April 12, 2019 • 31 mins
A full year after the crash, Mendocino County performs an inquest into the incident. The testimony, which takes place over the course of two days, reveals shocking new details and concludes with a heartbreaking conviction. Now what?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back in January, a few weeks after Hannah Heart's remains
were identified, our field reporter Lawrence Smiley reconnected with Sheriff
Tom Allman about the upcoming coroner's inquest. Lauren, good morning,
Tom Allman from Medin. You'll remember Sheriff Allman. He's been
on the Heart case since the crash and hasn't wavered
on his conviction that it was an intentional act. He
(00:21):
was the one who told us that the proceedings of
the two day hearing would give evidence that will shock
the consciousness of people who are following his case. Sheriff
Allman is jovial and good natured. He's allowed talker and
sometimes wears a Sheriff's star pinned to the lapel of
his navy suit. He's been known to give exploding fist bumps.
(00:43):
One gets the sense that not only does Tom Allman
love his job, he loves the nature of the work,
the responsibility, the respect, the attention to detail, and the intrigue.
If there was ever someone whose job it is to
drum up interest in something as morose sounding as a
coroner's inquest, it's him. When I left the meeting hearing,
(01:04):
some of it I just walked out of the room
and said, oh my god. He thought live streaming the
event would be helpful for everyone at home with questions.
Remember what the whole purpose of the quarters in question was.
All purpose is to answer two questions about eight people,
(01:26):
the manner and cause of death. That's it. The first
new development in some time came last month, when a
California Superior Court judge officially pronounced Davante dead. Even though
his body hasn't been found. His whereabouts have remained a
huge point of contention for many people who have been
(01:47):
following the case closely. But the court filing from the
Sheriff's department reads, it is more probable than not that
Davante Hart is deceased and died along with his siblings
and parents in the vehicle crash. Almond says he is
closing DeVante's case with an asterisk. I'm certainly aware of
(02:08):
a contingent of citizens who have a belief that DeVante
was not in the car. To those and to all,
the Sheriff's Office would certainly welcome any information that would
prove our belief incorrect. It is our opinion and the
jury's opinion, that he lived with his family, and unfortunately
(02:32):
he perished with his family, and the inquest made it
clear that Jenn and Sarah made a deliberate decision to
drive off that cliff. They planned it, they worked together.
It was not a spur of the moment act. But
as Almond points out, for those of us seeking a
tidy explanation as to why that will never come. There's
(02:54):
one question that nobody will ever answer, and that's why
we can tell you what we can tell you almost
when we can tell you certainly where we can tell
you who. But as a as an adult whose brother
(03:15):
committed suicide many years ago, I've learned that sometimes the
question why I can never be answered, and we can
give people the reason that they can find their own
answer and say, well, I believe it happened because of
an infilling players, but there's not going to be any
(03:36):
black and white answer to why. From Glamour and I
Heart Radio, this is Broken Hearts one year later, I'm
Justine Harmon and I'm Liz Egan. Last week, Lauren returned
(04:01):
to Mendocino County to attend the coroner's inquest. Over the
course of two days, witnesses ranging from first responders to
detectives sat at a wooden desk and shared the brutal
facts of the investigation. Behind them was a whiteboard on
which assistants taped diagrams of the site and photos of
the family. It was especially hard to look at the
(04:23):
smiling faces of the Heart kids as the experts relayed
the grotesque details of what their little bodies endured before
and after the fall. An inquest seats a jury. This
one had fourteen jurors, but it isn't the same as
a criminal trial. During an inquest, witnesses speak straight to
a hearing officer. There are no objections or interruptions. During
(04:46):
recesses in the courtroom, Lauren was able to grab a
cup of coffee or check in with us back in
New York. On the live stream, those brakes were filled
with a stock video of a babbling brook. It's a
civilized affair, almost amusingly civilized, a at the least civilized
thing you can imagine. Here's Lauren. I've been to will
It's once before. Back in November, I drove through on
(05:08):
my way to the Heart crash site. Ominous smog hung
about the town. The first sign of the Paradise fire
that covered northern California in Hayes for a week. The
Justice Center is a cream colored stucco building that used
to function as a bustling courtroom but now serves as
the police station. As Tom Alman explained it to me, well,
it's a small town of five thousand people. We are
(05:30):
in a courtroom that hasn't been used for over twelve
years because the the Supere Court of the state closed
this courtroom officially. So this is not actually a courtroom.
We're in a justice center. Literally, it has not been
used for twelve years. And so we came in here
a couple of weeks ago and we looked at it,
and we changed the battery of the clock, and we
put up a new calendar, and it's ready to go.
(05:52):
The court room fits an audience of approximately fifty, but
nearly half the seats are empty. No family members, adoptive
or biological, are in attendance. The Hearts neighbor Danta de
cal told me she'd be watching from home. The inquest
is conducted by Matthew Guichard, a white haired attorney with
nearly four decades of law experience. B sharts diligent and
(06:14):
soothing manner kept things on track. He typically oversees in
quests back in the Bay Area for death that directly
involved law enforcement, like a police shooting or an inmate
dying in custody. He's done more than a hundred of
these before it all begins. I have questions, big ones.
I want to know what investigators heard from their friends
(06:34):
and family members who declined to speak with me on
the record. I want to know at what point, after
fleeing from CPS, Jens, Sarah or both of them together
finalize their plan. I want to know whether the kids
had antihistamines in their system to treat allergies, or if
their moms gave it to them to lull them to sleep.
I want to know where Jen got the alcohol that
(06:56):
was in her system. Did she stop somewhere on the
side off of high Way One or did she bring
it with her knowing she might need it for what
was to come later. Call it closure, even obsession. I
want absolute clarity about what happened in those final days.
