The father told 911 that things “spiraled” in the household after the death of his wife, with police believing his four older children were all killed within a few months of one another — with one 3-year-old boy the sole survivor.
The man who called 911 to tell dispatchers that he had “killed his children,” whose bodies were found in the trunk of his car, has allegedly revealed that there was a fifth child — a one-month-old infant — buried in he backyard. He also suggested how they died, according to police.
According to multiple media outlets including Fox’s WGHP, NBC’s WRAL, and CBS’s WBTV, new search warrants reveal that Wellington Delano Dickens III admitted to the fifth deceased child after he was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder in Zebulon, North Carolina for the deaths of his three biological children, aged 5, 9, and 10, and one stepchild, 18.
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Wellington was arrested on October 27, revealing to police at the time that his one remaining child, a 3-year-old son, was inside the house, while four more children, all deceased, were “inside the trunk of a vehicle in the garage of the residence,” per a press release from the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office.
While an exact timeline remains unclear, deputies determined that the human remains found in the trunk “had been there for a long period of time.” Per a warrant via USA Today, the date of the offenses was listed as May 1.
Dickens’ October arrest came about a year and a half after the death of his wife, Stephanie Rae Jones Dickens. According to her obituary, Stephanie “passed away suddenly at her home” in April 2024, leaving behind her husband and five children. She was reportedly pregnant at the time of her death, per WRAL, dying from complications of a miscarriage.
According to the warrant, Dickens insisted he never tortured his children, but believes he “over-disciplined” them, according to WBTV. He said as much in the released 911 calls, where he first told the dispatcher he’d killed his children.
“It’s a lot to explain, but in a nutshell, it’s probably my fault … I’m not even going … It’s my fault. It’s bad,” he said. “It just started as me over-disciplining.” When asked how he killed them, Dickens responded, “I beat on them sometimes. They didn’t want to eat. I didn’t force them to eat. I’ve told them it was a punishment not to eat. I did a bunch of different little things.”
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After insisting he did not use a gun or knife to kill them, Dickens said, “I’m trying to just do the right thing,” adding that he didn’t call “when I was supposed and I was being a coward.” He told the dispatcher, per the call, that the situation in the home had “spiraled” and “I got my son, and i just feel guilty, guilty as hell.”
According to the new arrest warrants, Dickens laid out a rough idea of how and when his children died, saying that the first child to die was 5-year-old Leah Dickens, with Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell telling the press on October 28, per WRAL at the time, that her death occurred sometime in May 2025. Dickens allegedly said he disciplined her and when he went to check on her later, she was dead.
Her 9-year-old sister Zoe Dickens was the next to die, with Dickens saying that she’d began asking about her sister. In response, he admitted that he taped her mouth shut to discipline her at some point in August 2025, according to Bizzell, but when he returned to check on her later she was also dead.
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When questioned about his sons, Dickens said that his 10-year-old, Wellington Dickens IV, was the next child who died. Dickens said that he was teaching his son to box and the boys stopped eating, leading him to believe that his son died from malnutrition. Bizzell said this death occurred in either late August or early September 2025, with 18-year-old Sean Brasfield, who Dickens also said died from malnutrition, following later in September.
Additionally, per the documents, Dickens told investigators that he and his wife had a fifth biological child that they had named Riley. This child, he said, died shortly after the family moved into the home where the other children’s bodies were found in May 2023.
Dickens said, per the warrant, that the baby was about a month old when their health started to decline. He did not offer a clear reason for why the child died, but said that afterward, he wrapped the body in paper or plastic material and buried it in a four-foot-deep grave in a wooded area behind the home.
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In interviews with family members, they said they’d never seen, heard from or about Riley after the family moved, per WRAL. It was also noted that at no time was Riley’s death reported.
It was partly in search of this baby that investigators secured a warrant to search Dickens’ home, with they executed this past Wednesday. While they found no sign of the baby’s grave or body.
Detectives did, however, determine that much of the interior of the house had recently been repainted — a “hasty paint job,” they described it — and reported finding an “unusual amount” of cleaning supplies in the home. The warrants note that they uncovered Amazon searches for a type of paint that can cover up stains. Police stated in the documents they want to bring in chemicals that could reveal any bloodstains that might be beneath the paint.
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Authorities have said that there is not sufficient evidence to add any additional charges for the alleged death of the one-month-old baby at this time, but their investigation is ongoing.
Dickens is already facing potential life in prison without the possibility for parole for each of the four murder charges he new faces. His surviving son has been placed in protective custody through the Department of Social Services, per WBTV.
Dickens remains behind bars with his next scheduled court appearance for December 4.
If you are experiencing or witness child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. If you believe a child is in immediate danger, call 911.
