Deputies with the Johnston County NC Sheriff’s Office responded to a home in Zebulon Monday night, October 27, 2025, after receiving a call from a man who said he had killed his children.
According to a news release, the man — identified as 38 year old Wellington Delano Dickens the Third — told deputies "his three-year-old son was inside the house alive," and that four of his other children were dead inside the trunk of a car in the garage.
Investigators say the remains appeared to have been there for an extended period of time.
Authorities believe Dickens killed three of his biological children — ages six, nine, and ten — along with his eighteen-year-old stepchild.
Dickens was charged with one count of murder Tuesday morning, October 28, 2025, and is being held in the Johnston County jail without bond.
The Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation continue to investigate and say additional charges are likely.