PORTAGE, Mich. — Three people are dead, including a child, after what authorities believe was a murder-suicide in Portage on Tuesday night.
Portage Department of Public Safety has identified the deceased as 39-year-old Henry Bates, 31-year-old Brianna Bates and six-year-old Zenzia Bates.
Authorities were on scene for almost 12 hours trying to figure out what led up to the deaths of an adult male, adult female and a child before wrapping up just after 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
The Portage Department of Public Safety (PDPS) said the call came in around 9:20 p.m., with reports of a shooting and a barricaded man with a gun.
Authorities responded to a home split into four apartments. Police said the family lived in an upstairs apartment in the 4600 block of E. Milham Avenue.
PDPS said they initially believed there were four children inside the home and a hostage.
A nearby neighbor told them they had heard five shots fired.
With that information, negotiators attempted contact with the residents for a period of two hours with no response.
"We were able to glean some information by use of the drone and the robot, and we made entry and unfortunately found all three deceased. We found an adult male. I don’t know the age. An adult female, and what we believe to be a six-year-old all dead from gunshot wounds," said Portage Department of Public Safety Director Nick Armold.
Police said Henry and Brianna were married and had three other children ages 3, 11 and 13.
The three other children did live at the home and left the apartment as the shooting started and were not injured, according to authorities. They have been placed with a relative.
According to family members, the 6-year-old victim named Zenzia also went by the nickname Boo.
A family member named Melissa, who did not want to go on camera, told FOX 17 that she regretted the time it took for police to enter the house.
“I’m a little frustrated that it took police three hours after we called them for them to go inside the building and that’s very frustrating because I’m pretty, I guess I’m not, like, a medical examiner so I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure that if they would have went in when they got here that might have been able to, maybe not Brianna because her injuries were extensive, but little Boo, who knows if she just bled out there by herself. I don’t know,” said Melissa.
"They all lived there, so certainly it’s clear that they were all familiar to each other with what was going on and what led up to it. Hopefully, we'll find out in the days to come, but it won’t change the result, unfortunately," said PDPS Director Armold.
FOX 17also spoke to Brianna's mother Wednesday afternoon about what kind of person her daughter was.
"She worked hard her whole life. She was an abused child by her own father, so she lived for her kids, to make sure they never were abused," she said. "Her whole entire life was family and her kids. She worked a full-time job, she did online school full-time. She worked hard to make sure her kids needed for nothing."
Brianna's mother said her daughter loved taking care of her children more than anything.
"She loved to cook, she kept her house clean, she just loved the mom life," she said.
A sister of Henry Bates provided FOX 17 with a statement as well.
They said, "Lauren Henry, who we affectionately refer to him in the family, suffered from documented mental illness. He was not a monster... He truly loved his family and children, but he was battling mental illness since childhood."
But Brianna's mom feels that it is not fair to blame his mental health for what happened.
"I don't want them to say, Oh, mental health, and whatever, was the issue," she sad.
"He was just a monster that had mental health issues, because there's plenty of functional people that don't do what he does."
Henry Bates pleaded no contest to aggravated assault in 2006, and spent time in prison for a felony assault with a weapon case in 2010.
"He only thought of himself," Brianna's mother said.
"Brianna was the selfless one that had to put up with all of it... And now her kids, her other three kids, are gonna grow up without a mom that loved them."
"You’re wishful that everything's going to turn out alright, but it was totally silent right when we arrived," said PDPS Armold. "We did everything we could to make sure that all the officers stayed safe, all the medical personnel stayed safe, and yet we were trying to see if we could get in there and rescue whoever was in there. Unfortunately, we were too late for them,” he added.
A motive is under investigation. Police added Henry was the perpetrator in this incident, shooting his wife and six-year-old, then himself.
A number of agencies responded to the scene including the Portage Department of Public Safety, Western Michigan University Police, Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety, Kalamazoo Township, and multi-jurisdictional SWAT members.
Take a look at this video of the scene that was taken by FOX 17 News' Lauren Kummer:
#HAPPENING: The Portage Dept. Of Public Safety is still on scene investigating what’s believed to be a murder-suicide that left two adults and one child dead.
— Lauren Kummer (@LaurenKummerTV) August 31, 2022
Authorities were called to the home split into apartments Tuesday evening on reports of shots fired. @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/XCAu5WEXrK
All victims were taken to the Kalamazoo County Medical Examiner’s Office for examination.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Portage Department of Public Safety at 329-4567 or Silent Observer.
A GoFundMe has been set up by one of Brianna Bates' family members.
If you or someone you know needs mental health help or is considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org
