Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mommy smothers 3 tots during lullaby, stages to look like napping.

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Arizona woman Rachel Henry tells police that she sang her three young children a lullaby while smothering them to death. She later changes her mind and pleads not guilty.The victims have been identified as Zane Ezri Henry, 3, Mireya Henry, 1, and Catalaya Kyeana Rios, 7 months.Joining Nancy Grace to discuss: Wendy Patrick: California prosecutor & author of “Red Flags” www.wendypatrickphd.com    Bruce Johnson: Owner of ISP Investigations, Master Sgt. Region One Crime Scene Commander, Chicago Metro Area (Ret)   Joe Scott Morgan: Forensics Expert, Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University & author of "Blood Beneath My Feet"  Dr Daniel Bober: Forensic Psychiatrist Dr Kendall Crowns: Deputy Medical Examiner Travis County, Texas (Austin)   Katie Wilcox 12 News KPNX I-Team executive producer Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. At first, when people entered the home, it looked like the children were taking a nap. Mommy said that she was convinced they had gotten ill overnight. Were they running a fever? But then they were cold to the touch. Did a young mom sing her children not to sleep but to death? A three-year-old son, a one-year-old daughter, and a seven-month-old baby girl all dead. How did it happen? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Henry admits to police she smothered each child, starting

with her one-year-old daughter. The paperwork going on to say that the mom admits her three-year-old son yelled no and tried to get his mom to stop smothering his sister, but Henry didn't stop until the one-year-old stopped kicking and she knew her daughter was dead. She loved him so much. Like, how can somebody that loves their kids do that? Documents reveal Henry would then chase after th straddling him and singin smothered him. Henry woul her seven month old dotto

part to see Children who that have obviously lost say Henry put all three c as if they were taking a nap, never telling the rest of the family. Probably one of the most difficult calls that our officers and fire personnel respond to. A judge now has set the bond at three million dollars, one million each for each of her three children. You were just hearing our friends at KPNX NBC 12. That was Michael

Doudna. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star panel to break it down, put it back together again. Wendy Patrick, prosecutor out of California, author of Red Flags. You can find her at wendypatrickphD.com. Bruce Johnson, owner, ISP Investigations. Master Sergeant, Region 1 Crime Scene Commander, Chicago. Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Renowned forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Bober. You can find him at Dr. Daniel Bober on Instagram. Deputy medical examiner out

of Travis County, Texas. That's Austin. Dr. Kendall crowns right now to Katie Wilcox, executive producer, 12 News, KPNX, I-Team. Katie Wilcox, thank you so much for being with us. Let me understand. Let's start at the beginning. When were the children last seen alive? Well, we understand from the interview that Michael Dowden, who we just heard from, did with their father. Two of the children were alive when he got home from work that day. He had an opportunity to play with them before he fell asleep on the couch when the mother then killed her oldest, the son, Zane, and the baby, Catalea. He believes that his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Maria, was dead when he arrived home. But, of course, he thought she was taking a nap.

With me, Katie Wilcox at 12 News KPNX. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas, Austin. Dr. Crowns, it's hard for me to believe. It's not impossible, but how could the mom murder two children while the dad took a nap right there, I think, on the sofa? How could he not hear anything going on? Children, it's pretty easy to control them and smother them without them making much noise. They don't often put up much of a fight because they aren't all that strong and an adult hand can cover their mouth and nose quite easily

and it only takes a matter of seconds before they're unconscious. So it could be relatively easy to murder a child in the next room with another adult and not even realize what's going on. Hmm. Hmm. I hear what you're saying, and I don't doubt you. It's just that, you know, Bruce Johnson, I think you and I are on the same page on this. Everybody's a suspect until I can rule them out. Everybody, including Jackie Howard right here in the studio, everybody did it in my mind until I can figure out what really happened. So, Bruce Johnson, agree or disagree with Dr. Kendall Crowns? As a matter of fact, before you answer, take a listen to our friends at Arizona ABC 15, Mike Pelton. The 22-year-old mother is accused of smothering her three children to death with other adults inside the home apparently unaware

of what she'd done. Three children smothered to death at the hands of their own mother, Rachel Henry. That's what police say in new court documents. The children, ages three and younger, took their last breaths inside this home on Monday. Police say Henry then placed them, quote, in a position on the living room couch as if they were taking a nap. No motive mentioned. To Bruce Johnson, Chicago metro area now, owner ISP Investigations, is it possible? Is it probable? Is it likely? Could it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt? Do we have any reason to believe the dad knew what was happening?