And I thought I'd just tell the jury how we're
going to proceed today and for the record, I'm going
(07:18):
to initially call some of the first responders, and I
mentioned the name The inquest is a step by step
presentation of the forensic evidence collected over the course of
the past year. Evidence the California Highway Patrol says took
tens of thousands of hours to compile. The key testimony
comes from HP officer Jake Slates. Much of what Slate's
(07:41):
disclosed on the stand is familiar territory for listeners of
this podcast, but there are new details and accounts too.
He says that after the photo of Davante hugging the
cop went viral, Jen received harassing emails. These were not invented.
Slate's read them himself. Another shocking reveal there was a
new witness, a camper who says he heard the revving
(08:03):
engine of the Yukon and a cry from the bottom
of the cliff at three am, but dismissed it as
an animal sound. It's awful to think someone could have
responded sooner, but the inquest pathologist Dr. Greg Pizzarro thinks
it's unlikely anyone could have survived a fall of that magnitude.
The deaths, he says, would have been nearly instantaneous. Slate
(08:26):
says when rescue workers towed the yukon back up the cliff.
Jen's body, which had been wedged behind the steering wheel,
fell some sixty ft, which made it difficult to identify
her at first. Those details are hard to stomach, but
deep into the second day of the inquest, we got
the answer to a question that has been bugging us
for over a year. What role did Sarah Hart play
(08:49):
and all of this? Was she complicit in Jen's plan?
Slates revealed that he was able to recover Sarah's cell
phone records from right before the crash. Sarah began asking
(09:15):
Google questions such as, canis of benadryl kill pound woman?
What over the counter medications can you take to overdose?
How can I easily overdose on overcounter medications? As death
by drowning relatively painless? How long does it take to
(09:36):
die from hypothermia and water while drowning in a car?
What will happen when overdosing with benadryl. One of the
last searches that she did on her phone was while
they're traveling through Oregon, and it was a search that
she entered in and requesting Google to identify no kill
(09:57):
shelters for dogs. These questions went on for hours. Sarah
kept googling from after midnight the friday they fled until
six thirty pm the next evening, and this wasn't a hypothetical.
At the time of her death, Slates estimated Sarah Hart
had ingested forty two doses of an off brand antihistamine.
(10:20):
Both liquid and pill versions of the drug were found
in the Yukon. The family had stopped to buy the
medicine at Walmart before ever leaving Washington, so there it was.
Sarah was in on it. She wanted to die. She
wanted all of them to die too, and she wasn't
the only one with shockingly high levels of the drug
in her system. Marcus, after doing the math, would have
(10:43):
had to take in nineteen approximate nineteen point to uh
single dose units, Abigail would have had to take in
fourteen dosage units, and Jeremiah would have had to take
in eight point eight single dosage units in order for
them to get at level at that point that the
blood is drawn. Now that doesn't mean that they took
(11:04):
that number. They could have been given more, but just
at the time of the autopsies when we drew their blood,
that's what would have been in their system. Slate said
that Sarah would likely have been extremely intoxicated by the
amount of medication she had taken, and the kids would
be quote more than likely unconscious or sleeping. Jen, who
(11:25):
was driving, didn't have the drug in her system, but
had a blood alcohol content of point one oh or
about five drinks, which Slate said was especially significant. We
also know through our investigation and interviews of people that
Jennifer never drank either. Witnesses stated that they never saw
her have a drink, or they'd say occasionally they'd see
(11:46):
her maybe have a glass of wine, but never finished
that wine. Um So for a person to be at
that level of intoxication and to have never drank or
rarely ever drank, it would be extremely difficult for that
person to function. Slates testified that he didn't believe Jen
(12:10):
and Sarah knew exactly what they were going to do
when they sped out of their Washington home on Friday night,
even when Sarah was googling suicide methods on Saturday. He
didn't think they had fully committed to the plan. Here's why.
On Sunday morning, the day before their death, Jen bought
groceries it Safe Way. Remember that's where she used her
club card for discounts. That same day, she picked up
(12:32):
eight toothbrushes and deodorant at a nearby dollar tree. We've
had a bit of an internal debate here. Could this
be evidence that they still wanted to live? After all?
Who takes these precautions or buys these items when certain
death is only a few hours away. On Saturday night,
they switched off the vehicle's GPS for the first time
(12:55):
in nine years. But Slates thinks Jen and Sarah's decision
fully crystallized on Sunday as they drove up and down
the coast near Fort Bragg, in between stops at beaches
and parks a wanderer's itinerary, they stopped waffling. They drugged
the kids, Sarah numbed herself with pills, and Jen, who
(13:18):
always called the shots in the relationship, finished the job. Ultimately,
I feel that, based on Sarah and Jennifer's past history,
the pattern that we see of um, the alleged child abuse,
and confrontations that they may have received out of the community,
that this was just another case where they would run.
(13:41):
One of the final questions I would ask all my
witnesses would be based on the fact and how well
you know Sarah and Jennifer Hart. Would this be an
act that they could do? Would this beast? Would they
be the type of people that would say, if I
can't have my children, nobody can have my children. And
most of the witnesses either stated yes Jennifer would say that,
(14:04):
or yes, that would be a decision that either both
of them would make. The jury only deliberated for an hour,
the verdict was swift and unanimous. The death certificates for
Jennifer and Sarah Hart will be listed as suicide, and
the six children who perished on that day, their death certainly,
(14:27):
as a jury rule, was determined to be at the
hands of another other by accident, and their death certificates
will list homicide as a demander of death. Afterward, most
jurors quickly made their way to their cars, but one,
Tony Howard, stayed back to talk to reporters for a
few moments. I'm going to be really honest with you guys.
(14:49):
Coming up with the decision really wasn't the hard part.
Dealing with the told tragedy was the hard part. There
was some discussion, however, after some short discussions, it was
the anemous just the magnitude of all the children. Um,
that was a hard part for a lot of people.
