appearance on Tuesday night
She was ordered held on a secured bond of $3 million -- prosecutors successfully argued she had no connection to the state as she had moved relatively recently from Oklahoma -- and is scheduled to return to court on January 31.
It was also revealed during the hearing she "had a methamphetamine addiction and had been acting strange the past several days" and that she had victims taken away from her in the past due to her addiction.