Authorities had long believed that Sarah Hart and her wife, Jennifer Hart, had purposely driven their SUV over a Northern California cliff with their six children in the car, days after learning they were under investigation by child welfare officials. The special coroner’s jury — which was empaneled to determine manner of death and not criminality — reached a unanimous decision in about an hour of deliberation after hearing chilling details over two days of testimony.
Investigators found Sarah Hart had recently performed internet searches about suicide, Benadryl dosages and whether drowning was painful, according to The Associated Press. Sarah Hart had 42 doses of generic Benadryl in her system, an investigator testified, while Jennifer Hart, the driver, had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.102 percent when she drove the car off the cliff. In California, it is illegal for drivers to have a level of 0.08 percent or higher.
An investigator said the driver deliberately stepped on the gas.
“They both decided that this was going to be the end,” said Jake Slates, a California Highway Patrol investigator, according to The Associated Press. “That if they can’t have their kids that nobody was going to have those kids.”
Authorities have discovered the remains of five of the children: Markis, 19; Hannah, 16; Jeremiah, 14; Abigail, 14; and Ciera, 12. A sixth child, Devonte, 15, is still considered missing but is presumed dead.
Such juries are highly unusual; it was the first one in Mendocino County in 52 years, said Thomas Allman, the county sheriff and coroner. Since the parents were dead and would not face criminal charges, the proceedings allowed more facts to come out in testimony, he said. Criminal charges cannot be brought against dead people, so the jury was assigned to determine cause rather than guilt.
Years before the crash, the family gained international notoriety from a widely shared photo of Devonte, who is black, hugging a white police sergeant during a 2014 demonstration in Portland, Oregon. Photos and videos portrayed a happy family, including a YouTube video in which four of the children sing “we are so provided for.”
But investigative documents showed the parents had been accused of abuse several times. In 2010, Minnesota’s child welfare agency received six reports of abuse or neglect, two of which were deemed to be founded; Sarah Hart admitted to physically harming Abigail and was convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault.
The family moved to West Linn, Oregon, where an anonymous person reported to officials that the children appeared malnourished. Investigators spoke to women who knew the family and said the parents harshly imposed discipline on the children, but officials said they could not identify a “safety threat.”
In 2017, after the family had moved to Woodland, Washington, neighbors said that one of the children, Hannah, rang their doorbell at 1:30 a.m., asking them to take her to Seattle. She was missing two teeth, appeared very thin and said she had jumped out of a second-story window to escape. Hannah hid in a bedroom when her parents arrived minutes later, but eventually went home.
In March 2018, Devonte began going to the neighbors’ home to ask for food, saying his parents withheld food as punishment. The neighbors contacted Washington state’s child welfare agency March 23, three days before the crash.
Later on March 23, a child welfare official knocked on the front door of the Harts’ home. There was no answer.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.