(15:09):
It's been nearly four months since we wrapped the eighth
and final episode of Broken Hearts. Since the series launched
in December, it's been downloaded over six million times, something Liz,
Lauren and I didn't expect when we first started thinking
about this case. With the wide reach of the series,
also came comments from our listeners, many of whom experienced
the same roller coaster of emotions we did while trying
(15:31):
to better understand what happened to the Hearts. There was
positive feedback about how we viewed the story through an
empathetic lens, question how social media can distort the truth,
and how we were able to reveal the cracks and
loopholes in the interstate adoption system. There was also criticism
were we really the right people to tell the story?
Should we have brought our own experiences as mothers into it?
(15:54):
And how could we have used the word anti hero
to describe Jen and Sarah in the final episode. We've
read all the reviews and one point of clarification. Anti
hero doesn't mean a sympathetic hero. In fact, it means
the opposite, an anti hero is someone who altogether lacks
heroic qualities, and Jen and Sarah were not heroic. While
(16:16):
the details revealed at the inquest confirmed the worst of
our suspicions, we still believe that trying to see the
humanity in even the ugliest stories is the only way
to understand why people do the things they do. More
than anything, we created this podcast not to tell a
story perfectly or to solve a crime, but to try
to give a voice to six children whose own voices
(16:39):
were silenced. Their names were Marcus, Hannah, Davante, Abigail, Jeremiah,
and Sierra. Through all of our reporting, there were very
few recordings or pieces of evidence that could help us
fully understand the hell the Heart Kids endured. A few
(17:00):
weeks ago, a listener emailed us about her own experience.
She says she was one of four black siblings adopted
out of foster care by a white family across state lines,
and her story bears more than a passing resemblance to
the Hearts. She told us it was hard to listen
to this podcast because so many times she thought that
could have been me. My mother during the eighties had
(17:22):
a crack. Addition, for about twenty years and she had
eight children's totals a little blurred because I've never been
able to get a clear cut story from my adoptive mother.
Because of the sensitive nature of her story, we've chosen
not to use this listener's name. They were like the
granola eaters. If you had a blueprint, it was them.
They were vegan hindoo, tree huggers. You know, we didn't
(17:46):
have any process. Some clothes were hand me down, I mean,
wild hair, you know, like the ultimate hid the lifestyle,
and for us it was shocking because we're coming from
you know, eating long John Silber's and living in a
home with other black people. So it didn't, of course
start off to be a horrible situation because their intentions,
(18:12):
in my opinion, were good, and they have to be
because of the fact you're taking on children that you
know will have some type of attachment issues, emotional issues.
They have a slight understanding of the children that they're
bringing on, but I don't think it's a full understanding
of what they're about to take on. She says she
(18:35):
and her siblings only took instruction from an older sister.
There were trust issues, there were behavioral issues. She thinks
her adoptive mother became overwhelmed by her lack of control
over the kids. She thinks, no, she knows there are
many more children with a similar story, and she wants
them to know they're not alone. She wants to help
(18:55):
lift them out of the despair. She so acutely understands
her type of punishment wasn't necessarily that she would hit
us or beat us to start off doing that, and
realized that really wasn't effective for us, because you know,
we came from flosph Care. We used to get our
aspet all the time with self from the flospterh paars,
So you would really have to do a number in
us for us to really be moved by violence. As
(19:19):
far as punishment, she used the Star Wars show bad
that we would still from the neighbors, we would break
that to their home and raise the frigerators because we
were the mostated children on the block. Because we wouldn't
still thinks we'd break into their homes and still food
cps got involved a few times, but the warning signs,
(19:39):
and there were many warning signs, didn't sound any alarms.
People saw what they wanted to see. Nobody's coming out
to the check up on five children, so just not
it's too far out. The closest office probably would have
been a good two and a half hour drive. They
just felt like you were saying in the podcast that
what could possibly be wrong? Thank God? These white people
(20:02):
want to take care of these black children who are
visit to crack and have all these issues. Thank God,
Like you should be grateful that they've been adopted as
a sibling group. You know, she has thought long and
hard about trying to press charges, but it's complicated. So
I still have relationships with both of them. Actually have
spoke to my dad yesterday. He has a new partner,
(20:25):
and um, she's really helped him not trying to sweep
things under the rug. She has been able to kind
of give him perspective as to why his children are
so mad at him and what he's done and now
has to truly internalize that that's his burden right there there.
And with also my adoptive mother. You know, there's no
(20:46):
way she cannot sit here and think about the things
that she's done and stilly, that's also her burden. She
says she'd like to write a book about all of
this one day. She has a baby of her own
now and while it's been healing to feel that love
it all, who reminds her of what she lived through
now that I know would have felt like. And I
knew it was going to change after you know, I
have childs because everyone always told you could felt differently.
(21:08):
We have a child, and now that I do, it's like,
I don't understand how old you could even look in
the face of a child and neglects them, not feed
them or do anything. So where do we go from here?
(21:33):
There was a woman at the inquest named Mary. She
says she never knew the hearts, but the story hits
close to home. She adopted three of her four kids
out of the foster system, and those firsthand how taxing
and isolating it can be to raise children, especially multiple
children who have experienced trauma. You know, when you're going
through the process out of foster into adoption, you know
(21:54):
there are people and agencies around that can answer questions
and you know, uh provide some amount of support. But
for most families, once the adoption papers are signed, you
are pretty much on your own. And of course it's
it's after that time where a lot of the um
issues come out from you know, whatever led to those
(22:16):
kids being um taken away from the biological families, whether
it was abuse and neglect, UM, drunken alcohol issues, violence, UM,
that is all going to come out eventually, and sometimes
when the kids are younger, but very often when their teens.
And you know, if you have more than one team
going through all those issues at once, it can be
(22:40):
really extremely challenging. I told a few friends that I
was thinking of coming, and they all tried to talk
me out of it, knowing that it would be really distressing.
