A North Carolina father who has been accused of killing four of his children and stuffing them in the trunk of a car did it over several months, according to the local sheriff.
On Monday, Wellington Delano Dickens III, a 38-year-old Zebulon resident, turned himself in to police. He told Johnston County authorities his four slain children were inside the trunk of a car in his garage, and his three-year-old son was inside the house alive, the cops say.
Dickens’ three-year-old was found unharmed, and multiple bodies were found in the car, which appeared to have been there for a “long period of time,” the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.
The father was initially charged with one count of murder, but has since racked up three more murder charges. Dickens is being held without bond, and information on his legal representation is not immediately clear.
Sheriff Steve Bizzell said at a news conference Wednesday that Dickens killed three of his biological children, Leah Dickens, 6, in May; Zoe Dickens, 9, in August and Wellington Dickens, 10, in either late August or early September, as well as his stepchild Sean Brassfield, 18, in September.
Sheriff’s Captain Don Pate said the family lived a “very secluded” life and that the children were homeschooled.
“The neighbors said they never saw them come outside, and they were homeschooled, so they were just confined to the house,” Pate said.
It’s still unclear how Dickens’ children died or why he killed them, according to police.
“As the sheriff, as a father and as a grandfather, I can stand here and say there’s no reason for a father to murder his children,” Bizzell said.
Bizzell also revealed that Dickens’ wife, Stephanie Rae Jones Dickens, died at home in April 2024. Stephanie, who was three months pregnant, was found dead by Dickens, and he told authorities she had severe bleeding the night before but wouldn’t get medical help.
Her death was attributed to complications from a miscarriage, according to Bizzell.
Dickens’ great uncle Charles Moore told local outlet WRAL-TV that he hadn’t seen Dickens, an Iraq War veteran, in roughly a year, but he appeared to be doing fine.
