ZEBULON, N.C. (TCN) — A North Carolina man was arrested and charged with four counts of murder on Oct. 28 after he allegedly called 911 and confessed that he had killed his children.
According to the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded to a residence in Zebulon on Oct. 27 following a call at 10:09 p.m. from Wellington Delano Dickens III.
WRAL reports the sheriff’s office released the call recording on Oct. 29 in which Dickens, 38, allegedly said, “I killed my children. It’s a lot to explain, but in a nutshell, it’s all my fault. … It’s bad. … I didn’t like use knives or nothing to cut nobody or shoot nobody and then I just started out as me overdisciplining.”
When deputies arrived at his home on Monday, Dickens reportedly said his 3-year-old son was “inside the house alive,” but his four other children were dead in the trunk of a car in his garage.
The 3-year-old was found unharmed in the home and was later evaluated at a local hospital. A preliminary investigation of the garage revealed decomposing “human remains in the trunk that had been there for a long period of time,” according to the sheriff’s office. Authorities secured the scene and obtained a search warrant for the premises to continue the investigation.
In an Oct. 29 press conference, Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said all five children had been homeschooled. According to Bizzell, the investigation revealed that the victims were slain one by one over a span of time. He identified them as Dickens’ biological children Leah Dickens, 6, killed in May 2025; Zoe Dickens, 9, killed in August 2025; Wellington Dickens IV, 10, killed in late August or early September 2025; and stepson Sean Brasfield, 18, killed in September 2025.
Positive identification and autopsies of the victims are pending from the State Medical Examiner’s Office.
Dickens is being held in the Johnston County Jail without bond awaiting his next court date.
