‘I ended the life of 3 beautiful people’: Man who brutally killed wife, children seeks parole

Editor’s Note: This article contains a description of domestic violence and of someone who attempted to die by suicide.

On a sunny afternoon in April 1992, a 5-year-old girl played outside in her swimsuit. Her father coached her 7-year-old brother’s soccer team. And their mother went to volunteer with local teenagers.

The father, Kenneth Seguin, stopped at CVS to pick up an over-the-counter sleep medicine. That night, he slipped the medicine into his two children’s drinks and brutally murdered them as they slept, later returning home to kill his wife.

More than 30 years later, Seguin has admitted to killing his wife and children — and now, he’s seeking parole for a fifth time.

“I ended the life of three beautiful people,” the 67-year-old former computer executive said on March 13.

Friends of Kenneth Seguin say he is not the same man he was 30 years ago, embracing religion and dedicating himself to helping others. But the family of his wife, Mary Anne (Polly) Seguin, calls him “evil” and fears what could happen if he is released.

What happened on April 28, 1992

While his wife, Polly Seguin, was out volunteering, Kenneth Seguin drugged his two children, Danny and Amy.

As they slept, he drove the two children, still alive, from Holliston to a deserted pond in Franklin. On the way to the pond, he stopped to make a phone call to his wife and left a message.

“Hey, Polly, it’s Ken,” retired detective Charles Todd recalled the voicemail stating. “The kids challenged me to take them for a ride down to Cape Cod. So, I took them up on it. They fell asleep. I guess it was kind of a silly thing to do, but I’ll be home. It’s 9:25, now. All right, so don’t worry, nothing happened.”

Once he got to the pond, he took a box cutter and killed his own children, slicing his 7-year-old son from each earlobe to his Adam’s apple. He then carried them down to the water’s edge, covered them with mud and debris, and “left them while he went home to continue his night of terror,” the former detective recalled.

At home, he bludgeoned Polly Seguin to death in their bed. He then drove her body 10 miles to the town of Hopkinton, where he disposed of her body in a river. She was found the next day floating in the Sudbury River in Southborough.

Kenneth Seguin sanitized the crime scene and disposed of the bedding and splitting maul he used to kill his wife. Then he anonymously called both schools his children attended and “told the administrators calmly that the children would not be in school that day.”

After two fishermen discovered Polly Seguin’s body, police questioned Kenneth Seguin, who claimed that two men had broken into his home, attacked him and bashed Polly over the head with an axe. He told authorities that the intruders had given the children sleeping pills and that they had been in their beds. His own wrists were slit.

For days, officials couldn’t find the children.

One of Polly Seguin’s sisters went into Kenneth Seguin’s hospital room, begging him to tell them where the children were.

He didn’t.

While officials searched for the children, their father was ordered held without bail on a murder charge in connection with Polly Seguin’s death by Framingham District Court Judge Paul Healy. He pleaded not guilty, according to the Orlando Sentinel in 1992.

On May 2, 1992, Danny’s body, still dressed in his soccer shin pads, was found submerged under the water at Beaver Pond in Franklin. Amy’s body was discovered not far from her brother’s — only her sneakers were visible.

Nine months later, Kenneth Seguin’s trial started.

“Ken said he wanted a quick trial to ease our pain, when, in reality, he wanted us confused and on his side during the trial,” one of Polly Seguin’s sisters said during the parole board hearing. “We came to the realization that he intentionally, willfully murdered Polly, Danny and Amy and tried to cover it up.”

Defense attorney J.W. Carney argued his client was psychotic at the time of the killings and that he should be acquitted on grounds of insanity, United Press International reported in 1993. He thought, Carney said, he was protecting his family by taking them all to heaven.

Kenneth Seguin was described “as despondent over the death of his father-in-law, pressures at work and the failure of a six-month effort to build the family’s dream house,” the New York Times reported at the time.

On Feb. 4, 1993, after a jury trial in Middlesex Superior Court, Kenneth Seguin was convicted of three counts of second-degree murder.

A changed man

Kenneth Seguin needed help. But, he said, he was too proud to ask for it or see a mental health professional.

“I was cowardly to not honestly seek that help thinking I had some kind of image to hold up. I was cowardly not to talk about my perceived problems, and I grieve it. I’m truly and fully responsible for it. There’s no excuses, and I stand guilty,” Kenneth Seguin told the parole board in March.

He talked about his “beautiful” wife of 16 years, who would take their two children to the nursing home each week to play Bingo.

“She did it of her own free will. Nobody asked her to do it,” he said. “I took that goodwill away from the world. She had so much more to offer, and I cut that short. And I’m responsible for that. I’m remorseful for that. I think of that all the time, every day.”

He also recognized that the pain he caused was far-reaching, including to his children’s classmates.

“I know some children had to ask their fathers if they would kill them,” he said. “No father should have to answer that question. I caused that lack of trust. I caused that questioning that no one should have for a parent. I disgraced the title of parent.”

