2:03

This book is about grief. It's

2:06

about loss and it's

2:08

about what parents we

2:11

consider good parents

2:14

and which parents we

2:16

give chances to.

2:24

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction

2:27

author and journalism professor in Austin,

2:29

Texas. I'm also the host of the historical

2:31

true crime podcast, Tenfold More Wicked,

2:34

and the co-host of the podcast Buried

2:36

Bones on Exactly Right. I've

2:38

traveled around the world interviewing people

2:41

for the show, and they are all excellent

2:43

writers. They've had so many great true

2:45

crime stories, and now we want to tell

2:47

you those stories with details that

2:49

have never been published. Tenfold More

2:52

Wicked presents Wicked Words is

2:54

about the choices that writers make good

2:56

and bad. It's a deep dive into

2:58

the stories behind the stories.

3:03

Most of you have probably heard the story of the Hart

3:05

family, the couple that drove a car

3:07

off a cliff with all of their adopted

3:10

children inside. Our guest,

3:12

Roxanna Asgarian, unfolds the

3:14

story with details that we've never

3:16

heard before, including an investigation

3:19

into the child welfare system. I'll

3:21

warn you that much of this is difficult

3:24

to hear. Well,

3:27

why don't we start with the story of the birth families,

3:29

how these kids, these six kids, ended up

3:31

with these two women, and how potentially

3:34

these two women ended up in the state they were

3:36

in when they made this terrible

3:37

decision. So let's start with the families.

3:39

So there's two birth

3:41

families, the first birth family that

3:44

I encountered where the Davis is, and

3:47

that's the birth family of Devontae,

3:49

Jeremiah, and Sierra. And

3:51

so they were actually the second group of kids

3:54

that were adopted, but I

3:55

started with them because we were all living in Houston.

3:59

So the kids...

5:18

And

6:00

he ended up getting sent to a

6:02

residential treatment center, which is sort

6:05

of like an institutional setting for

6:07

mostly foster youth. So he was split

6:10

from his siblings at that time. Kind of the

6:12

frustrating thing about this story is

6:14

that Sherry terminated her rights

6:17

voluntarily because she was told

6:19

that she needed to do that in order for Priscilla

6:21

to adopt the kids, because you can't

6:23

adopt kids when they have legal parents

6:25

already. So these four kids go into

6:27

foster care. Well, one of them goes into

6:30

a residential facility, but the other three kids

6:32

go into foster care. What is their

6:35

journey to where they eventually land

6:37

with the HARTs? So Texas

6:39

has a website that you can look

6:42

at. It's called the Texas Adoption Resource

6:44

Exchange, and you can essentially

6:47

shop for kids that you would like to adopt using

6:50

that website. So Jennifer and

6:52

Sarah Hart, who are a white

6:55

married couple who both were

6:57

from South Dakota, but at this time were living

6:59

in Minnesota. They were looking

7:01

at the Texas Adoption Resource

7:04

Exchange, which they called HAIR, and

7:06

they stumbled on Devontae

7:08

and Jeremiah and Sierra. And they had used this

7:10

website two years earlier when they adopted

7:13

their first set of three children, also

7:15

from Texas. So by that point, they'd

7:18

already been through the process once. It went really

7:20

quickly. Kids have to live in pre-adoptive

7:22

homes for at least six months before

7:25

you can initiate adoption. And

7:28

they had lived with their aunt Priscilla for five

7:30

and a half months. She was attempting

7:32

to adopt them, even though they got removed. She

7:35

had hired an attorney. She got

7:37

denied, and then she appealed that decision. But

7:39

before that appeal went through in the

7:42

courts, the kids were already adopted by

7:44

the HARTs. I'm surprised

7:47

that they did not give preferential

7:49

treatment to a family member, but I guess

7:51

she had a mark against her for leaving

7:54

the kids with their birth mother, who

7:56

had no rights and who obviously had

7:58

some problems to begin with. Is that the thinking?

8:01

Why would they not hold to

8:03

see what Priscilla was going to do? Yeah.

