San Mateo murder suicide: Anand Henry, Bay Area, California man shoots wife, Alice Priyanka dead, kills 4 year old sons then kills self. Dad had originally filed for divorce against wife. Couple originally hailed from Kollam, India.
A Bay Area, California father is believed to have shot his wife dead in their bathtub before killing their four-year-old twin sons and himself in a suspected murder-suicide.
The man and his wife, were found with gunshot wounds beside a 9mm pistol and a loaded magazine in their bathroom, Monday morning according to a Facebook release from the San Mateo Police Department.
Social media identified the couple as 42 year old Indian man, Anand Henry and his 40 year old wife, Alice Priyanka.
Twin boys likely poisoned
The bodies of the couple’s two 4 year old sons, Noah and Nathan were discovered in the living. The boys were not shot. The infants’ cause of death remained under investigation. A social media post via ABC7 cited an un-named source saying that the boys’ deaths were likely the result of poisoning.
The father is thought to have fatally shot his wife in a bathtub before turning the gun on himself, KTVU reported.
A 9mm pistol and loaded magazine were found in the bathroom.
Officers told neighbors that the scene was an isolated incident and there was no threat to the public.
Cops came across the macabre scene during a welfare check at the home on the 4100 block of Alameda de las Pulgas in Sugarloaf, California at around 9.13am.
Officers knocked on the door but no-one responded, so they entered via an unlocked window.
‘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,’ San Mateo PD said.
‘This investigation continues as detectives work to gather evidence, speak to witnesses and family members, and determine a possible motive.’
Couple were professionals seeking to live American Dream
Reports identified Anand as the son of Professor G Henry, former principal of Fatima Mata National College in Kollam, India. Alice was identified as the daughter of late Benziger and Juliet. Alice’s mother Juliet boarded her return flight on February 11 after staying with her family.
According to reports, Juliet, who arrived home on February 12, texted Alice and Anand on WhatsApp. But as they did not reply, she alerted a relative, who asked a friend to check on the family. The person, who reached the residence, rang up the police.
Anand and Alice were alumni of TKM Engineering College. Ananad is a mechanical engineering graduate, while Alice is a civil engineering graduate. A regard of her Linkldn profile showed her working as a Data Science Manager at Zillow Group.
The couple has been residing in San Mateo County for the last nine years. Both were working as software engineers for an IT company, the New Indian Express reported.
Husband previously filed for divorce against wife
Of note, filed law documents cited Henry, Anand Sujith filing an application of divorce, separation in family law against Benziger, Alice Priyanka in the jurisdiction of San Francisco. The case was filed in the San Francisco County Superior Courts according to trellis.
The case was last refreshed in September, 2022 after originally being filed in December 2016, in a petition for dissolution without children.
Anand Henry, a former Software Engineering Manager at both Meta and Google, upon after leaving his post at Meta this past June, founded his own AI company.
The firm, identified on the seasoned computer scientist’s social media as Logits, provides enterprises with the means to ‘privately train and serve Generative AI models’ to serve their own specific business needs. Its site, as of writing, is down.
Before that, Henry worked at Meta for a year and a half, after a nearly eight-year stint at Google’s office in Sunnyvale according to his Linkldn profile.
Police called to the Indian family home several times
During that time, the family lived in at least four apartments across San Francisco, records show before relocating to the home where the crime occurred.
This move happened around the time of the kids’ birth – and local this week revealed that in the time since, they have been called to the home several times.
They did not disclose the nature of those calls, and said there was no note left at the scene.
Matthew Sheldon and his daughter, Marianne, have both lived in San Mateo their entire lives and they say they’ve never seen anything like this.
‘There’s hardly any deaths in this area ever,’ Matthew told KTVU.
The San Mateo County Coroner’s office was expected to provide updates on the official cause of deaths 3pm Tuesday PST.
No known murder motive was immediately known.
The case amplified previous murder suicides within Indian families in the United States, with both the husband and the wife hailing from a professional class and seemingly everything to live for.
