Reed Street Tragedy, One-Year Anniversary: Ferak Column

JOLIET, IL — The skies were cloudy and overcast as my car slowed and turned off Cass Street into Mount Olivet Cemetery on Friday morning. The sprawling cemetery on Joliet's east side is a peaceful, beautiful resting place. My earliest memories of Mount Olivet Cemetery bring me back to the summer of 1985 when I was 12. This is where my grandfather was buried, the first person I ever remember dying. He had cancer and died within months of his diagnosis.

Then in 2012, I came back to Joliet for my grandmother's funeral. She, too, is buried at Olivet.

My mom's parents both led meaningful, productive lives. They raised four kids. Both were retired. They left behind several grandchildren. But on Friday, my initial purpose for visiting Mount Olivet was not for them. It was to visit the grave site for Makayla Ashley Henning and Addison Riley Henning, a pair of little children I never knew.

On Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, the Henning girls died, roughly one month shy of celebrating their sixth birthday. They were murdered inside their home in the 400 block of North Reed Street, on Joliet's west side. After killing both of her daughters, Celisa Kay Henning turned the gun on herself. She was 41.

The Reed Street tragedy, a gruesome double murder-suicide, jarred Will County last year. This week marks the somber one-year anniversary, an unfathomable tragedy. The girls were just starting kindergarten at St. Paul the Apostle Catholic School in Joliet.

It's doubly sad to visit a grave site of such young, beautiful children when you're the parent of similar-aged kids yourself.

The first line of Makayla and Addison's epitaph reads, "Beloved Daughters - Grandchildren."

The second line reads, "May Your Laughter And Smiles Shine Bright In Heaven."

The third line of their headstone reads, "Always On My Mind" and "Forever In Our Hearts."

Their tombstone has two butterflies, two blooming flowers and one rose wrapped around a cross.

There are several rays of sunshine beaming across their headstone.

Besides a large assortment of flowers and a plastic memorial card from their funeral Mass, two of their tiny My Little Pony toys, a pink horse and a blue horse, are tucked in the middle of their gravestone.

These days, it's doubtful anyone hurts more than Steve Henning, their father. He returned home from work on a Monday afternoon to find his whole family dead, his wife and both kids.

The Joliet Police Department has said that Celisa (Lundborg) Henning fatally shot both of her daughters multiple times in the head and then put the gun to her own head and pulled the trigger once.

Joliet Police's Deputy Chief of Criminal Investigations Al Roechner told me a year ago that Celisa Henning wrote out a detailed suicide note. Roechner has said the contents of the note would not be divulged by police out of respect for the family.

Celisa Henning is also buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery. Her cemetery plot is one row ahead of her twin daughters.

There are two lines on her epitaph. The top line reads: "Beloved Wife Mother Daughter."

The bottom line reads: "May God's Love And Light Shine Upon You Always."

Prior to publishing this column, I reached out to Steve Henning, first contacting his neighbors, and I also reached out to the staff at Mount Olivet Cemetery. I respectfully asked them to let him know I would be willing to interview him, if he wanted to talk about the tragedy and perhaps the healing process.

A number of police officers and psychologists have told me over the years that it's often therapeutic for the grieving families who are left behind in the wake of such a horrible tragedy to have an outlet, to have a chance to share their sorrow, with a professional journalist, someone they don't know, someone to listen.

Along the same vein, many people aren't quite ready to open up and share their feelings of loss and grief.

For Joliet, the events of Aug. 28, 2017, are one of the worst multiple murder tragedies in many, many decades.

Nobody in law enforcement can ever prepare for such a ghastly sight, no matter how many years of experience you have responding to fatal car crashes or murders at the notorious Fairview Public Housing projects.

A former Joliet Police officer, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk said the Reed Street tragedy is one of the worst multiple murder cases in Joliet he can ever remember, and it's particularly disturbing because the little girls were killed by their own mother.

"As a first responder, you're seeing things that nobody wants to see," O'Dekirk told me Friday. "You don't have the option of walking away. I really credit the police officers and paramedics who have to deal with seeing this."

So many lives have been forever changed, forever fractured, shattered, hurt, torn apart by the haunting events at the home on Reed Street.

Last September, Father Chris Groh, pastor at St. Mary's Magdalene, said the funeral Mass for the Henning children and their mother. On Saturday, I interviewed the long-time Joliet priest, the former pastor of St. Mary Nativity, where I grew up and went to grade school.

"Wow, I can't believe it's already been a year," Groh told me.

Groh has presided over thousands of Joliet funerals as a priest, but one involving the double murders of two Catholic grade-school children at the hands of their mother who went to Mass on Sundays was an experience he hopes he never encounters again.

"Here's a situation where the kids died violently, especially when it's the mom and the kids, it's the loss of a family," Groh told me.

Groh realizes the question of "why" remains on people's minds.

After all, people try to find meaning in life. But in some instances, the search for answers isn't always clear.

That is why it's important to have faith, to have faith in God, Groh said, "especially when we find these painful events. Faith tells us that there's more to life (than here on Earth) ... in the end, God provides for us. As time goes on, they begin to experience a healing, and they begin to accept what happened even though they still may not have the answers they're looking for."

Father Groh related the three deaths on Reed Street to an old saying "about a stone being tossed into the water," creating ripples. The tragic child murders of Makayla and Addison and the death of their mother impacted so many people.

"It really flows out, it's not just the dad who is dealing with the grief," Groh said, mentioning the brothers and sisters of both parents, the grandparents, the neighbors, the classmates of the children, the work colleagues of the parents, and the teachers and employees at St. Paul the Apostle, where the children were enrolled in school.

"It also affected people who did not know the family," Groh said. "Through faith, God assists, step by step along the way."

2017 COVERAGE:

Suicide Note Confirmed In Reed Street Tragedy

Mother, Twin Girls Dead In Joliet Murder-Suicide

Murder-Suicide Draws Mourners To Reed Street

A Joliet native and former investigative reporter and editor with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, John Ferak is Patch Editor for Joliet, New Lenox and Bolingbrook and Patch coverage for Shorewood and Channahon-Minooka.

All Images via John Ferak/Joliet Patch Editor