8:06

So I actually spoke to another judge who wasn't

8:08

involved in this case, but he was a judge for

8:10

these types of cases in Harris County. And he

8:12

said that was actually not the way

8:14

that it should have gone. If her appeal would

8:17

have gone through, then the adoption

8:19

would have been void. It felt pretty

8:21

rushed. It was basically at the exact time

8:24

when it could happen, it happened, despite

8:26

the fact that there were family members. And despite

8:28

that, there is a federal mandate

8:30

that family members must be given

8:33

preference for placement of kids

8:35

who are involved with CPS. That

8:37

is there for a reason. And that's because there's

8:40

plenty of research that shows that

8:42

kids do best with their families. They

8:44

do best with their parents. And when they can't be with

8:47

their parents, they do best in family

8:49

homes. And we understand

8:51

this across the child welfare system. But

8:53

I think in the case of the Davis

8:56

family, it became clear that to

8:58

me that sometimes the preference

9:00

is more theoretical than it is

9:02

actual. So will you educate

9:05

me a little bit on in time

9:07

where we are and what is

9:09

the view of a same-sex

9:11

couple adopting kids? Because

9:14

I just assumed it was not going to be that easy,

9:16

particularly in a state like Texas. Yeah,

9:18

that's a good question. And it's an interesting

9:21

wrinkle in the case, I think. I started

9:23

looking into the judges in Harris

9:25

County, and there's a whole history of corruption

9:28

and racism. And there are

9:30

actually instances of not

9:33

the judge in this case, but a judge next door

9:35

being very vocally anti-LGBT

9:38

for adoptive parents. So

9:40

I think that that is true, that

9:43

it kind of depends on the judge. The

9:45

judge in the Davis family's case was

9:47

really super interested

9:50

in speed, in clearing out

9:52

the docket, so to speak. In

9:54

his mind, and I spoke to him actually about

9:57

this case, and he said, there are kids that

9:59

languish in Follies. foster care, which is true, especially

10:02

sibling groups, because they are

10:04

hard to place multiple kids. And

10:06

he said, Minnesota has been great for

10:09

like providing people who want to adopt essentially.

10:12

And again, because they had already adopted three

10:15

kids from Texas, they kind of knew

10:17

the process. I will say that

10:19

at the time that the Davis kids were

10:22

adopted, there had already been an allegation

10:24

of abuse against Jennifer and Sarah

10:26

Hart regarding the three children that were

10:28

already adopted. Were they in Minnesota

10:31

during that accusation? Or were they in Oregon at that

10:33

point? They were in Minnesota. And

10:35

that either got totally missed by

10:38

Texas, which it kind of looks like it did.

10:40

I have some records. So I have their actual adoption

10:43

paperwork. And I also have

10:45

the foster care case file of Dante,

10:47

the oldest, all of the removal stuff

10:49

that was happening is in that file as

10:52

well, because they kind of grouped the file by

10:54

birth mom. So this judge

10:56

is moving through his docket quickly. Are

10:59

we also thinking that he's looking at

11:01

these three black children and thinking they

11:03

are better off with a white family?

11:06

I think that the facts of this case

11:08

make that pretty clear. The officials that

11:11

were involved assumed that the

11:13

white women were a better home for

11:15

the

11:15

kids. There's a couple ways that that

11:17

becomes clear. Like in Priscilla, the ants

11:20

appealed that got denied. The court

11:22

said, why should she have another bite

11:24

at the proverbial apple? They

11:27

were saying, no, you can't adopt these kids. And

11:29

they're going to be a little mean to you about

11:31

it too. But on the other side,

11:34

the abuse allegations

11:36

sort of just went by. I mean, there

11:38

was no charge,

11:40

like criminal charge yet at that point.

11:43

A criminal charge did happen later. But

11:45

it felt very clear that Texas thought,

11:48

okay, this is the best place that these kids

11:50

can end up. And after that, just

11:52

kind of wiped their hands and never really

11:54

checked. Although they did continue

11:57

to pay monthly payments per child

11:59

to the heart. women until their

12:01

murder. Will you tell

12:03

me about the first family and those kids

12:06

before we sort of get into Sarah and

12:08

Jennifer and what they were like? Sure.

12:11

So as I was reporting this story, nobody

12:13

knew who the family of Marcus and

12:15

Hannah and Abigail was. And

12:18

that was partly because Texas refused

12:21

to disclose that information

12:23

even to the

12:23

police

12:25

who were investigating the murders.

12:27

Which is, I would say, an unusual level

12:29

of confidentiality given the

12:32

specifics of the case. So it was

12:34

six months after the crash when I

12:37

noticed a family name for

12:39

Marcus in a big passable of records

12:41

at the sheriff's department in Washington, which

12:43

was the last place that the family lived, released

12:46

to the public. I guess it's important to

12:48

note that the police did have these files

12:51

as well. I just looked up the name

12:53

on Facebook. I knew they came from the

12:55

Corpus Christi area. And

12:57

I ended up reaching out to their grandmother.

13:01

And it became clear almost immediately

13:03

that she did not know what

13:05

had happened to the children. So

13:08

I ended up telling her that, which was

13:10

really awful because it had been six months.

13:12

It was a huge, natural story, as you remember.

