The Hart Family Murder

We began this podcast 3 years and 118 episodes ago, and like most podcasts, we feel we have improved over the past few years. So, today we are going to revisit our original case from our very first episode, we have rerecorded that episode in our current format, and with our current audio, we hope you enjoy it.

This is the tragic case of Sarah and Jen Hart and how they adopted 6 beautiful children including Devonte Hart, who would gain national attention after a photo of him went viral. The family suffered a tragic end after many allegations against the children's mothers, but what is the whole truth and why did this family have so many secrets?

This episode was originally released on February 25th, 2021.

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Transcript

Hello everyone, this is John, the Host of The Secret Sits. We began this podcast 3 years and 118 episodes ago, and like most podcasts, we feel we have improved over the past few years. So, today we are going to revisit our original case from our very first episode, we have rerecord that episode in our current format and with our current audio, we hope you enjoy.

[Transition Music]

The Hart Family Murder – a story in one part

[Underscore Music]

Today I want to start with a question . . . Who are you?  Why do we have secrets? What would happen if we just showed the world our actual selves? 

[Theme Music Start]

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

[Theme Music Play Out]

[Under Score Music]

Many of us have so much social media these days that the lines between reality and social media reality sometimes ger blurred.  Sometimes this is on purpose, maybe because we do not feel like giving 100% of ourselves out to the universe. Or possibly there is fear of accepting our own flaws and allowing everyone around us to see these flaws for what they are, the parts of us that make us unique and interesting, but somehow still embarrass us.  There is a reason we as a communal society have social media and put ourselves on it and those reasons are different for everyone. 

In today’s episode social media is going to play a part, a very large part in the things that happen to a family, who maybe wanted to use social media for a joyful and honorable reason, or maybe it was more sinister and more of a secret than anyone realized before it was too late.

Today we are going to discuss the story of Jennifer and Sarah Hart and how a notable and poignant social media circus contributed to a tragic family annihilation.  

Jennifer and Sarah Hart were both originally from South Dakota and both women attended Northern State in Aberdeen South Dakota. Both women decided to major in elementary education, with Jennifer focusing on Special Education.  This is where Jen and Sarah’s romantic relationship started.

The women stayed closeted at first, however; they eventually decided that their relationship was important enough to them to come out of that closet.  Now, 2004 South Dakota was not one of the most gay friendly of places to come out of the closet.  When I chose to come out of the closet it was 1997 in rural Alabama, so I know the feeling of ostracism these ladies were dealing with.  

This socially exclusive behavior by their fellow South Dakotans prompted the couple to move to Alexandria, Minnesota in 2004. Things seemed to be going pretty well for Jen and Sarah after the move and the couple decided to look into foster care and adoption.  The couple fostered their first child in 2004.  In previous interviews, this foster child has asked to remain anonymous so we will continue to honor her wishes here today.  This foster child was 15 years old when she came to live with Jen and Sarah and there was conflict between the three women almost from the start.  You see, Jen and Sarah wanted to impose their ideals and parenting onto this foster child, but possibly they couldn’t allow themselves to take a step back and look at the situation from the outside and make adjustments.  You see this foster child was also a tomboy and didn’t like or want any of the girly things that Jen and Sarah were providing.  

At one point Jen and Sarah took her to get one of those make up counter makeovers where you sit in a chair at the makeup counter in one of those big anchor stores at the mall and everyone walks by as a girl in a strange white lab coat cakes makeup on your face and soon your look like a 30-year-old woman rather than a 15-year-old girl.  Well of course this was not what she wanted and accordingly so, she sat sulking through the makeover process, her head drooped and retreating into herself as all of us did when we were insecure teenagers doing something that was being thrust upon us by our well-meaning yet naïve parents.

It is now 2005 and Same Sex Marriage has become a huge topic of conversation all around the world.  It was not legal in the United States of America at this point; however, Sarah goes to court and asks the court to legally change her last name to match that of her domestic partner Jen.  The court allows Sarah to change her name and I’m sure Jen and Sarah now feel as close to married as they will be able to get for quite a while.  

I remember 2005, my now husband and I had been together for just a couple of years, however; the feelings you have inside, when you are wondering if you will ever have the same rights as everyone around you are almost insurmountable in your heart and it is a lot of weight to bear. So, I am sure this name change lifted Sarah and Jen’s hearts and elevated how at least they saw their relationship.

The couple now had applied to adopt children, maybe in their minds this is what they truly wanted, not a foster child, but a child that would belong to them, a child that isn’t going to get taken away whenever the foster system decided to do so.  Fostering children is an awesome thing, giving a warm and loving home to a child in need to such a selfless act, but not everyone can handle it.  For some falling in love with a child while they are in your care, just to have to watch them leave after being adopted by another family is just more than some can bare, and isn’t it their right to feel that way?  