But UM, I don't know, really that's okay. I just
feel like I need to be witness to what happens
(23:03):
to the tragedy of their family. Mary hopes that if
anything comes from the rehashing of the grisome details of
this case, it's reform in the adoption and foster systems.
This just is not something that was just obviously happened overnight.
It's something that happened at various places over time. And UM,
(23:24):
I mean, I I don't know them, I've never you know,
met anyone from the family. But as an adoptive mom, UM,
something's going to come out of this. It shouldn't just
be about finger pointing it needs to be about what
help and support can we give other people who are
in these situations where you just feel like you don't
know where to go or who to turn to and
(23:45):
who can help and um that I mean, if we're
going to um honor them in any way that to
me would be would make the most sense. Sheriff Allman
hopes this story and the findings from the inquest will
show lawmakers how desperately we need a national database for
child abuse. After the inquest, he held a brief press conference.
(24:07):
We have a national database that reports mental illness, which
prohibits him from having guns. We have a national database
for criminal histories. We also have a national database for
gun registration. We do not have a national database for
child abuse allegations. And the fact that there were five
states involved Texas, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, California certainly should be
(24:32):
an enlightening moment for our national legislatures. I'm not going
to say that that if there we had a national
database that the Heart family would still be alive, but
certainly there would have been more of an investigation and
find out if the adoptions had been appropriate in or
if CPS should be a little bit more involved in
(24:53):
what they were and then it was all over. The
live stream shut off. It was time for Lauren to
go home. After all was said and done, Sheriff Almands
circled the parking lot, shaking journalists hands as they got
into their cars and saying goodbye to investigators. He finally
walked over to where I was sitting on a bench
and asked why I looked so despondent. I had, in
(25:16):
fact found the last bits of the puzzle shocking, just
as he had predicted, imagining just how awful those last
hours were for the kids, And when the hearing officer
read the verdict, the most closure we'd ever get in
this case, I ugly cried silently for a few seconds
before collecting myself. I didn't even want to be at
(25:39):
an inquest. I wanted to be at a trial with
someone there to actually punish, someone, to take the blame.
The Hearts is a horror story, yes, but it's more
explicitly an American horror story, one that could only happen here,
and one that was aided and abetted by the culture
in which we live. And I'm not just talking about
(26:00):
our adoption courts and CPS systems. If we believe Jennifer
Hart into a lesser extents Sarah were con women, as
friends and neighbors we've interviewed now understand them to be,
then it's worth considering this. A con woman doesn't succeed
by making up new rules for society. She succeeds by
artfully using the rules by playing on our expectations. More
(26:31):
often than not, Jen found people would trust the explanations
of a charismatic woman, and yes, a white woman, more
than her black children. Friends and neighbors noticed how robotic
and thin her kids were, but in the end they
trusted Jen more than their own eyes. She also knew
political correctness would be a shield against unwanted scrutiny. She
(26:53):
knew the power of a strong narrative on social media.
She knew how much people, mostly white people, wanted to
believe images of racial reconciliation, whether it was fawning over Davonte,
hugging that cop, or liking Facebook images of their rainbow family.
(27:16):
When I say that Gen was good, she was good.
They were one of my early role models for what
like a non traditional family could look like. Everyone was
very envious of them because of how they could pull
this off, how they can raise the six quote unquote
developmentally the late children. There's no part of me and
all of my looking back and that's capable of seeing that.
(27:38):
It was just as sure. We assume that people who
are abusive are abusive both in their private lives but
also in their public lives, and we know this now
not to be true. Oh God, looking back on it,
it doesn't look like they were normal kids. They didn't
really have friends. We thought they were almost sage. They
(27:59):
were wow, so we thought they had to be in kindergarten.
The kids are skinny, well, we just got there any
organic food. When I realized that she wasn't on school, mom,
I'm like, there's no way in hell those kids are learning.
It's impossible. With the amount of time she was devoting
to us, to our game, that was an issue for her,
(28:21):
you know, being uh, well gay, I guess so I
just thought, you know, I don't want her to think
that I'm being judgmental. I just want to be a
good neighbor, like son laws, like most people, they don't
want to get involved. I feel so guilty for not realizing,
you know that these were red and flags and it
(28:41):
was just like, oh god, I totally bought into it. Absolutely.
I think race is playing a part. These kids are
being used as a prop. These white ladies came in
and saved these six black children. Nice work, he saved him.
You know that was the narrative always, which is just man,
young parents do operate this way. You know, look what
(29:03):
we did. We're symbols of racial harmony, and our kids
are evidence of that. We love those kids so much,
and it's sort of heartbreaking the fact that that would
be utilized as a way to mass some of the
abuse and neglect that was happening. It's just us just disturbing,
(29:25):
and too many people bought it. Jenn and Sarahart got
away with what they did because there were green lights
where there should have been read ones. They weren't criminal masterminds,
they just weren't stopped. Kids love too. Yeah. Broken Hearts
(29:53):
is a production of I Heart Radio and Glamour. If
you suspect a child as being abused, call one eight
hundred for a child that's one eight hundred numeral four
a C H I L D. Or visit child help
dot org to find out how to report your concerns.
(30:14):
For access to exclusive photos and videos and documents about
the case. Visit Glamour dot com slash Broken Hearts. Have
questions for us about this podcast, reach us on Twitter
at Glamour mag or at Broken Hearts Pod. If you
like what you heard, leave us a review. Broken Hearts
is a joint production between Glamour and How Stuff Works,
(30:37):
with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Hearts is co
hosted and co written by Justine Harman and Elizabeth Egan
and edited by Wendy Nogal. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter.
Samantha Barry is Glamour's editor in chief. Julie Sheen and
Dianna Buckman head up the business side of this partnership.
(30:58):
Joyce Pandola, Pat Saying and Luke Zeleski are a research team.