13:15

So that means, you know, millions of people heard

13:17

this awful news before

13:19

the family was told. I

13:21

got to know Tammy, who's the birth mom of Marcus

13:24

and Hannah and Abigail, and her story,

13:26

which involves experiencing childhood

13:29

sexual abuse at a really young age and having

13:31

resulted mental health struggles. So

13:33

she spent time in like a state

13:35

mental hospital as a child. She

13:38

was experiencing homelessness and

13:40

housing instability. When she

13:42

had Marcus, who's the oldest, Marcus

13:45

was being raised mostly by Tammy's

13:47

grandparents. So his great grandparents.

13:50

But ultimately, the reason they were removed from

13:52

Tammy was Hannah got really

13:55

sick and needed to go to the hospital. And

13:58

Tammy didn't trust the hospital in Columbia. this

14:00

Texas where they were living and she wanted to go

14:02

to Houston, but she had two other kids

14:05

and they couldn't fit in the ambulance

14:07

and she didn't have a ride there. And so there was

14:09

this period of time that she was trying to figure

14:11

out a way to get Hannah to the hospital. And

14:14

she ended up calling her caseworker who

14:16

picked her up and took them to the hospital and

14:18

immediately handed her removal

14:20

paperwork. And the kids

14:22

were removed at that point. And Tammy

14:24

was actually charged with medical neglect

14:27

and she ended up having

14:29

to spend time in jail because she couldn't afford

14:32

to pay the fees that resulted from the case.

14:35

And she had the same situation

14:38

as Sherry when she gave

14:40

up her rights. She was under the impression

14:42

that they were going to a foster

14:45

home, like that foster home was going to

14:47

adopt them. It was a black couple who

14:49

also had black children and who

14:52

told Tammy that she would be able to be in their

14:54

lives. But again, you give up your rights

14:56

and you give up your right to know anything and

14:59

anything can happen to the kids after that. And

15:01

so she doesn't know what happened with

15:03

the prospective adoptive family.

15:06

And there's actually no records that I could

15:08

ascertain because of how Texas is

15:10

very confidential with its records in cases

15:12

like this. But they did end up

15:15

in Minnesota with Jennifer and Sarah.

15:17

So at what point in what year

15:19

do Jennifer and Sarah have all six kids

15:22

together? In 2008, they

15:25

were all adopted. But

15:27

there are some files that show

15:30

that Jennifer and Sarah did

15:32

not necessarily think that their family

15:35

was complete. They had continued

15:37

to look for kids on the Texas

15:40

Adoption Resource Exchange and

15:42

they had also tried IVF successfully.

15:45

Well now I think we need to talk about them because

15:48

all of the lives intersect at this point. What

15:50

can you tell me about either woman, whichever

15:52

one you want to go with first? We'll start with

15:55

Jennifer because Jennifer was the much

15:57

more vocal person in the

15:59

couple. Jennifer grew up in

16:01

Huron, South Dakota. She

16:03

was gay, but she never actually came out to

16:06

her dad at least, not

16:08

explicitly. She met Sarah

16:10

in college and Sarah

16:13

was from an even smaller town in South Dakota,

16:16

right on the border of Minnesota.

16:18

They moved to Minnesota after college

16:21

and Sarah was working

16:22

for a

16:23

department store and Jennifer,

16:26

she never got her degree and I think

16:28

they started planning pretty quickly

16:31

after that for adopting

16:33

through the foster care system. So

16:36

they originally got a foster youth

16:38

named Bree who was

16:40

a teenager who lived in Minnesota.

16:43

I think Bree's experience actually

16:45

shows a lot because she was able

16:47

to, I mean she lived there with a couple. She

16:49

actually saw them looking through the website

16:52

and talking about adopting kids

16:55

and she was under the impression that she would

16:57

be a part of that family shortly

16:59

before they went to go pick up Marcus and Hannah

17:02

and Abigail from Houston. They dropped

17:04

Bree off for her therapy appointment and

17:06

the therapist told Bree that

17:08

it wasn't going to work out and that they

17:11

had already had all of her stuff packed up

17:13

and she had no idea and still

17:15

basically to this day has no idea

17:18

what caused their change in thinking.

17:20

I mean she was really upset.

17:23

She said that she saw later

17:25

saw them with their kids and

17:27

felt really awful you know because it was a

17:29

pretty small town in Minnesota where they all

17:31

lived and she still to this day is

17:33

like very confused about what

17:36

happened especially in light of what

17:38

came afterwards. Did you say Bree

17:40

was black? I can't remember if you said that. Bree

17:43

was white and also her rights to

17:45

her mother were not terminated so she wasn't

17:47

open to be adopted permanently.

17:50

That's part of an issue with the foster

17:52

to adopt is that there are some people

17:55

who use the foster system as a means

17:57

like directly to adopt but there

17:59

are a lot a lot of kids in the foster system

18:02

who need temporary safe places

18:04

with loving parents and

18:07

don't need to have their

18:10

rights and their parents totally severed. Are

18:12

people in her life, their lives,

18:15

Sarah and Jennifer, shocked

18:17

based on what they know, not about

18:19

the crash necessarily, but the allegations

18:22

that came before it? Does this just

18:24

seem completely out of character for

18:27

either of these women, but when they came together,

18:30

something happened, something changed with

18:32

both of them? What is even the dynamic?

