A family of four was found dead inside their suburban California home on Monday in what investigators are calling a murder-suicide.
The father, a former Meta engineer named Anand Sujith Henry, 37, fatally shot his wife Alice Benzinger, 38, in a bathtub and also killed his twin 4-year-old boys who were found dead in a bedroom in San Mateo, sources tell KTVU FOX 2. San Mateo is a city about 20 miles south of San Francisco.
He then turned the gun on himself.
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It is unclear how the boys – Noah and Neithan – died since there was no sign of trauma to their bodies. Sources told NBC Bay Area that the boys may have been smothered, strangled or given a lethal overdose.
The San Mateo Police Department said they were called to the 4100 block of Alameda de las Pulgas about 9:15 a.m. Monday for a welfare check.
After arriving, officers were met with no response so they searched the perimeter of the home and found no signs of forced entry.
They then entered the home via an unlocked window before coming across the grisly scene. A 9mm pistol and a loaded magazine were also found in the bathroom, police said. A source told KTVU the weapon was legally purchased several months ago.
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“Based on the information we have at this time, this appears to be an isolated incident with no danger to the public as we are confident the person responsible was located within the home,” the San Mateo Police Department said in a post on Facebook.
Police did not say who made the welfare check call. But a neighbor told KTVU that a grandmother of the children asked for a welfare check because she could not reach the family, nor could a new nanny for the children.
The incident has shaken the quiet neighborhood.
“There’s hardly any deaths in this area ever,” said Matthew Sheldon, who has lived in San Mateo his entire life.
Henry, a former software engineering manager at both Meta and Google, filed for divorce from Benzinger, a data science manager at Zillow, in December 2016, according to court documents cited by the New York Post.
However, the divorce never seemed to have materialized and the couple moved in 2020 into their San Mateo home, where they would raise their two children.
Henry, who hails from India, left Meta in June and founded his own AI company. The couple purchased their $2.1 million home in 2020, according to the Daily Mail.