Jason Hoke is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works,
along with producers Julian Weller, ben Kiebrick and Josh Stain.
Special thanks to Jen Lance. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(31:19):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Back in January, a few weeks after Hannah Heart's remains
were identified, our field reporter Lawrence Smiley reconnected with Sheriff
Tom Allman about the upcoming coroner's inquest. Lauren, good morning,
Tom Allman from Medin. You'll remember Sheriff Allman. He's been
on the Heart case since the crash and hasn't wavered
on his conviction that it was an intentional act. He
(00:21):
was the one who told us that the proceedings of
the two day hearing would give evidence that will shock
the consciousness of people who are following his case. Sheriff
Allman is jovial and good natured. He's allowed talker and
sometimes wears a Sheriff's star pinned to the lapel of
his navy suit. He's been known to give exploding fist bumps.
(00:43):
One gets the sense that not only does Tom Allman
love his job, he loves the nature of the work,
the responsibility, the respect, the attention to detail, and the intrigue.
If there was ever someone whose job it is to
drum up interest in something as morose sounding as a
coroner's inquest, it's him. When I left the meeting hearing,
(01:04):
some of it I just walked out of the room
and said, oh my god. He thought live streaming the
event would be helpful for everyone at home with questions.
Remember what the whole purpose of the quarters in question was.
All purpose is to answer two questions about eight people,
(01:26):
the manner and cause of death. That's it. The first
new development in some time came last month, when a
California Superior Court judge officially pronounced Davante dead. Even though
his body hasn't been found. His whereabouts have remained a
huge point of contention for many people who have been
(01:47):
following the case closely. But the court filing from the
Sheriff's department reads, it is more probable than not that
Davante Hart is deceased and died along with his siblings
and parents in the vehicle crash. Almond says he is
closing DeVante's case with an asterisk. I'm certainly aware of
(02:08):
a contingent of citizens who have a belief that DeVante
was not in the car. To those and to all,
the Sheriff's Office would certainly welcome any information that would
prove our belief incorrect. It is our opinion and the
jury's opinion, that he lived with his family, and unfortunately
(02:32):
he perished with his family, and the inquest made it
clear that Jenn and Sarah made a deliberate decision to
drive off that cliff. They planned it, they worked together.
It was not a spur of the moment act. But
as Almond points out, for those of us seeking a
tidy explanation as to why that will never come. There's
(02:54):
one question that nobody will ever answer, and that's why
we can tell you what we can tell you almost
when we can tell you certainly where we can tell
you who. But as a as an adult whose brother
(03:15):
committed suicide many years ago, I've learned that sometimes the
question why I can never be answered, and we can
give people the reason that they can find their own
answer and say, well, I believe it happened because of
an infilling players, but there's not going to be any
(03:36):
black and white answer to why. From Glamour and I
Heart Radio, this is Broken Hearts one year later, I'm
Justine Harmon and I'm Liz Egan. Last week, Lauren returned
(04:01):
to Mendocino County to attend the coroner's inquest. Over the
course of two days, witnesses ranging from first responders to
detectives sat at a wooden desk and shared the brutal
facts of the investigation. Behind them was a whiteboard on
which assistants taped diagrams of the site and photos of
the family. It was especially hard to look at the
(04:23):
smiling faces of the Heart kids as the experts relayed
the grotesque details of what their little bodies endured before
and after the fall. An inquest seats a jury. This
one had fourteen jurors, but it isn't the same as
a criminal trial. During an inquest, witnesses speak straight to
a hearing officer. There are no objections or interruptions. During
(04:46):
recesses in the courtroom, Lauren was able to grab a
cup of coffee or check in with us back in
New York. On the live stream, those brakes were filled
with a stock video of a babbling brook. It's a
civilized affair, almost amusingly civilized, a at the least civilized
thing you can imagine. Here's Lauren. I've been to will
It's once before. Back in November, I drove through on
(05:08):
my way to the Heart crash site. Ominous smog hung
about the town. The first sign of the Paradise fire
that covered northern California in Hayes for a week. The
Justice Center is a cream colored stucco building that used
to function as a bustling courtroom but now serves as
the police station. As Tom Alman explained it to me, well,
it's a small town of five thousand people. We are
(05:30):
in a courtroom that hasn't been used for over twelve
years because the the Supere Court of the state closed
this courtroom officially. So this is not actually a courtroom.
We're in a justice center. Literally, it has not been
used for twelve years. And so we came in here
a couple of weeks ago and we looked at it,
and we changed the battery of the clock, and we
put up a new calendar, and it's ready to go.
(05:52):
The court room fits an audience of approximately fifty, but
nearly half the seats are empty. No family members, adoptive
or biological, are in attendance. The Hearts neighbor Danta de
cal told me she'd be watching from home. The inquest
is conducted by Matthew Guichard, a white haired attorney with
nearly four decades of law experience. B sharts diligent and
(06:14):
soothing manner kept things on track. He typically oversees in
quests back in the Bay Area for death that directly
involved law enforcement, like a police shooting or an inmate
dying in custody. He's done more than a hundred of
these before it all begins. I have questions, big ones.
I want to know what investigators heard from their friends
(06:34):
and family members who declined to speak with me on
the record. I want to know at what point, after
fleeing from CPS, Jens, Sarah or both of them together
finalize their plan. I want to know whether the kids
had antihistamines in their system to treat allergies, or if
their moms gave it to them to lull them to sleep.
I want to know where Jen got the alcohol that
(06:56):
was in her system. Did she stop somewhere on the
side off of high Way One or did she bring
it with her knowing she might need it for what
was to come later. Call it closure, even obsession. I
want absolute clarity about what happened in those final days.