18:34

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think that

18:37

first and foremost, Jennifer was

18:39

very active on social media and

18:41

she spun a story,

18:44

a narrative about

18:46

her relationship, about

18:48

her family, about the kids

18:52

and that heavily influenced

18:54

how people perceived her and the family.

18:56

There were a ton of friends that

18:58

were completely shocked by what happened.

19:01

One of her friends right after

19:03

the crash said, Jennifer and Sarah are

19:05

the kinds of parents that this

19:07

world needs. So

19:08

that was a fiction really

19:10

that was spun with really beautiful

19:13

photography of the children

19:15

in their chicken coop and

19:18

at the Grand Canyon and all

19:20

of this kind of stuff. That's partly, I think,

19:22

why people were so drawn to

19:24

this case is because there

19:26

was this whole record of a life

19:29

and the reality of the situation and

19:31

those things were so hard to reconcile

19:34

with each other. Before the inquest

19:36

happened, there was a line

19:38

of thinking from a lot of people

19:40

who were following the case that Jennifer

19:43

was probably the abuser

19:45

of the family. I think

19:48

in this case, though, it became

19:50

pretty clear that the evidence

19:52

that was there actually pointed to

19:54

both

19:54

women being involved

19:57

in the abuse. The first

19:59

thing is,

22:00

they pulled their kids from public school. And

22:02

that was the last time the kids were in public school

22:05

or any school. And because

22:07

of that, they lost contact with

22:09

really any other adults besides their

22:12

parents. Sarah had to finish

22:14

probation, but once that probation ended,

22:16

they immediately moved to Oregon.

22:18

They lived in Oregon for a little

22:21

while before a second

22:23

investigation started. And this

22:25

one was reported by friends

22:27

of the family who witnessed some really

22:29

alarming punishment of

22:32

all of the kids, but particularly of Marcus.

22:35

They had gone to visit this woman

22:38

at her house, and

22:40

they were only each allowed to have one small

22:42

piece of pizza, but they had ordered a lot of pizza.

22:45

And so they had a bunch in the fridge. And

22:47

when they woke up in the morning, the woman

22:50

made a comment to her husband like, did you eat

22:52

all the pizza in the fridge? And

22:54

that set off Jennifer, who

22:57

forced all the kids to lay on

22:59

their air mattress with eye masks

23:01

on for like the whole day. And it was Marcus's

23:04

birthday, and she wouldn't let anyone say happy

23:06

birthday to Marcus. And the

23:08

kids were very skinny at this point, like

23:11

alarmingly skinny. And Hannah was

23:13

so small that people regularly

23:15

thought that she was like five years

23:17

younger than she

23:18

actually was.

23:20

That woman reported this, and

23:22

there was another investigation. And they actually

23:24

reached out to the Minnesota child welfare

23:26

officials who said, the problem

23:28

is these women, they look normal.

23:31

And when they're confronted

23:33

with these alarming behaviors, they

23:36

have a tendency to put them back

23:38

onto the kids and explain it by their

23:40

trauma histories and their experience in

23:42

foster care. And that

23:45

Oregon investigation, a

23:47

doctor found that five of the six

23:49

kids were so small that they

23:51

weren't even on the growth charts at

23:54

all for their ages. And still, they

23:56

were not removed. Shortly after that,

23:58

they moved to Washington. far away,

24:00

just sort of the other side of Portland, basically.

24:03

And essentially, Devontae

24:06

started going to their neighbor's

24:08

house and asking for food, large amounts

24:10

of food. And Hannah had one time

24:13

ran away in the middle of the night and told the neighbors

24:15

that she was being abused and

24:17

her parents were racist. And

24:19

finally, the neighbors called that in to

24:22

CPS. And that was sort of the

24:24

inciting incident that led

24:27

to the family leaving and driving

24:29

to California in the first place.

24:31

Dr.

