Mother Kills Her Three Young Children in Shocking Family Tragedy

Rachel Henry and Pedro Rios found themselves homeless with their three young children shortly after moving to Arizona in late 2019.

The family—Zane, 3; Maraya, 2; and 7-month-old Catalaya—initially stayed with Pedro’s aunt, Pearl Rebolledo Velazco, after relocating from Nebraska. But after weeks of tension and, according to Pearl, Rachel’s alleged theft, the couple was kicked out.

Pearl later gave them another chance as winter approached, worried about the children surviving on the streets. She could not have anticipated the tragedy that would follow.

On January 20, 2020, Pearl called authorities to report that “three children under the age of three years old were found deceased” in her rental home, according to a Phoenix Police Department incident report obtained by PEOPLE. Officers discovered all three children had died, shifting the investigation toward the adults in the home.

Pearl told detectives that she had been caring for the children temporarily and described Rachel as a kleptomaniac. She also suggested that the children may have been overmedicated. But police would soon learn the shocking truth.

In her first police interview, Rachel admitted to murdering her children. According to the report, she said her nearly 2-year-old daughter Maraya was the first victim. Rachel described playing a game she called “dog pile,” during which she blocked Maraya’s breathing with her hand until the child stopped moving. She then wrapped Maraya in a blanket to make it appear as though she had fallen asleep.

Rachel told investigators that she then targeted her oldest child, 3-year-old Zane. He struggled, kicking and punching her, but she held his nose and mouth until he stopped breathing, singing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” to muffle the sounds. She wrapped him in a blanket like his sister and placed him on the couch in front of Pedro, who assumed both children were napping.

Next, Rachel took her 7-month-old daughter, Catalaya, into the bedroom. She fed the baby a bottle while singing lullabies, then smothered her and placed her body on the same couch as her siblings.

Pedro later told police that after placing the youngest on the couch, he decided to nap. Four hours later, during a video call with his great-grandmother, he discovered the children were unresponsive. Pearl returned home and, realizing the situation, instructed Rachel to call 911. Rachel refused, so Pearl made the call herself.

Rachel was arrested within hours and made her first court appearance the next day, complaining about her $3 million bail. She never posted bail. In a deal with prosecutors, she pled guilty to three counts of first-degree murder to avoid the death penalty.

In February 2025, five years after the killings, a judge sentenced Rachel Henry to spend the rest of her natural life in prison.