And I thought I'd just tell the jury how we're
going to proceed today and for the record, I'm going
(07:18):
to initially call some of the first responders, and I
mentioned the name The inquest is a step by step
presentation of the forensic evidence collected over the course of
the past year. Evidence the California Highway Patrol says took
tens of thousands of hours to compile. The key testimony
comes from HP officer Jake Slates. Much of what Slate's
(07:41):
disclosed on the stand is familiar territory for listeners of
this podcast, but there are new details and accounts too.
He says that after the photo of Davante hugging the
cop went viral, Jen received harassing emails. These were not invented.
Slate's read them himself. Another shocking reveal there was a
new witness, a camper who says he heard the revving
(08:03):
engine of the Yukon and a cry from the bottom
of the cliff at three am, but dismissed it as
an animal sound. It's awful to think someone could have
responded sooner, but the inquest pathologist Dr. Greg Pizzarro thinks
it's unlikely anyone could have survived a fall of that magnitude.
The deaths, he says, would have been nearly instantaneous. Slate
(08:26):
says when rescue workers towed the yukon back up the cliff.
Jen's body, which had been wedged behind the steering wheel,
fell some sixty ft, which made it difficult to identify
her at first. Those details are hard to stomach, but
deep into the second day of the inquest, we got
the answer to a question that has been bugging us
for over a year. What role did Sarah Hart play
(08:49):
and all of this? Was she complicit in Jen's plan?
Slates revealed that he was able to recover Sarah's cell
phone records from right before the crash. Sarah began asking
(09:15):
Google questions such as, canis of benadryl kill pound woman?
What over the counter medications can you take to overdose?
How can I easily overdose on overcounter medications? As death
by drowning relatively painless? How long does it take to
(09:36):
die from hypothermia and water while drowning in a car?
What will happen when overdosing with benadryl. One of the
last searches that she did on her phone was while
they're traveling through Oregon, and it was a search that
she entered in and requesting Google to identify no kill
(09:57):
shelters for dogs. These questions went on for hours. Sarah
kept googling from after midnight the friday they fled until
six thirty pm the next evening, and this wasn't a hypothetical.
At the time of her death, Slates estimated Sarah Hart
had ingested forty two doses of an off brand antihistamine.
(10:20):
Both liquid and pill versions of the drug were found
in the Yukon. The family had stopped to buy the
medicine at Walmart before ever leaving Washington, so there it was.
Sarah was in on it. She wanted to die. She
wanted all of them to die too, and she wasn't
the only one with shockingly high levels of the drug
in her system. Marcus, after doing the math, would have
(10:43):
had to take in nineteen approximate nineteen point to uh
single dose units, Abigail would have had to take in
fourteen dosage units, and Jeremiah would have had to take
in eight point eight single dosage units in order for
them to get at level at that point that the
blood is drawn. Now that doesn't mean that they took
(11:04):
that number. They could have been given more, but just
at the time of the autopsies when we drew their blood,
that's what would have been in their system. Slate said
that Sarah would likely have been extremely intoxicated by the
amount of medication she had taken, and the kids would
be quote more than likely unconscious or sleeping. Jen, who
(11:25):
was driving, didn't have the drug in her system, but
had a blood alcohol content of point one oh or
about five drinks, which Slate said was especially significant. We
also know through our investigation and interviews of people that
Jennifer never drank either. Witnesses stated that they never saw
her have a drink, or they'd say occasionally they'd see
(11:46):
her maybe have a glass of wine, but never finished
that wine. Um So for a person to be at
that level of intoxication and to have never drank or
rarely ever drank, it would be extremely difficult for that
person to function. Slates testified that he didn't believe Jen
(12:10):
and Sarah knew exactly what they were going to do
when they sped out of their Washington home on Friday night,
even when Sarah was googling suicide methods on Saturday. He
didn't think they had fully committed to the plan. Here's why.
On Sunday morning, the day before their death, Jen bought
groceries it Safe Way. Remember that's where she used her
club card for discounts. That same day, she picked up
(12:32):
eight toothbrushes and deodorant at a nearby dollar tree. We've
had a bit of an internal debate here. Could this
be evidence that they still wanted to live? After all?
Who takes these precautions or buys these items when certain
death is only a few hours away. On Saturday night,
they switched off the vehicle's GPS for the first time
(12:55):
in nine years. But Slates thinks Jen and Sarah's decision
fully crystallized on Sunday as they drove up and down
the coast near Fort Bragg, in between stops at beaches
and parks a wanderer's itinerary, they stopped waffling. They drugged
the kids, Sarah numbed herself with pills, and Jen, who
(13:18):
always called the shots in the relationship, finished the job. Ultimately,
I feel that, based on Sarah and Jennifer's past history,
the pattern that we see of um, the alleged child abuse,
and confrontations that they may have received out of the community,
that this was just another case where they would run.
(13:41):
One of the final questions I would ask all my
witnesses would be based on the fact and how well
you know Sarah and Jennifer Hart. Would this be an
act that they could do? Would this beast? Would they
be the type of people that would say, if I
can't have my children, nobody can have my children. And
most of the witnesses either stated yes Jennifer would say that,
(14:04):
or yes, that would be a decision that either both
of them would make. The jury only deliberated for an hour,
the verdict was swift and unanimous. The death certificates for
Jennifer and Sarah Hart will be listed as suicide, and
the six children who perished on that day, their death certainly,
(14:27):
as a jury rule, was determined to be at the
hands of another other by accident, and their death certificates
will list homicide as a demander of death. Afterward, most
jurors quickly made their way to their cars, but one,
Tony Howard, stayed back to talk to reporters for a
few moments. I'm going to be really honest with you guys.
(14:49):
Coming up with the decision really wasn't the hard part.
Dealing with the told tragedy was the hard part. There
was some discussion, however, after some short discussions, it was
the anemous just the magnitude of all the children. Um,
that was a hard part for a lot of people.
