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Inset: Rachel Henry (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: Henry, sitting bottom center, is sentenced on Feb. 14, 2025, in Phoenix, Ariz., for murdering her three children (KSAZ).
Rachel Henry killed “three innocent children, all under the age of four,” a prosecutor reminded an Arizona judge as the said-to-be remorseless mother was sentenced to life behind bars on Friday.
On Jan. 20, 2020, she smothered each of her children: Zane Henry, 3, Miraya Henry, 1, and Catalaya Rios, who was only 7 months old.
As the children died, their mother and killer sang nursery rhymes like “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Now, after years of legal maneuvering, the prosecution and the defense reached a stipulated sentence in the Maricopa County case. The judge signed off on that agreement Friday morning.
But not before the state provided grim reminders to formalize the horror that occurred at the home on East Vineyard Road in Phoenix.
“She had a duty to protect her children from anyone or anything that would try to harm them,” a prosecutor intoned during the sentencing hearing. “But unfortunately, in this case, she was that thing. These three children in this case were completely helpless to protect themselves from her; to stop her from what she did to them that day.”
On the day in question, Henry was 22 years old — and is now 27. She was living with her aunt at the time she killed each of her children — in no particular order — and then wrapped each child’s body in a blanket as if to give the impression they were fast asleep.
Miraya died first, authorities said in court documents.
While playing a game with her kids on the couch, which Henry would later refer to as “dog pile,” she noticed her older daughter had trouble breathing. So, she exacerbated the trauma — covering the girl’s mouth with her hand. Zane tried to stop his mom by punching her — in vain. After the first death, she chased the boy around the house — and was even slightly “interrupted” by relatives who arrived home.
Later, Henry got her boy alone, straddled him, smothered him, and swaddled him like his sister. Catalaya was finally killed in the same way.
“Senseless,” the prosecutor said on Friday. “And, quite frankly, cruel.”
The defendant admitted her crimes to police. Then things changed.
Henry originally pleaded not guilty following her indictment on Jan. 29, 2020 — prompting state prosecutors to say that they would pursue the death penalty. That plea agreement took capital punishment off the table.
The state mused about the reflection Henry will now be forced to do.
“The defense noted in their sentencing memo that she is going to have to think about this, and the effect that it’s had, for the rest of her life — and I hope she does,” the prosecutor went on. “She took the futures of three children away from them that day when she did what she did.”
The defendant, for her part, expressed sorrow by way of her defense attorney. Henry’s lawyer went on to say she hoped to try and begin to make up for her crimes by spending the rest of her life in prison.
Henry’s co-counsel also said he was attempting to offer something not entirely unlike an imperfect explanation for his client’s “horrible” behavior — but not an excuse or a justification.
“It is still kind of a mystery, in the sense that we may never know exactly what was going on that day with Rachel,” the defense attorney said. “And Rachel can’t explain it or remember it herself in any articulable way that makes sense.”
Henry declined to make a statement herself.
In the end, she was sentenced to three sentences of life in prison, to be served consecutively, or one after another.
The state also requested $30,000 in restitution. The parties and the court agreed that issue will be dealt with during a later hearing,
“This is obviously one of the more horrific cases the court has had before it,” the judge said before issuing the sentence.