Lawyers representing Kenneth Seguin said since his parole board hearing in 2022, he followed the board’s recommendation to participate in domestic violence programming. During this time, he learned that domestic violence isn’t limited to physical abuse but also includes issues of repressed anger and unresolved emotions.

The parole board questioned Kenneth Seguin’s understanding of the night’s events.

“I mean, you’ve given this some great thought, it appears,” one member of the board said regarding the steps he took to kill his family. “So, did you really snap? Or did you really give this some thought?”

The parole board member also asked why Kenneth Seguin didn’t kill himself after he claimed that was his original plan when he killed his family.

“Why did three other people die, and you’re sitting here today?” the board member asked.

“That’s a question I don’t have an adequate answer for,” he responded.

The board member pointed out Kenneth Seguin’s wounds were superficial, while his family had deep wounds.

“I mean, were you really intending to take your own life?” he asked.

The parole board stated they had a hard time understanding what would be different for Kenneth Seguin in 2025 than before the crimes in 1992. Life stressors, the board said, are still there.

“I built a web of relationships with people that I’m open to and honest with today,” Kenneth Seguin said. “I wasn’t that way before. I was all about trying to have some kind of image as a successful person.”

For some of the men in Kenneth Seguin’s life, he has taught them how to control or handle their emotions.

“Ken has influenced me significantly, especially in managing stress related to my business and employees,” his brother, Dan Seguin, said. “He emphasized the importance of self-awareness, using techniques like medication to clear one’s mind, increase awareness, and set goals.”

Kenneth Seguin’s cousin told the parole board that Kenneth Seguin has taught him “the lessons of peeling back the layers of shame and guilt that conceal our true motivations and feelings and exposing some dark secrets.”

“I think we all have those,” he told the parole board.

He’s also helped write Christian devotionals that have been used in sermons by Craig Parker on self-forgiveness and personal and sacred responsibility. Parker is a Christian minister with High Rock Church in Arlington and works with High Rock Beyond Bars.

“He’s turned a tragic story into one of the most redemptive stories of transformation I’ve ever seen or heard,” Parker said.

However, Christina Sorrell wasn’t convinced when she first met Kenneth Seguin through her husband, Wayne Sorrell, five years ago when they began corresponding through calls and letters. Wayne Sorrell also spoke in favor of Kenneth Seguin getting parole.

“I struggled with seeing who Ken was versus what I knew about his murders,” she said.

But she said she began to notice a change in her husband. He was becoming a better listener and he was more attentive to their marriage.

“I wanted to understand for myself how a man that did such cruel things could make a positive impact on my own husband,” Sorrell said.

But Sorrell believes Kenneth Seguin has changed.

“I can tell you that I do not know that Ken Seguin, who could not share his deep feelings or thoughts,” she said.

Still, despite his soul searching, Kenneth Seguin said he fears he’ll never have an adequate explanation for what happened 33 years ago.

“I’m still left with the question, ‘How could I?‘” he said.

The one thing Polly’s family wants

During Kenneth Seguin’s incarceration in the early 90s, he wrote to his wife’s family asking for forgiveness so that they could heal.

“I do not need to forgive you to heal. My healing does not affect you … I have managed to get up every day for the past 33 years and face the day. Forgiving you would feel like a betrayal to Polly, Danny and Amy,“ said Polly Seguin’s sister, identified only as Ellen.

She dreads the thought of encountering him at the grave sites and doubts that his efforts over the past three years are enough, fearing for another family.

“Parole Board, please do not be fooled by Ken Seguin. He has shown us, by his actions and his words, that he is evil. No amount of therapy or time in prison can fix evil,” Ellen said.

Polly Seguin’s two sisters asked people who knew her to write to the parole board in opposition to Kenneth Seguin’s parole.

Hundreds of letters were sent in.

Allison — Danny and Amy’s cousin — went before the parole board to say she doubts Kenneth Seguin’s story.

“Why was it necessary to hide the bodies if you wanted to all go to heaven?” she asked. “This is not an individual to put your trust in or to take a chance on.”

Instead, family and friends of Polly Seguin have asked him to stop asking for parole. Only then, Polly Seguin’s sister Nancy said, can he begin to repair some of the harm.

“Every time he does this, he rips the bandage off. Memories and wounds that we’re able to set aside … We don’t think about him. We only think about him when it comes to these parole hearings,” Nancy concluded.

Parole board decision

The Massachusetts Parole Board has decided four times that Kenneth Seguin was not ready to be released from prison.

His first parole board hearing was in 2007. During the last hearing in 2022, officials said he had disciplinary infractions in April 2017 and October 2021.

“These are concerning to the board as they indicate Mr. Seguin was manipulative and unwilling to follow the rules of the institution — although he minimized the severity of the infractions,” the parole board stated.

He has not had any disciplinary infractions since then.

The parole board said it was previously “concerned that his stated motive for the offenses still contradicts the evidence and his actions at the time of the murders.”

But they hoped that he would continue working toward his full rehabilitation over the next three years.

As of Sunday, the board had not reached a decision. The decisions often come months after the hearings.

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