(15:09):
It's been nearly four months since we wrapped the eighth
and final episode of Broken Hearts. Since the series launched
in December, it's been downloaded over six million times, something Liz,
Lauren and I didn't expect when we first started thinking
about this case. With the wide reach of the series,
also came comments from our listeners, many of whom experienced
the same roller coaster of emotions we did while trying
(15:31):
to better understand what happened to the Hearts. There was
positive feedback about how we viewed the story through an
empathetic lens, question how social media can distort the truth,
and how we were able to reveal the cracks and
loopholes in the interstate adoption system. There was also criticism
were we really the right people to tell the story?
Should we have brought our own experiences as mothers into it?
(15:54):
And how could we have used the word anti hero
to describe Jen and Sarah in the final episode. We've
read all the reviews and one point of clarification. Anti
hero doesn't mean a sympathetic hero. In fact, it means
the opposite, an anti hero is someone who altogether lacks
heroic qualities, and Jen and Sarah were not heroic. While
(16:16):
the details revealed at the inquest confirmed the worst of
our suspicions, we still believe that trying to see the
humanity in even the ugliest stories is the only way
to understand why people do the things they do. More
than anything, we created this podcast not to tell a
story perfectly or to solve a crime, but to try
to give a voice to six children whose own voices
(16:39):
were silenced. Their names were Marcus, Hannah, Davante, Abigail, Jeremiah,
and Sierra. Through all of our reporting, there were very
few recordings or pieces of evidence that could help us
fully understand the hell the Heart Kids endured. A few
(17:00):
weeks ago, a listener emailed us about her own experience.
She says she was one of four black siblings adopted
out of foster care by a white family across state lines,
and her story bears more than a passing resemblance to
the Hearts. She told us it was hard to listen
to this podcast because so many times she thought that
could have been me. My mother during the eighties had
(17:22):
a crack. Addition, for about twenty years and she had
eight children's totals a little blurred because I've never been
able to get a clear cut story from my adoptive mother.
Because of the sensitive nature of her story, we've chosen
not to use this listener's name. They were like the
granola eaters. If you had a blueprint, it was them.
They were vegan hindoo, tree huggers. You know, we didn't
(17:46):
have any process. Some clothes were hand me down, I mean,
wild hair, you know, like the ultimate hid the lifestyle,
and for us it was shocking because we're coming from
you know, eating long John Silber's and living in a
home with other black people. So it didn't, of course
start off to be a horrible situation because their intentions,
(18:12):
in my opinion, were good, and they have to be
because of the fact you're taking on children that you
know will have some type of attachment issues, emotional issues.
They have a slight understanding of the children that they're
bringing on, but I don't think it's a full understanding
of what they're about to take on. She says she
(18:35):
and her siblings only took instruction from an older sister.
There were trust issues, there were behavioral issues. She thinks
her adoptive mother became overwhelmed by her lack of control
over the kids. She thinks, no, she knows there are
many more children with a similar story, and she wants
them to know they're not alone. She wants to help
(18:55):
lift them out of the despair. She so acutely understands
her type of punishment wasn't necessarily that she would hit
us or beat us to start off doing that, and
realized that really wasn't effective for us, because you know,
we came from flosph Care. We used to get our
aspet all the time with self from the flospterh paars,
So you would really have to do a number in
us for us to really be moved by violence. As
(19:19):
far as punishment, she used the Star Wars show bad
that we would still from the neighbors, we would break
that to their home and raise the frigerators because we
were the mostated children on the block. Because we wouldn't
still thinks we'd break into their homes and still food
cps got involved a few times, but the warning signs,
(19:39):
and there were many warning signs, didn't sound any alarms.
People saw what they wanted to see. Nobody's coming out
to the check up on five children, so just not
it's too far out. The closest office probably would have
been a good two and a half hour drive. They
just felt like you were saying in the podcast that
what could possibly be wrong? Thank God? These white people
(20:02):
want to take care of these black children who are
visit to crack and have all these issues. Thank God,
Like you should be grateful that they've been adopted as
a sibling group. You know, she has thought long and
hard about trying to press charges, but it's complicated. So
I still have relationships with both of them. Actually have
spoke to my dad yesterday. He has a new partner,
(20:25):
and um, she's really helped him not trying to sweep
things under the rug. She has been able to kind
of give him perspective as to why his children are
so mad at him and what he's done and now
has to truly internalize that that's his burden right there there.
And with also my adoptive mother. You know, there's no
(20:46):
way she cannot sit here and think about the things
that she's done and stilly, that's also her burden. She
says she'd like to write a book about all of
this one day. She has a baby of her own
now and while it's been healing to feel that love
it all, who reminds her of what she lived through
now that I know would have felt like. And I
knew it was going to change after you know, I
have childs because everyone always told you could felt differently.
(21:08):
We have a child, and now that I do, it's like,
I don't understand how old you could even look in
the face of a child and neglects them, not feed
them or do anything. So where do we go from here?
(21:33):
There was a woman at the inquest named Mary. She
says she never knew the hearts, but the story hits
close to home. She adopted three of her four kids
out of the foster system, and those firsthand how taxing
and isolating it can be to raise children, especially multiple
children who have experienced trauma. You know, when you're going
through the process out of foster into adoption, you know
(21:54):
there are people and agencies around that can answer questions
and you know, uh provide some amount of support. But
for most families, once the adoption papers are signed, you
are pretty much on your own. And of course it's
it's after that time where a lot of the um
issues come out from you know, whatever led to those
(22:16):
kids being um taken away from the biological families, whether
it was abuse and neglect, UM, drunken alcohol issues, violence, UM,
that is all going to come out eventually, and sometimes
when the kids are younger, but very often when their teens.
And you know, if you have more than one team
going through all those issues at once, it can be
(22:40):
really extremely challenging. I told a few friends that I
was thinking of coming, and they all tried to talk
me out of it, knowing that it would be really distressing.
But UM, I don't know, really that's okay. I just
feel like I need to be witness to what happens
(23:03):
to the tragedy of their family. Mary hopes that if
anything comes from the rehashing of the grisome details of
this case, it's reform in the adoption and foster systems.
