Newly released body camera footage revealed the shocking words an Arizona mother told police when they discovered the murdered bodies are her three young children.
Rachel Henry, then 22 years old, was arrested in January 2020 for smothering her kids while singing them lullabies.
Investigators said the mother confessed to killing her one-year-old daughter, three-year-old son and seven-month-old baby girl.
Police body camera footage from the fateful night obtained by AZ Family shows Henry telling officers she was planning for her family’s future and tried to blame the kid’s father for their deaths.
‘He could never handle the babies, but no one would… I just thought they were sleeping,’ Henry said.
Police body camera footage showed Arizona mom Rachel Henry tried to blame her kids father for their deaths
Henry, then 22 years old (pictured), was arrested in January 2020 for smothering her kids
‘I put them down to take a nap and I didn’t check on them and I thought they were sleeping.’
Officers were called to the Phoenix home near 24th Street and Baseline Road on January 21, 2020 when a relative found the kids unconscious.
‘They’re saying the mother put the kids down for a nap with some sort of medication, all under three years old,’ the operator said.
At the scene, Henry told police she thought the kids were sleeping and that she had been planning for their future.
‘I was going to get my driver’s license, I was going to get a job so I could get my own place so the babies would be fine,’ she said.
Police said the mother confessed to killing her one-year-old daughter (right), three-year-old son (left) and seven-month-old baby girl (center)
Henry – now 26 years old – has pleaded not guilty to murder charges with a trial scheduled for March 2025. If convicted, prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
According to police, Henry admitted smothering the children starting with her one-year-old daughter by placing her hands over the girl’s mouth and nose until she stopped moving.
Henry said the girl kicked while she was being smothered in front of her three-year-old brother, who screamed ‘no’ and punched her but to no avail.
She told officers that she left the girl’s body at the back of the house and chased her son around until two relatives arrived at the property.
As they sat in the living room, Henry caught the boy and took him upstairs on the pretense of putting him to bed before also smothering him.
Henry – now 26 years old – has pleaded not guilty to murder charges with a trial scheduled for March 2025 where she faces the death penalty
Investigators say the boy pinched and scratched her as he died, but was unable to save himself.
She then went to find the seven-month-old girl, gave her a bottle to feed on until she fell asleep, then smothered her as well.
Henry claimed she sung lullabies to all three children while they were dying.
She then placed all three bodies on the couch ‘as if they were sleeping’. Police were called to the property some time later to reports of unspecified ‘trouble’.