24:31

Quinn,

24:55

she was 15. She had no two front

24:57

teeth because they had got knocked out, which

25:00

was another social media post. That

25:02

was really alarming, where Jennifer's

25:05

fingers were holding like an entire

25:07

tooth root to tip saying like, Oh,

25:10

Hannah's slipped in the rule is no

25:12

running in the house or something like that. But she

25:15

never got replacement teeth. So it ended up making

25:17

her look a lot younger. And I think they

25:19

didn't get any specifics because shortly

25:22

after she came over, the family

25:24

had come to look for her. Jennifer would

25:26

not allow the neighbors to talk

25:29

to Hannah on her own after

25:31

they arrived. And again,

25:33

I think partly because they thought she was so much younger,

25:35

they just thought and they said, Oh, again, with the she

25:38

has a lot of problems. And,

25:40

you know, and then she wrote a note where

25:43

she said, I'm sorry, I shouldn't

25:45

have come here and all of this. And

25:47

so they didn't really get any clear

25:50

sense of what was going on. But when Devontae

25:52

started coming over repeatedly and asking

25:54

for food, and it wasn't just food for

25:57

him, it became clear that it was food for

25:59

all of his siblings. He told them, though,

26:01

please don't call CPS because we don't want to be

26:03

split up from each other, which

26:06

is probably a pretty reasonable fear,

26:08

you know, because there's six of them. And I

26:10

think that might have contributed to why they

26:12

were never removed in the first place was like

26:14

they didn't know necessarily who

26:17

was responsible

26:18

for them. And there's

26:20

no process for that. And

26:23

that became clear because multiple,

26:26

multiple people were very alarmed

26:29

by what they saw with this family and

26:32

repeated attempts to protect

26:34

the kids went unheeded.

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29:34

So, do you think Jennifer and Sarah

29:36

were feeling increasing pressure?

29:39

There's more and more incidents because the kids

29:41

are older now and they are making kind

29:45

of bigger moves. They're getting attention.

29:47

We talk about the inciting incident. What

29:50

was it that got them loaded

29:52

up into that Gold Yukon and

29:54

drove down into California to

29:57

have what happened? What leads up to that?

29:59

I think that's a good question. good point that the kids were

30:01

getting older. Marcus was 19 at

30:03

that time. I also think that

30:05

there might have been a sense that their luck

30:08

would run out at some point with investigations.

30:11

Often people say like, okay, they must have been really

30:14

overwhelmed. I will say that if there

30:16

was already an abuse allegation before

30:18

they adopted the second set of three kids,

30:21

they doubled the number of kids.

30:23

Six kids is a huge number of kids, but also

30:26

six kids from two families,

30:29

mixed ages, right? And

30:31

trauma histories, extensive trauma histories.

30:34

I couldn't imagine that. And that

30:38

stands to reason that like that might have been

30:40

instead of fast tracking the second adoption,

30:43

that might have been like a pause like, okay, that's

30:45

a lot of kids for anyone, you know, that's

30:47

a lot of kids for like trained therapists.

30:50

And then you're thinking if you're the judge, why

30:52

are you not thinking, maybe these

30:54

are parents who are doing this for the paycheck, and that's

30:56

it, you know, that many kids. That's

30:59

a good point. And it's $400 per child. Additionally, Devontae

31:04

and Jeremiah got disability payments

31:07

from Nathaniel Davis, their father

31:09

figure, that they also

31:11

continue to receive until their

31:14

death. So this was like $2600 a month. And

31:18

isn't it if the kids need therapy, I

31:20

interviewed a different author about a similar sort

31:22

of situation, if the kids need therapy, or

31:24

they need anything that's special, there's more money

31:27

that the state provides, right with the intention

31:29

that you're going to use that money to help

31:31

them get the help they need. Yeah, it's

31:34

a good point. And it's also true that

31:36

the family was really open about taking

31:39

the kids off of all of their psychiatric

31:41

meds. And the foster care system

31:43

has a tendency to over medicate

31:45

children for sure, that's documented,

31:48

but they didn't go to therapy, the kids didn't

31:50

continue going to therapy. The thing that happens

31:52

when kids get removed from home at a young

31:55

age, especially if they get moved around from

31:57

place to place, is that every single time

31:59

they move, they internalize

32:01

the idea that they're never going to be safe

32:04

or stable. That even if

32:06

it seems good, it might not last,

32:08

it probably won't last. That's really

32:11

harmful psychologically for kids. Well,

32:13

let's talk about that. We do have to talk about

32:15

the psychology here because we've been talking

32:17

about the facts. What is going on? What

32:20

do you think they're doing? You've got this picture

32:22

perfect family on the outside. They're over

32:25

the top with their social media posts. They're really trying

32:27

to present themselves, not

32:29

just as a happy, healthy, blended

32:32

family, but as activists.

32:34

They have them out there in the Black Lives

32:36

Matter protests. There's all this

32:39

sort of facade going up, but

32:41

so much bad behind it.

32:44

What are people saying about what they

32:46

were doing, what they were thinking? Yeah,

32:48

I think I'm not

32:50

a psychologist, but to me, Jennifer

32:53

seemed to have a really sort of a mindset

32:55

of like she herself being persecuted,

32:59

for her Black children and persecuted

33:02

for her lesbian relationship.