I mean, what do you think, Bruce Johnson, first blush? Okay, well, first of all, this is a terrible scene for law enforcement when they do arrive, a case like this involving multiple children. And the next real odd thing is that, you know, she is admitting to killing all three of them while he was at home. As far as the type and manner, that's going to be easy for pathologists because the upper lip, if you pull it away from your teeth, there's, you know uh flesh there and they look to see if that's ripped um foaming of the mouth on the one child when they discovered her uh but they're going to look and see you know everybody's story initially so just because she may be saying this there's of course they're

going to look at him as a possible suspect right off the bat. They're going to question him. They're going to separate both of them. And once she gives the confession as to the type and manner of death, then you're going to go backwards and confirm it. So that's where the pathologist comes in, autopsy, look at the upper lip, look at the tiki in the eyes, the tongue between the teeth, everything that goes with a suffocation type episode. But her doing this, I'm sure your forensic psychiatrist will speak on it. I've had a case where a 24-year-old wrestler killed his grandma and grandpa, washed them, bathed them, and set them in their deathbed. And this is a sign that she did something similar to that. She didn't wash them and reclothe them, but to put them on the couch in a display manner, that

there are a lot of issues there going on. Take a listen to our friends at KPNX 12. When he woke up, he said the children were on a couch just across the room. I walk over to the couch. I pulled the cover back, found my daughter. And then a couple seconds later, I hear my aunt, Maria, Maria Zane Zane. And I didn't even notice. I just noticed the baby. I didn't even notice my other two kids.

Police would arrive too late for his three children. Been hard on myself. Like, I should have done this. What if I would have just did this? It's eating me alive. I'm not perfect. No. crime stories with nancy grace we came to arizona from prague oklahoma described as a typical small town by friends we reached by phone like i've been around her a lot i mean i helped her come home out quite a bit anthony rapture and his wife became friends with henry about six years ago THE FAMILY IS HAPPY TO HAVE HER BACK. THE FAMILY IS HAPPY TO HAVE HER BACK. I HAVE BEEN AROUND HER A

LOT. I HELPED HER AND HER MOM OUT QUITE A BIT. ANTHONY AND HIS WIFE BECAME FRIENDS WITH HER ABOUT SIX YEARS AGO. HE IS SEEN HERE WITH HER WIFE TIFFANY.

HE SAYS HE WOULD HELP OUT HER AND HER MOM BEFORE HER MOTHER PASSED AWAY. RACHEL AND MY WIFE ACTUALLY CAME VERY CLOSE. close. And they got quite a bit, but we got to see a lot of drama that went on over the house. Repsher says Henry had babysat his own kids, and both he and his wife never knew Henry to be capable of anything like the alleged murder of her three young children. As a matter of fact, she's even babysitted my children. You know, so I've never noticed any kind of depression or anger or, you know, hostility towards children or anyone else.

And I never, I never would have expected that from her. I knew she was unhappy, but not to that extent. My stars. Everybody on earth is a little bit unhappy for Pete's sake. I mean, I think that's human nature. Don't you think the Lord gets tired of us grumbling and whining and carrying on with all the blessings that are rained down on us every day? But yet we do it. So she's unhappy. But even neighbors allowed her to babysit their children. This doesn't make sense.

Why in the world suddenly three dead children? Take a listen to ABC 15 Claudia Rupik. Phoenix police say 22-year-old Rachel Henry confessed to killing her three children. Is there anything you want to say to the rest of your family? Our crews were there as she was booked. Henry is facing three counts of first-degree murder. Police say it happened Monday night at this home off Vineyard and 25th.

The victims, just babies. A three-year-old boy, a two-year-old girl, and a seven-month-old girl. Horrible. That's why we have kids, to love them, to take care of them. Medium Soto lives next door. She says she saw the young mother outside talking to police Monday night,

and she felt that something was off. She looked nervous. I looked at her. As a mom, I would have been devastated. I would have been beating myself up seeing the tragedy that had just happened. Soto didn't know the family well, but said she'd often see the kids outside, and the baby loved to be on the swing.

