#Mom, 3 toddlers ID’d as victims of ‘gruesome’ Indiana homicide

A young mother and her three toddlers were identified Thursday as the victims of a gruesome Indiana quadruple homicide — during which they were stabbed multiple times and had their throats cut.

Sarah Nicole Zent, 26, was found kneeling beside a bed, where Carter, 5, Ashton, 3, and Aubree, 2, were laying face down dead from their gruesome injuries, authorities said.

Zent had also been strangled, but the cause of death for all four was multiple stab wounds, according to the Allen County coroner.

Zent’s apparent boyfriend, Cohen Bennet Hancz-Barron, 21, was arrested for the crime after an hours-long manhunt with formal charges still pending on Thursday.

When police arrived at Zent’s home early Wednesday morning they found an unidentified man and woman yelling “he killed them, they’re dead,” according to a probable cause affidavit posted to jconline.com.

Hancz-Barron was seen exiting the house early in the morning and stealing a truck, the affidavit said.

Inside, police were met with the horrible scene in a downstairs bedroom, according to the document.

Surveillance footage in the area confirmed Hanz-Barron had been there, but no one else was seen entering or leaving the house, the affidavit said.

Hancz-Barron went to see his mother for the first time in two years that morning at about 6:15 a.m. and he told her he’d been shot in the stomach and needed duct tape and money, the affidavit said. His mother told him to leave and described him as “talking crazy,” the document showed.

Later, police said, he called his stepmother and said “I was there,. He also reportedly said he’d have to tell police “who did this,” according to cops.

When he was taken into custody at an apartment complex in Lafayette, near Fort Wayne, he had a knife with what appeared to be a red stain on the blade. He didn’t have any gunshot wounds, but scratches on his neck, jaw and wrist that appeared to come from fingernails, cops said.

He also had a credit card belonging to Zent, the affidavit said.

Hancz-Barron already had a warrant out for his arrest on a parole violation, jconline.com reported.

He had been released from prison into a halfway house in Lafayette in February but skipped out on the home and correction supervision.