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Mother says she sang to her three children as she smothered them

AP
AP

A young mother in Arizona has reportedly told police that she killed her three children before placing them in the living room as if they were sleeping.

Other family members were in the home at the time.

Rachel Henry, 22, confessed that she smothered to death her three-year-old son, one-year-old daughter, and seven-month-old daughter at their home in Phoenix.

Henry, who had recently moved to the area from Oklahoma, is thought to have an addiction to methamphetamine and had been “acting strange” in the previous few days.

Police were called to Henry’s house at 24th Street and Southern Avenue on Monday evening, responding to a 911 call reporting an unspecified incident.

The three children were found unresponsive. Officers attempted to resuscitate them but they were pronounced dead at the scene.

Henry admitted to harming the children and was taken into custody. The children’s 30-year-old father and another relative, believed to be an aunt, were in the house at the time of the incident.

Henry reportedly had an addiction to methamphetamine and had been described as acting oddly in the days leading up to the killings (AP)
Henry reportedly had an addiction to methamphetamine and had been described as acting oddly in the days leading up to the killings (AP)

A police report released on Tuesday by the Phoenix Police Department reveals the horrific details of Henry’s confession.

She admitted smothering each child one by one, beginning with her older daughter, then her son, and then the youngest child. She sang to the children while restricting their breathing.

In the report she says that her three-year-old son tried to stop her from killing his sister by punching her and yelling.

She then chased him, but was interrupted when the other relatives returned home. One relative even played with her son before Henry took him into a back bedroom and smothered him with her hands while straddling him and singing.

Henry then fed her seven-month-old daughter a bottle in the bedroom until she fell asleep, before also smothering her.

She then positioned the children in the living room as if they were napping and did not tell the other family members what had happened.

In a court appearance on Tuesday, it was also revealed that the children had previously been removed from her by the Department of Children’s Services in Oklahoma.

Henry was charged with three counts of first degree murder and is being held on a $3 million bond.

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