This just is not something that was just obviously happened overnight.
It's something that happened at various places over time. And UM,
(23:24):
I mean, I I don't know them, I've never you know,
met anyone from the family. But as an adoptive mom, UM,
something's going to come out of this. It shouldn't just
be about finger pointing it needs to be about what
help and support can we give other people who are
in these situations where you just feel like you don't
know where to go or who to turn to and
(23:45):
who can help and um that I mean, if we're
going to um honor them in any way that to
me would be would make the most sense. Sheriff Allman
hopes this story and the findings from the inquest will
show lawmakers how desperately we need a national database for
child abuse. After the inquest, he held a brief press conference.
(24:07):
We have a national database that reports mental illness, which
prohibits him from having guns. We have a national database
for criminal histories. We also have a national database for
gun registration. We do not have a national database for
child abuse allegations. And the fact that there were five
states involved Texas, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, California certainly should be
(24:32):
an enlightening moment for our national legislatures. I'm not going
to say that that if there we had a national
database that the Heart family would still be alive, but
certainly there would have been more of an investigation and
find out if the adoptions had been appropriate in or
if CPS should be a little bit more involved in
(24:53):
what they were and then it was all over. The
live stream shut off. It was time for Lauren to
go home. After all was said and done, Sheriff Almands
circled the parking lot, shaking journalists hands as they got
into their cars and saying goodbye to investigators. He finally
walked over to where I was sitting on a bench
and asked why I looked so despondent. I had, in
(25:16):
fact found the last bits of the puzzle shocking, just
as he had predicted, imagining just how awful those last
hours were for the kids, And when the hearing officer
read the verdict, the most closure we'd ever get in
this case, I ugly cried silently for a few seconds
before collecting myself. I didn't even want to be at
(25:39):
an inquest. I wanted to be at a trial with
someone there to actually punish, someone, to take the blame.
The Hearts is a horror story, yes, but it's more
explicitly an American horror story, one that could only happen here,
and one that was aided and abetted by the culture
in which we live. And I'm not just talking about
(26:00):
our adoption courts and CPS systems. If we believe Jennifer
Hart into a lesser extents Sarah were con women, as
friends and neighbors we've interviewed now understand them to be,
then it's worth considering this. A con woman doesn't succeed
by making up new rules for society. She succeeds by
artfully using the rules by playing on our expectations. More
(26:31):
often than not, Jen found people would trust the explanations
of a charismatic woman, and yes, a white woman, more
than her black children. Friends and neighbors noticed how robotic
and thin her kids were, but in the end they
trusted Jen more than their own eyes. She also knew
political correctness would be a shield against unwanted scrutiny. She
(26:53):
knew the power of a strong narrative on social media.
She knew how much people, mostly white people, wanted to
believe images of racial reconciliation, whether it was fawning over Davonte,
hugging that cop, or liking Facebook images of their rainbow family.
(27:16):
When I say that Gen was good, she was good.
They were one of my early role models for what
like a non traditional family could look like. Everyone was
very envious of them because of how they could pull
this off, how they can raise the six quote unquote
developmentally the late children. There's no part of me and
all of my looking back and that's capable of seeing that.
(27:38):
It was just as sure. We assume that people who
are abusive are abusive both in their private lives but
also in their public lives, and we know this now
not to be true. Oh God, looking back on it,
it doesn't look like they were normal kids. They didn't
really have friends. We thought they were almost sage. They
(27:59):
were wow, so we thought they had to be in kindergarten.
The kids are skinny, well, we just got there any
organic food. When I realized that she wasn't on school, mom,
I'm like, there's no way in hell those kids are learning.
It's impossible. With the amount of time she was devoting
to us, to our game, that was an issue for her,
(28:21):
you know, being uh, well gay, I guess so I
just thought, you know, I don't want her to think
that I'm being judgmental. I just want to be a
good neighbor, like son laws, like most people, they don't
want to get involved. I feel so guilty for not realizing,
you know that these were red and flags and it
(28:41):
was just like, oh god, I totally bought into it. Absolutely.
I think race is playing a part. These kids are
being used as a prop. These white ladies came in
and saved these six black children. Nice work, he saved him.
You know that was the narrative always, which is just man,
young parents do operate this way. You know, look what
(29:03):
we did. We're symbols of racial harmony, and our kids
are evidence of that. We love those kids so much,
and it's sort of heartbreaking the fact that that would
be utilized as a way to mass some of the
abuse and neglect that was happening. It's just us just disturbing,
(29:25):
and too many people bought it. Jenn and Sarahart got
away with what they did because there were green lights
where there should have been read ones. They weren't criminal masterminds,
they just weren't stopped. Kids love too. Yeah. Broken Hearts
(29:53):
is a production of I Heart Radio and Glamour. If
you suspect a child as being abused, call one eight
hundred for a child that's one eight hundred numeral four
a C H I L D. Or visit child help
dot org to find out how to report your concerns.
(30:14):
For access to exclusive photos and videos and documents about
the case. Visit Glamour dot com slash Broken Hearts. Have
questions for us about this podcast, reach us on Twitter
at Glamour mag or at Broken Hearts Pod. If you
like what you heard, leave us a review. Broken Hearts
is a joint production between Glamour and How Stuff Works,
(30:37):
with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Hearts is co
hosted and co written by Justine Harman and Elizabeth Egan
and edited by Wendy Nogal. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter.
Samantha Barry is Glamour's editor in chief. Julie Sheen and
Dianna Buckman head up the business side of this partnership.
(30:58):
Joyce Pandola, Pat Saying and Luke Zeleski are a research team.
Jason Hoke is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works,
along with producers Julian Weller, ben Kiebrick and Josh Stain.
Special thanks to Jen Lance. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(31:19):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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