Man who killed children "unbalanced"

Wife thought husband asleep in car

CLAYTON -- The estranged wife of a man who apparently killed their two children and himself on Monday told an emergency dispatcher that her husband was "unbalanced" after she spotted his car at her home.

Authorities who responded to Dawn Henry's call found the bodies of Steven Henry, 35, their daughter, Ashley, 6, and their son, Gregory, 4, in the vehicle.

In an affidavit for a search warrant, Detective Ryan Benson said Henry appeared to have a gunshot wound to the head. The children were covered by a red sheet, according to Benson's affidavit.

Earlier Monday, Dawn Henry had driven by the house at 1340 Vinson Road and spotted the Honda Accord in her driveway. She did not see the children in the vehicle and thought her husband was asleep, Johnston County authorities said. She phoned her lawyer and then called 911.

Her voice sounded shaky in the brief call. "He is unbalanced," she told the dispatcher, describing her husband. "I'd like for someone to tell him to leave."

According to court documents related to the couple's custody dispute, the Henrys separated in July 2006. In a court paper, she described Steven Henry as showing "aggressive coldness, lack of warmth and nurture."

She said he had physically abused and battered the family's dog and cat and had dumped the animals. The dog later was found with a broken leg. Dawn Henry quoted her husband as saying, "Things happened. I have a problem." Johnston County deputies found ammunition when they searched Steven Henry's home in the Cleveland community, near the intersection of I-40 and N.C. 42, according to the search warrant. Henry was employed by Jacobs Engineering in Cary, a spokeswoman for the Johnston Sheriff's Department said.

The children had spent Monday with Henry, who had skipped a mediation session that day relating to the custody dispute. Dawn Henry had headed home after he failed to show up for the late-morning appointment.

Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said Monday that "there seemed to have been a history of domestic violence."

It was Johnston County's second child homicide this year involving a father. In January, 4-year-old Katlin Violette was stabbed to death and then found decapitated in the hallway of her Clayton home. Her father, John Violette, was arrested in Washington and charged with first-degree murder.

Investigators spent hours Monday afternoon poring over the car and Dawn Henry's duplex on Vinson Road, a rural two-lane road that connects Clayton and the small town of Wilson's Mills.

Investigators photographed the inside of the bloody Honda. Two child-safety seats sat side by side on the driveway. One was streaked with blood.

Deputies also bagged up two children's jackets -- one pink, the other gray and red.

Quiet road inundated

Cameras converged on the quiet, rural road, capturing images of the grisly crime scene from across the yellow police tape that blocked off Dawn Henry's duplex.

On a small porch outside her unit sat a plastic red and blue picnic table and other toys.

Her building and another next door sat apart from other homes that sparsely dotted the road. School buses passed and the occasional bleat of a neighbor's goats broke the stillness.

Neighbors in shock

Reporters trudged up to the few homes nearby asking neighbors whether they had known the family. Few had; the mother and her children had moved in only months before.

A few stood outside their homes on cell phones watching the spectacle and shaking their heads at what they said was a senseless crime.

"How a man could do something like that to those children is hard for a person to think about," said neighbor Harold Parrish, who remembered seeing the two children playing on the creek that separated the two homes.

Neighbors said Ashley was enrolled at River Dell Elementary. Dawn Henry, 34, is an employee of the Johnston County school system.

Members of both of the Henrys' families either declined to comment or could not be reached Monday night.

Bizzell said the couple had been separated for several months and that they were sharing custody of their two children. Court records show that by January, the shared custody arrangement was falling apart. On Jan. 25, Steven Henry sued Dawn Henry for child support and custody.