33:04

And I think she sort of shows

33:07

the signs of narcissism. And again,

33:09

I'm not a psychologist, but the idea that

33:11

like everything is taken through the frame

33:13

of herself, primarily. There

33:16

were some things in the social media posts that

33:18

were really inappropriate, I felt,

33:20

talking about private and kind of

33:23

embarrassing potentially situations

33:25

with the kids. Because the kids were going through

33:27

a lot of stuff and

33:29

she talked about the first night that Marcus

33:32

and Hannah and Abigail spent

33:34

in their home and how Marcus was banging

33:36

his head against the wall and bleeding

33:39

and screaming and all this stuff. And

33:41

it's like, if that's true, which we don't

33:44

know, and we don't have really any evidence

33:46

for any of the stuff that she was saying, but

33:48

if that's true, how embarrassing is that for

33:50

him? I mean, it's a really challenging

33:53

move. There are thousands of miles

33:55

away in the totally different climate

33:57

in like a basically all white town.

33:59

They're never going to see their mom again. These

34:02

are reasons that kids do act out, and

34:05

it's normal and you can really understand

34:07

that. It's framing her as

34:09

this savior, literally a white savior,

34:12

savior coming in and saving him. Look what

34:14

I have to deal with. Look at what's happening

34:16

and look how lucky this kid is to have

34:19

Sarah and me as parents. Exactly.

34:22

Even that exact same post where

34:24

she was talking about their first night there, she said,

34:27

if not us, who? We have

34:29

natural maternal instincts and we

34:31

have buckets of love and

34:34

all this stuff. It's like the central

34:36

character in the story, especially

34:38

in the story of adoption, and especially

34:40

adoption for foster care, should

34:43

not be the parent because

34:46

it's the kid's journey. The kid is experiencing

34:48

it with a lot less power and with

34:52

a lot more internal instability

34:55

without really understanding developmentally

34:58

the context for it, just having

35:00

really big feelings around it.

35:02

Are we seeing anything in their background

35:05

that points to these tendencies

35:08

before they have any of these children, maybe

35:10

even before we met? I'm assuming people have

35:12

been looking and talking to family members or talking

35:14

to friends from high school. I did

35:16

speak to some family members that ended

35:18

up not wanting to be on the record.

35:21

There were a couple specific stories

35:23

that were quite alarming, especially

35:26

regards to Jennifer. There was one story

35:28

about how one of Jennifer's

35:30

siblings was using a Q-tip and

35:33

she walked by and banged her head against the Q-tip.

35:36

Okay, so they get into the gold Yukon

35:38

and when are they thinking the timeline

35:40

starts for obviously a panic to

35:42

set in? They think that CPS is going to come knocking

35:45

at their door and take away these kids. Is that right?

35:47

Right. I think they were home

35:49

because they didn't answer the door

35:53

so the caseworker put her card

35:56

in the door. When the caseworker returned,

35:58

still not unable to get a hold. of

36:00

the family, the card was gone,

36:03

but also the Yukon was gone. And

36:05

they had a little sort of small

36:07

wall along their driveway. And

36:10

it was like they had backed into the wall and

36:12

like toppled over some of it. I think

36:14

the panic set in before they ever left.

36:17

I think they probably realized or maybe

36:19

thought that just because they had recently

36:21

been investigated in Oregon, you

36:24

know, and like you said, the kids were getting older, which

36:26

means they were able to leave.

36:29

I think they had a lot of that white savior

36:31

idea that like the kids couldn't function

36:34

without them. I think they probably did

36:36

also believe that the kids are really messed up

36:39

and kind of assigned all those behaviors. You

36:41

know, I think probably in their minds, they thought the things

36:43

that they were doing, like with the withholding

36:45

food and all that were like necessary

36:48

in some way. It did seem like they had like

36:50

a complex right of like being the

36:52

victimized people. And so in

36:54

that frame of mind, they probably

36:57

thought that if they couldn't have

36:59

the kids then, you know, I mean,

37:02

that's really awful to think, right? That you would think

37:04

of killing your family before you

37:06

would think of just letting them exist

37:09

without you. Yeah, they think they're doing them a favor. I

37:11

mean, any of the research I've done on family

37:13

annihilators, some of them say in their heads,

37:15

they don't want to live with this shame. They don't want them

37:18

to go on without them. They wouldn't be able to function. It's

37:20

so narcissistic. And it

37:22

makes me wonder what that day was like. Do

37:25

you think that they left

37:27

Washington knowing that this was

37:29

going to be a plan, that this is what they should do?

