Police: Silicon Valley Engineers and Twin Children Found Dead in Murder-Suicide

The disturbing case of an Indian American family of four found dead in their upper-class Silicon Valley home is being investigated as a murder-suicide, local police said Tuesday.

While prior reports claimed the recent deaths of Anand Sujith Henry, 37, Alice Benziger, 38, and their four-year-old twins were due to a gas leak, the San Mateo Police Department confirmed to the Daily Mail that the parents were both found with gunshot wounds beside a 9mm pistol and a loaded magazine. 

The family’s bodies were discovered Monday morning after police received a call from an unspecified person to do a wellness check. Upon arriving at the ritzy $2.1 million home, officers found the couple dead in a bathroom, and twins Noah and Neithan in one of the five bedrooms. 

“We are confident the person responsible was located within the home,” police said.

The husband previously worked as a software engineering manager at Google for nearly eight years before moving to Meta, then eventually founding his own artificial intelligence (AI) company in June 2023. 

According to Henry’s LinkedIn profile, his firm Logits offers “privacy-preserving” and “hassle-free” generative AI. However, the company’s profile and website have been taken down. 

Benziger was a data science manager at Zillow before the deadly shooting, and the couple were both alumni of TKM Engineering College and Carnegie Mellon University.

Records obtained by the Daily Mail show that Henry filed for divorce in December 2016, though they ended up remaining married.

A news source in the Kerala region of India, from where the family hails, said that Benziger’s mother had visited the Silicon Valley home before leaving just one day before the suspected murder-suicide.

While officials have not yet determined a motive for the crime, they remain adamant that the killings were carried out by someone who lived in the home. 

“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,” SMPD said. “This investigation continues as detectives work to gather evidence, speak to witnesses and family members, and determine a possible motive.”