You could see the children playing, happy, running around. And we still have so many questions. We don't know exactly how those little kids died. We do know from police that there were no obvious signs of trauma, but ultimately it'll be up to the medical examiner to release the exact cause of death. To Justice Scott Morgan, forensics expert, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. I heard maybe as Dr. Kendall Crowns mentioned earlier or possibly Bruce Johnson about foam on the mouth. What, if anything, would that signify? And can you look around the scene itself and determine if there was a struggle?

Does the forensic evidence bear out what we are being told i don't know nancy there's there's a multiplicity of routes we can go down as far as the frothiness that you see that's a what's referred to if if i'm hearing the description correctly uh frothy edematous cone And many times this will appear when somebody is in a congestive event where their lungs are so heavy that they can't breathe anymore. Wait a minute. Stop. Between you and Crowns and Bober, I'm just going to like jump off the roof. What do you mean a congestive event? Why do you insist on talking that way, Joseph Scott Morgan? Now listen, when I was trying cases, I couldn't ream out the medical examiner.

Sorry, Crowns, at his office when I would prepare for trial because you don't want an angry witness up on the stand in front of your jury or a no-show for Pete's sake. But Joe Scott, I mean, how many times have I asked you, at least for me, can you dummy down just a little bit? This is a lesson. Take heed, Bober and Dr. Crowns. What do you mean a congestive event? Could you just start over and pretend you're talking to a first grader, me. Maybe the listeners know exactly what you're talking about. Maybe they're all medical examiners and forensic experts, but I'm not. So explain to me as if you would someone that knows nothing about this field.

Hit me. Yeah, Nancy, I would never presume to talk to you as a first grader. And just wipe that smirk off your face and lose the attitude. Lose the attitude. Okay, go ahead. Hey, listen. Yeah, what I'm talking about is essentially that this depletion of oxygen, this child is being deprived

of deprivation of oxygen because the hand allegedly is covering the mouth. This is going to cause the child to struggle greatly. The lungs will become heavy over the short, very short period of time, actually, and you can have this congestive event, frothy cone but nancy i have to tell you two things that really concern me in this case just beyond that they this husband that comes home and he says that he sees one child reposed he thought the child was asleep other two kids are in his estimation alive i think he may have interacted with them. He goes to bed, and then miraculously the kids are, you know, deceased when he wakes up. I think the big question here for me, did the Maricopa County Medical Examiner's Office actually go out to the scene?

Did they have personnel there that checked for PMI, post-mortem interval? How long had these children been dead? And this is a very specific methodology they have to go through, checking for the core body temperature on these children and kind of marrying that up with the environmental temperature. That's going to be key because you're going to have a multiplicity of stories that are coming down. The defense in this case, the mothers may have done it. I'm unclear at this point.

I want to know the facts. And secondly, I want to know what was in the system of these children, and that's going to be key. They will have drawn blood, probably urine at the scene, and they're going to run this for toxicology. I wonder what's going on in the lives of these children. Well, you know what? I asked for it and I got it. That was certainly a mouthful. Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical

Examiner, Travis County, Texas, Austin. Now in Metro Atlanta, inner city Atlanta, very often before I could get to the scene, the medical examiners, investigators, if not the medical examiner's investigators, if not the medical examiner assigned to the case theirself, but their investigators would be there. And I very often at trial would rely on the notes, the measurements, the observations of the medical examiner investigators, as well as the cops or the sheriff's investigators. But explain to me, why is it important for someone like you, the medical examiner, to go to the scene? Well, it's important to go to the scene, not necessarily for the medical examiner themselves, but at least one of the medical investigators that work for the medical examiner's office, because you need to have your individual there to be an unbiased seat documenter. So when you go to court, you don't look like you're a

tool for the law enforcement or the prosecution. It also gives us pictures and documentation that are very important to us when we're doing the autopsy for knowing how the body was positioned, what was around the body, things like that, because we don't autopsy in a vacuum without a good scene investigation. Our findings are meaningless. You know, this is reminding me of another case. Listen. There's no question she murdered her children one by one, drowning them all in the family bathtub, locking the doors so the five children couldn't get out of the house, waiting until her husband left to avoid detection,

fighting to hold each one of the children under the water. The children's bodies bruised, struggling to live. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. There's no question she murdered her children one by one, drowning them all in the family bathtub, locking the doors so the five children couldn't get out of the house, waiting until her husband left to avoid detection, fighting to hold each one of the children under the water. The children's bodies bruised, struggling to live. That mother, Andrea Yates, who murdered all of her children

as soon as her husband, Rusty Yates, left home for work, lied them out on the bed as if they were sleeping as well. That was me talking on HLN. Bruised, struggling to live. Very important. Were these children bruised? Joining me right now, executive producer, 12 News KPNX I-Team, Katie Wilcox. What can you tell me about the scene? I think what's so wild about this scene is it wasn't just mom and dad at home when this all happened.