37:32

Or do we get the impression from any of the evidence

37:34

that this was spur of the moment,

37:37

even if that means they decided that

37:39

morning to do this? Yeah, I think

37:41

the evidence shows that they

37:43

were kind of figuring it out as they were driving

37:46

because of Sarah's Google searches. So

37:49

she searched for no-kill shelters for dogs. They

37:52

had animals. I think it started forming

37:54

like how to do it. I think they did realize

37:57

that they were trapped before they left, but I

37:59

don't know that they can. came up with the plan. It's

38:01

really hard to say because there's the evidence on

38:03

their phones, there's the evidence on

38:05

the car itself, right, that shows that they

38:07

didn't break, but I don't know what it was like

38:10

in that car and how they, you know,

38:12

were able to drug the children or

38:14

anything like that. Are either

38:16

women talking to friends, texting

38:19

in the days leading up to this at all?

38:22

I had read somewhere that maybe Sarah

38:24

regretted something beforehand.

38:27

This just seems like everybody's

38:29

on edge. Yeah, Sarah,

38:31

this was a while back that Sarah

38:34

had told one of her coworkers that she wished

38:36

that she knew that you don't have to have

38:38

a big family. Okay,

38:40

tell me about that day. So the crash

38:43

happens on March 26th of 2018. What

38:47

do we know from, I know there's CCTV,

38:50

there's receipts, there's cell phone records,

38:53

pieced together what happens leading

38:55

up to what happens on March 26th? So

38:57

they left the house and

39:00

they started driving. I

39:02

don't think they stayed at any hotel

39:05

or

39:05

anything. They stopped at a grocery

39:07

store and bought some like bananas

39:10

and snack foods. They parked

39:12

their car at this turn off off

39:14

the Pacific Coast Highway. And

39:16

there was another couple, like an older

39:19

couple

39:19

who had an RV and was

39:21

driving down the coast from Alaska.

39:24

They heard the car and they poked out

39:26

and saw the car. And then he said in the middle

39:28

of the night, this was like three in the morning, he

39:30

heard what sounded like bottoming out. Wait,

39:33

what does bottoming out mean exactly? You

39:35

ever hit like a speed bump too fast? No,

39:37

yeah. You know, like it makes a loud

39:40

sound where the bottom of the car hits the ground.

39:42

Okay. What he thought happened was that

39:44

they had like peeled out to

39:47

go down to the town, which was nearby.

39:49

So he thought maybe they just left fast.

39:52

He said he thought he heard something

39:55

like off the cliff and that he thought maybe it

39:57

was a seal. And then he went back

39:59

to bed. he left with his wife the

40:01

next day. Then

40:03

there was a German tourist who spotted,

40:06

it was a lookout point. People

40:08

would come there and park their car and

40:10

look at this beautiful view and

40:13

that's what this German tourist was doing when they

40:15

noticed the car flipped on its hood

40:18

at the bottom of the cliff. We

40:21

know that we have rescuers going

40:23

down there and they're looking. Tell me

40:25

what the scene is because it's total disarray.

40:28

Yeah, it was a really difficult scene, actually

40:31

a crime scene, because the car was actually

40:33

on the shore but partly in the

40:36

water. Because of that,

40:38

the tide had been coming in and

40:40

out. In addition to the impact,

40:43

which was a huge impact because it was a 100-foot

40:45

cliff that the car went off and it was

40:48

on its hood, there was also this tide

40:50

which was coming in and going

40:52

out. There had been a storm

40:55

recently, so it made

40:57

it really challenging for investigators to

41:00

find the rest of the bodies because

41:01

three of the kids were found, two

41:04

of the kids were found much later.

41:07

One was found weeks later and one

41:09

to Devontae was never found.

41:12

That's partly because the conditions were so

41:14

changeable. One of the searchers

41:16

said, you'd go down to the beach at 2

41:19

PM and you'd go down at the beach

41:21

at 8 PM. It was like a totally different

41:23

beach. You were seeing all different

41:25

things, which made it really challenging for people

41:27

to do the search. What does the

41:29

car say actually happened? Because

41:32

a car can tell you, right, the black

41:34

box inside the car can tell you whether or not the

41:36

car was breaking at the time of a crash

41:38

or accelerating. Yes, it accelerated

41:40

off the cliff.

41:41

That became clear pretty early on when

41:44

there were no skid marks. You often see

41:46

some evidence at the street

41:48

level that there's breaking, that

41:50

there's attempts to turn really fast

41:52

or something like that. There was nothing like that at

41:54

the actual. There's a berm, like an 18-inch

41:56

berm, which is just

41:58

like

41:58

a raised. amount of Earth around

42:01

the whole lookout just for

42:03

safety.

42:04

And so you would have to

42:06

accelerate to get over that.

42:09

What is the toxicology saying about

42:12

the two women and the kids that they were

42:14

able to recover? I know we talked about Benadryl.

42:17

Did both women take Benadryl or was there

42:19

alcohol? Sarah took Benadryl.

42:22

Sarah wasn't driving, she was in the passenger seat.

