San Mateo police yesterday confirmed that the deaths of four people found in a home on Monday were a murder-suicide case carried out by the father of a family.
Anand Henry, 37, fatally shot Alice Benziger, 38, before turning the gun on himself, police said. Their twin boys, Noah and Nathan, 4, were found dead in a bedroom and their cause of death is still under investigation, police said. The boys did not suffer from any gunshot wounds or physical harm, police said.
Officers had responded shortly before 9:15 a.m. Monday to a request for a welfare check at a home in the 4100 block of Alameda de las Pulgas after the family was not heard from over the weekend.
Inside, officers found Henry and Benziger dead from gunshot wounds in a bathroom next to a 9mm handgun legally registered to Henry.
Henry’s LinkedIn account says he was the co-founder of Logits, an AI company. However, the company’s webpage showed a 404 error, and its LinkedIn page has been removed. He had previously worked for Meta, Google and Salesforce. Benzinger’s LinkedIn says she was a data science manager at Zillow.
Police said investigators believe the killings happened sometime Saturday afternoon and came with no prior history of violence at the home, where officers only responded once before in 2020 to a report of a mountain lion in the yard.
Henry had filed for divorce in 2016 but seemingly did not go through with it at the time. There were no restraining orders filed against either Henry or Benzinger. Records indicate the two bought their home in September 2020 and their property taxes had been paid through December.
“Our investigation into the motive for this tragedy continues. While we can’t undo this horrific incident, we would like to share with our community both domestic violence and mental health resources, because there is help and/or assistance out there, and something like this does not need to happen again,” San Mateo police said in a statement.
People can call the 988 suicide and crisis lifeline for help or in San Mateo County can call (800) 686-0101 for 24/7 assistance. A 24-hour hotline run by Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse is also available at (800) 300-1080 as well as a StarVista 24/7 crisis hotline at (650) 579-0350.
— From wire and staff reports
He filed for divorce in 2016 but it didn’t happen. When things get so bad that one files for divorce, the other person should allow it. This is a tragedy that could have been avoided.
Jenny. Unless you have personal knowledge of this family’s history (and if you do, this is not the time to gossip), you have no idea why this person filed for divorce and why he did not pursue it further. Speculating about the marriage or what someone should have done is cruel.