Their aunt was there as well. So this whole family was living with the aunt Pearl. And when dad describes waking up and kind of finding the kids, he, you know, he's on the phone with his, an older son that he's got. And he says that mom and aunt Pearl had gone to get pizza and they come home when he finds all the children. So there was this theme is a mom, a very distraught father, and this aunt who is just in shock as well. And she basically described to us when we got the chance to talk to her that she can't understand how they all believed that the mom was putting the babies,

all three of them at one point, down for naps. And that's something pull this blanket off of them, they're gone. And so what we know about this family is that it seems like it could have been maybe an almost normal feeling until you realize that these children are not breathing. They're not alive. And they're laying on this couch. It's honestly just one of the most terrific stories we've had to cover. There wasn't, you know, a big blaring sign that like there had been some fight or some catastrophe that happened there until you realize that these children weren't alive anymore. That's what we know from the scene. The children were described as not having any obvious signs of trauma when firefighters got there and when first responders were there.

But the father, he describes, obviously, very vividly seeing his youngest, the seven-month-old baby, Cataleya, with foam coming from her mouth, as we talked about, and some blood. So it's the kind of still horror. I can't really think of it any other way. The only sign that anything was wrong is the fact that they were gone. Listen. This morning, we have learned that through the investigation, the 22-year-old mother has admitted to harming her three children, which caused their demise. As you can remember, they were pronounced deceased last night. She will be booked on

three counts of first-degree murder. This investigation is still ongoing. There's still a lot of collection and gathering of evidence that needs to still be done and obviously there's going to be other interviews with witnesses and additional information. As you can imagine this case is very complex. There's a lot of moving parts to it and so we are comfortable in saying now that the mother is responsible for the death of the children. Did Rachel Henry, a young mom from Phoenix, murder three of her children? This phenomenon of mothers murdering their children, a three-year-old, a one-year-old, a seven-month-old, the children found propped up on the sofa, quote, as if they were sleeping you were just hearing the press conference at the phoenix pd that was sergeant mercedes fortuna this reminds me so much of another mom who murdered her children

as soon as the husband wasn't looking taking the children's lives. What were you thinking? That I had to do it. What was the reason you thought to do it the next morning? Because Rosie would be at work. Joining me right now, Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist. You can find him on Instagram, Dr. Daniel Bober. Dr. Bober, it's common knowledge. And I guess I would need a stat to back that up, and I bet Wendy Patrick in California has one,

but it's common knowledge that men kill, murder, statistically, overwhelmingly more than women do. And when women do kill, it's their partner or their own children. Help me out, Dr. Daniel Bober. When the cops got there, according to Katie Wilcox at 12 News KPNX, the father and the family were all distraught and the mom was not. Yes, that's true, Nancy. And as you pointed out, this case is eerily similar to the Andrea Yates case. And I actually worked with Phil Resnick, who was the defense expert on the Andrea Yates case.

You know, in the Andrea Yates case, Resnick proposed... Well, hold on. Wait a second, Bober. Did you just hear Andrea Yates on the stand under oath saying she waited until Rusty went to work before she murdered the children so he wouldn't stop her? She locked all the doors so he wouldn't stop her. She locked all the doors so they couldn't get out. She took them one by one in order of how much they would fight back to her, with her, in order to kill them all. So since you can plan a crime not to get caught, that kind of ruins the insanity defense. Well,ancy it's not that simple um andrea yates believed that she was killing her children to defeat satan she was under a paranoid delusion and believed that she was actually doing right and i can tell you that andrea yates was severely

severely mentally ill so that's the that's the psychiatry that's the science behind it the law is something okay dr bo Dr. Bober, hold on. Hold on. When you say mentally ill, would you say she was insane? That she did not know right from wrong at the time of the incident? I would say that what she believed that she was doing was she believed that she was right for a delusional reason, if that makes any sense. Okay, then why did she wait till her husband was gone so she, quote, would not get caught? Why did she lock the door so the children could not escape?