42:24

So all of the kids and Sarah

42:27

were found with like massive amounts of Benadryl,

42:29

like overdoses of Benadryl. And

42:32

Jennifer was drunk.

42:34

Has there been any kind of reckoning

42:37

with the foster care system in

42:39

Texas? Once this story came out

42:41

and these families, I mean the Davis family

42:44

in particular, I know that they had been

42:46

interviewed. Was there any kind of a reckoning?

42:48

Were there apologies? Was there acknowledgement

42:51

that this was a mistake? No, there

42:53

was no acknowledgement at all on

42:55

the part of Texas. The case worker

42:57

that was Tammy's case worker. She

43:00

had a big hand in placing Marcus

43:02

and Hannah and Abigail. And after that adoption

43:05

went through, she actually wrote this glowing

43:07

letter of recommendation that this family

43:10

should get any kids that they want to. They're

43:12

just wonderful parents. I

43:14

followed up with her and I asked her how she

43:16

felt about it and she said, I don't know, something must

43:18

have happened, but I still don't really

43:20

believe it that they did this. And I

43:22

said, have you read the- Tell me,

43:25

do you know what happened to Bre,

43:28

who was a teenager who temporarily lived

43:30

with the heart and to Dante,

43:32

who was a 10 year old who did not go

43:35

with them, who would have presumably ended up

43:37

dead, but instead went to like a mental health

43:39

facility. So

43:41

Bre, I reached out to her. She still lives

43:44

in Minnesota in the same town. She

43:46

actually works

43:46

for like a behavioral health program.

43:49

She seems fine

43:50

and she's in contact with her mom and they

43:53

get along well and they've sort of worked through some

43:55

of their issues that they'd had

43:56

resulted in her being in care. With

43:59

Dante,

43:59

His story is a big part of

44:02

the book, and he spent years

44:04

in that institution, which is called

44:06

a mental health facility, but they don't provide

44:09

very much mental health care and the place

44:11

is rife with abuse. He did experience

44:13

abuse there, at least one documented

44:16

instance where his shoulder was dislocated

44:18

by a staff member. He actually

44:21

was able to reunite with Nathaniel at

44:23

age 16. He walked

44:25

across town. He recognized

44:28

the neighborhood. He went and found Nathaniel,

44:30

and Nathaniel was able to gain custody of him

44:32

before he aged out. This was

44:35

Sherry's boyfriend and not his biological

44:37

son. No, but he never gave up

44:39

hope.

44:40

And he never gave up hope on the other kids,

44:42

too, until he found out that they were

44:44

killed, and it was really tragic. It

44:47

was really tragic for Dante, too, because

44:49

Dante has years and

44:51

years of case

44:53

reports where he was begging his caseworker

44:55

to contact

44:56

his siblings. He felt responsible

44:59

for them being taken from

45:01

him because he was the oldest and he thought

45:03

that his bad behavior led to their

45:05

removal. He

45:08

felt responsible for that. Also, he

45:10

begged to the point where they did ask Jennifer

45:12

and Sarah if he could have a phone

45:14

call with them, and they said no.

45:17

What has been the lesson, do you think, just

45:20

in the national news? What do people

45:22

take away when they read your

45:24

book or any narrative on this

45:26

story?

45:27

My hope is that my book

45:29

adds to what's out there already

45:32

about this case that

45:34

helps people understand that the way

45:36

that the child welfare system works

45:38

or doesn't work greatly contributes

45:41

to traumatizing kids. Because

45:43

I think we have this tendency to think of

45:46

parents who are involved with CPS as bad

45:48

parents, bad people, and that

45:51

removing kids from that situation is helping

45:53

them. But I think that's often not

45:55

true. I think there are so many

45:57

kids that are stuck in foster

45:59

care. dealing with just really horrific

46:02

abuse in care and

46:05

that we provide no support to them,

46:06

real emotional support.

46:08

Like a kid needs someone who loves them

46:10

and we take all the people,

46:13

all their family away. Even this

46:15

case, like the Hart family case, is a story

46:17

that Texas considered a win

46:20

and it's not a win. So

46:22

I want to sort of draw attention to the

46:24

idea that the system is not set up

46:27

to really help children. If

46:39

you love historical true crime stories,

46:41

check out the audio versions of my books,

46:44

The Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and

46:46

American Sherlock. This has been an

46:48

Exactly Right Production. Our senior

46:50

producer is Alexis Amorosi. Our

46:53

associate producer is Alex Chee.

46:55

This episode was mixed by John

46:57

Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.

47:00

Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive

47:02

produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen

47:04

Kilgariff, and Danielle Kramer. Follow

47:07

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47:17

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47:21

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47:37

We've all been there, turning

47:39

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47:42

pains, debilitating body aches, sudden

47:44

fevers, and strange rashes. Though

47:47

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47:49

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for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting

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47:56

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