On March 4th, 2006, Jen and Sarah received the call from Colorado County, Texas that they had a set of 3 siblings for Jen and Sarah to adopt.  They were so excited, they were going to get their own kids and they involved their foster daughter in the excitement, telling her that she was going to be a Big Sister to these new kids.  I would imagine she was excited, to go from being the only child in a house to being the big sister of 3 new kids would at the very least bring some level of excitement into your life.

Now we are one week to the day Jen and Sarah’s new kids are arriving from Texas.  Their foster daughter has an appointment with her therapist and during the course of her therapy appointment, her therapist, her therapist tells her that the Harts felt that she was no longer a good fit for their family and that they would not be picking her back up from this appointment and that she would be moved into a new home.  She never saw Jen and Sarah Hart again and she remembers being devastated.

Jen and Sarah’s three children were, Abigail or Abby who was 2, Hannah age 4 and Markis age 7.  Their biological parents had their parental rights terminated by a court in Harris County, Texas in August and the children were formally adopted by Jen and Sarah in September.  Abby wore glasses and had a bright smile, she loved the color Lime Green and she loved exploring in the wilderness.  Hannah, had a spunky personality, she had high set apple cheeks and was missing both of her front teeth.  Markis, the oldest, loved to read, he loved to read so much that he read the entire Twilight vampire book in one night.  One year for Christmas Markis asked for a world with no cancer.

Starting in 2006 Jen became a stay-at-home mom, while Sarah worked as a supervisor at a Herberger’s shop.  Sarah was described by friends and co-workers as being very confident, assertive and she could also sometimes be intimidating.  Jen was described as a bit warmer and more relatable.  

These three children brought very little drama in their first 2 years with Jen and Sarah and in June of 2008 Jen and Sarah adopted 3 additional children.  Jen and Sarah had asked for something very specific during the adoption process, they asked for Black children and sets of siblings.  Well, that is exactly what they got again, three more children who were all black and also siblings.  This adoption brought Devonte age 6, Jeremiah age 4 and Ciera age 3.  These three came to the Hart house from Houston Texas.  

These three new children came from a bit of a rough start in life, their biological mother lost her custody of the children because, like so many Americans, she was struggling with substance abuse problems and at least one of the children had tested positive for crack cocaine at the time of their births.  Now I am no adoption expert, nor have I ever had to deal with Child Protective Services or CPS in my life, but there are a few things I wanted to cover in this situation.  The children’s familial aunt took the children with a condition that their mother was not allowed to have any contact with the children.  I believe that this is a natural first placement through CPS, if there is a family member who is willing and capable to take in the children so they can have the smallest disruption possible, then that is a good thing.  However, in this case their aunt, just like all of us, had some struggles.  Her struggles included money and hey who doesn’t struggle with money sometimes, or all of the time.  So, after just having taken in 3 new children, her place of work called her and asked if she could come in and cover an extra shift and she thought, well I need to money.  

So, needing the extra money but unable to find a babysitter at the last moment she called her sister, the babies’ biological mother to come and babysit while she ran in to pull the extra shift at work.  Things may have gone swimmingly, but this day also just happened to be the day that CPS had a case worker do an unannounced surprise visit to the house and check on the kids.  And when the case worker showed up to find the children being supervised by the ONE person who was not allowed contact with them, the case worker pulled the children from the house.

The Aunt attempted to obtain permanent custody of the children, but because of this incident, the courts would not allow it.

Sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  I think we have all done something like this at some point in our lives.  Our intentions, in our minds, are so good.  But one incident can mar those intentions and maybe what we thought would make a situation better just boggles it all up.  But that’s ok because we can move forward and grow from it and become better for it.

So, at this point Jen and Sarah are making most of their income off of the adoption stipend they are allotted by the state of Texas while still living in Minnesota.  The three new children brought so much life into the Hart house.  Ciera was the smallest, now the baby of the family and she loved her cat called Sebastian, Jeremiah, was small for his age, he was born with cocaine already in his system, but he was doing ok, and everyone called him J Man.  And Devonte, I think Devonte was an old soul in a child’s body.  Devonte loved animals and Hated Donald Trump, he carried a sign with him everywhere reading “FREE HUGS pass it on” and he had a special bond with Jen which would sometimes garner him special attention.

Now Jen was the stay-at-home mom and possibly because of this she became almost obsessed with social media.  Jenn’s social media of choice was mostly Facebook.  Jen was extremely active on social media, and she loved to post pictures of the children doing everyday activities with well written and thought-out captions. Each post shows a loving and wholesome family.  