Why did she try to kill them one by one methodically so she could affect the murders successfully without the other children knowing what was happening and running out of the house? She planned it, Dr. Bober. Because in her mind, she was covering it up for Satan. In her mind, she had a history of postpartum psychosis. Her OBGYN told her multiple times not to have more children, and her husband, Rusty, was putting pressure on her. And by the way, Rusty brought a date to the trial. Rusty was the one that was putting pressure on her. by the way rusty brought a date to the trial rusty was the one that was

putting pressure on her you know what look i'm not on rusty's side because here he is with a great job i think as an engineer and he moves his whole family a wife and five children into a school bus you know so i'm not down with that he and i have had have crossed swords on many times before but he's not the one that murdered the children dr bober and if you know enough to cover up your crime that means you know it's wrong so you can say whatever psycho mumbo jumbo you want she may have had a mental illness she may have had postpartum depression i get it but okay psychosis but she knew what she you know what wendy patrick california prosecutor author of red flags wendy patrick phd.com help me out yeah nancy one of the things we look for and you and i've both tried not guilty by reason of insanity cases where a mom kills her kids or her mother,

her own mother or a family member, and then says all of these things that make it seem like she's insane. But legally, Nancy, legally, that's not necessarily true. There's a much higher burden. So in this case, one of the things they're going to look at, first of all, the demeanor of this mother. And that is very telling in terms of, did she know what she did was wrong? In addition to the ritualized way she lied them out, how long were they dead? How did she kill them? What happened during the fact that there was somebody present in the home? There's a lot of circumstantial evidence to work with. That's really going to help make jurors understand that as out of context and as just heartbreaking as this seems and as this sounds

that this mother knew right from wrong okay i've got dr daniel bober uh telling me that yates andrea yates had postpartum psychosis now everybody's jumping on the bandwagon that this mom, Rachel Henry, had some sort of a depression. But I've got one word to say. Methamphetamine. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace welcome back everybody i'm nancy grace this is crime stories with me katie wilcox kpnx i team dr kendall crowns dr daniel bober joseph scott morgan bruce johnson and wendy patrick a few people on our panel are tuning up with me right now, and they seem to be singing a chorus that this mom that murdered her three little children, ages three, one, and just seven months, had mental illness. She had an illness, all right. Take a listen to KPNX,

NBC 12. Toys and candles lined the fence outside the home where three children lost their lives. Rachel Henry, the children's mother, now booked with charges of their murder. Three counts of murder in the first degree. The state says Henry had drug problems, especially with meth, and once had children taken away from her before she moved to Arizona last year. But those claiming to know Henry say she had her issues but loved her children. Okay, Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist, methamphetamine. Do you still want to tell me this was some kind of postpartum psychosis?

She was using meth. She had had her children taken away before. She chose to use methamphetamine. That was her choice. But methamphetamine can cause a psychosis, which can be characterized by paranoid delusions, auditory hallucinations, and she may not have been in touch with reality. It is possible, and it may be a possible point of defense. Boy, you just, you know what? You're going to go down swinging, but you know what? So am I. Katie Wilcox, executive producer of 12 News, KPNX, I-Team. Isn't it true that DFAX,

Department of Family and Children's Services, had taken the children away before and that mommy, Rachel Henry, was addicted meth. Hi, Nancy. Yeah, that's all of the information that we know. We were able to review the police reports that showed, yeah, that the Child Protective Services in Oklahoma had removed her children from her home there and put them in custody of Pedro's grandmother. They also showed that, yes, she had had a history of using

methamphetamine. Pedro talked about, you know, they both had used drugs in the past, and it looks like from everything we can tell that she somehow was able to get these kids back. So the children were placed with their grandmother for at least a week. And then DCS, or the Child Protective Services in Oklahoma, has refused to turn over any other records and says that they're not involved in this death investigation. So that has been incredibly difficult for us to answer those questions and to really seek justice for these kids. The Arizona governor has spoken out and said that he hopes something like this might

help bring some kind of new interstate compact to try to help protect children if they're already in DCS case so that these kinds of things don't just end when you cross state lines. Katie Wilcox, you know what? They've been singing that same old song for so long. Politicians and children just keep dying. They will be being observed, supervised by Child Protective Services in one state, the parents move, and then they endective Services in one state, the parents move, and then they end up dead in the next state. I've seen it over and over and over.

To Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor, author of Red Flags, it's exhausting. It's defeating when you're trying, trying, trying to stop child murders, and then they die at the hands of the one person that's supposed to love them the most. Also, Wendy, D-fax once again lets children slip through the cracks, and now they're all dead. Third issue, Wendy, the whole family knew mommy was on meth. They all knew it, but they let her be alone with the children, Wendy. Yeah, the problem, and this is one of the reasons we use expert witnesses at trial, is, you know, many parents don't believe, or many family members, I should say, that meth can cause

something like this. You talk about psychosis and addiction and health concerns, but nobody links. I mean, we should. The more cases like this we get, nobody links these as unintended consequences. So that's one of the reasons it will be highly relevant who knew what when in terms of prior drug use, prior issues, you know, and who else in the family was using and was it an issue of, it's obviously child endangerment in the worst case if you can have them at home and have something like this happen. But Nancy, it's really an issue of awareness. And as a society, sadly, through cases like this, we are becoming more aware that these may be the unintended consequences. It's tragic. Bruce Johnson, owner of ISP Investigation, former Master Sergeant Commander, Chicago Metro Area.

Bruce, when they had the bond hearing for Mommy, no remorse whatsoever. But she did have a little bit to say. She expressed concern about her bond, that she was worried she wouldn't be able to scrape together the money to get out of jail. You know, Bruce, when people talk at their bond hearing and say things like that, all she cares about is her getting out of jail? Mm-mm. We're talking about her mindset. I think later when they interview her and find out some things, I would be interested.

I would be willing to bet that he, the father of the latest one, the one that was there, that he introduced her to the meth or possibly introduced her to the meth and that part of her demise and her mind and her thinking was that you did this to me and I'm doing this to you and that's where the display might come into play. With me, Joe Scott Morgan and Dr. Daniel Bober and Dr. Kendall Crowns. Way in, Joe Scott. You know, I think one of the things that's really concerning to me, Nancy, is not whether or not she's sick in the head, is what were these kids exposed to? Remember, they are the specific damage in this case. It's their little lives that have been snuffed out. I want to know what was in their system. And with people that have decided to destroy their lives with meth, there happens to be other damage that occurs. These kids may have been exposed to toxic levels of methamphetamine.

They're talking about this one child that had this edematous cone that was coming out of their mouth. Sometimes certain drugs can cause this event, this respiratory event like this. I'm really wondering, maybe that child died as a result of exposure to meth. I don't know that for a fact, but I'd like to know. I want to know what's going on in the system. And broader, in a broader sense, the system relative to defects, how can defects continue? And we see this time and time again of putting children back into these same environments over and over and over and over again until you wind up with dead kids on your hands. To Dr. Kendall Crowns, Deputy Medical Examiner, Travis County, Texas, Austin. Dr. Crowns, reportedly the one little boy, the three-year-old,

fought, scratched, kicked to try to live, but mommy continued until he was dead. What are your thoughts on the case, Dr. Crowns? So my thoughts on the case are, again, adults can easily kill children. Smothering is one of the ones that we often won't have any findings whatsoever. I've been on child fidelity review boards for almost 20 years, and I've seen time and time again where kids are returned to an environment where they shouldn't have been returned to. My problem is, is I've had cases of mothers that just didn't want to have their kids anymore. You know, they just found them a burden.

And so they smothered them because they couldn't, and I quote from one of the cases, couldn't kick it like they used to. So, you know, you can say all this stuff about psychoses or drug-induced stuff. But, you know, sometimes they just don't want their kids anymore because they're a burden. And they want to go have fun and party and they just get rid of them. And I can't tell you how much it upsets me when I agree with the other panel members. The system gets broken down. The kids get returned. But, again, you know, you can't always give these parents the defense of, well, they weren't in their right mind at the time, because sometimes they have those kids, they don't want those kids, and they just dispose of them

like they're trash. Three little children, Zane Henry, Mariah Henry, and Katalaya Rios Henry, all dead. Mariah would have turned two next week. To Dr. Daniel Bober, forensic psychiatrist, you well know, as I do, that voluntary use of drugs or alcohol is not a defense. That is true, Nancy, but where it gets more complicated is if there's a psychotic disorder as a result of that substance, and I actually agree with your previous guest. There are situations where the parents just don't want the kids and it's that simple. So I think every case is unique and I think you have to look at all the possibilities. We'll be thinking about those quote possibilities when they lower those three little caskets into

the ground. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.