But just like we discussed earlier, social media is a tool, a tool you can use and manipulate to make it look like you have whatever kind of life, you would like to portray.  And I will say this, I know there are people that are completely open about their lives and you see their good and bad days on their social media, but there are those that only like to post about good things and looking at their social media you may think, what are they hiding, or no one’s life is just all good and you would be right! No one’s life is all good, but some people only feel comfortable sharing the good and there is nothing wrong with that.  Misery loves company but for some, sharing hardships is just too big of a window into their soul and they are not comfortable sharing everything with everyone in the world.

The Harts’ found their comfortable place in this world when they started attending Transformational Festivals.  These festivals where full of music and dancing, yoga, and mindfulness.  The people who attended these festivals were and are all about inclusion and acceptance, this seemed to be exactly what a pair of lesbian mothers with 6 black children needed.

Jen would often post photos from these festivals, with all of the children wearing huge smiles, and would post inspiring updates from their daily life. One friend said, "She was a master poster."

Commenters would leave glowing remarks about their parenting. Some even asked if they would ever think of doing a reality show. 

They would come to be known as the Hart Tribe at these festivals and there was something magnetic about this family.  They drew the attention of everyone around them and they were easily recognized by everyone who attended these festivals.

 Jenn was also obsessed with one of those on-line games called Oz Broken Kingdom where you have to build a community of other players and spend actual money to move along in the game.  One online friend from this gaming community said that Jenn was one of the highest-ranking players, which would have cast a lot of money and almost ALL of her free time.  So, as she is supposedly raising these children, she is at home playing an on-line video game almost 12 - 14 hours a day and putting their family into almost 16K in debt. 

In 2008, while the family was living in Minnesota, Hannah Hart was seen with bruises on her left arm, and when a teacher asked Hannah about the bruise, she said she had been hit by Jen with a belt.  The school contact Jen and Sarah about this allegation and within months, all six children had been pulled out of public school for the rest of the year.  Jen decided that she would homeschool the children.

For some reason the children were sent back to public school in 2009.

In 2010, Abby told a school nurse that she had “0wies” on her back and stomach.  Now I know when I was a kid, I had bruises and cuts and scrapes all of the time, for a while I had to go get stitches at the ER so many times that the doctor knew me by name.  I just want to add this because we can be an overly protective and litigious society and not that being overprotective of children is wrong, but sometimes kids get hurt, on their own, just playing…and there is nothing wrong with that.  However, sometimes adults are doing the wrong thing and they are causing childhood injuries, which is wrong and criminal.  That happened to be Abby’s claim about these “owies”.  Abby told a story that she had found a penny and when it fell out of her 

pocket in front of Jen, Jen had accused her of stealing the penny, from God knows where…and it’s a penny, but Abby told Jen that she had found the penny and according to Abby, Jen held Abby’s head under water and hit her.  

Sarah told police she had been the one to spank Abby, Jen backed up her account.  

This is a point we have to question in good faith.  Jen, by all accounts from all children, was the one issuing the physical discipline in the house.  So why did the couple say it was Sarah? Did they have a fear that Jen would no longer be able to homeschool the children?  Why would they purposely switch who had been the disciplinarian?

When the authorities got involved, all the children claimed that they had been spanked constantly and deprived of food. in 2010, Sarah is charged with malicious punishment of a child and misdemeanor domestic assault, according to Minnesota court records.

One year later, Hannah reportedly told a school nurse that she had not eaten all day. The school nurse called Hannah’s home and spoke to Sarah who claimed that Hannah was merely “playing the food card” and recommended that Hannah just be given water. Around this time, all six children were taken out of public schools again and were homeschooled from then on. 

This most likely prompted the Hart family’s next move, this time to Oregon.

During the family’s time in Oregon is when the misdeeds of this family finally start its trajectory towards a sad and cruel fate. As we know Jen keeps an almost obsessive social media feed around the family.  Pictures of the family at festivals, rallies and around the house always working on art projects or playing music.  One clip of the family shows the kids singing and the only words to the song seem to be, “we are so provided for”.  

A constant life of illusions lived on social media that may have been hiding a much more sinister homelife for these 6 children.  

Following their move to Oregon in 2013, a few people called into CPS to report some troubling things they had noticed.

According to one CPS report, an anonymous person, who called the children "trained robots," brought attention to the alleged façade of Jen's Facebook posts.

"Jen does this thing for her Facebook page, where the kids pose and are made to look like one big happy family, but after the photo event, they go back to looking lifeless."

The person also said they seemed "scared to death of Jen."

A former friend of theirs also called Child Protective Services after the Hart family had stayed with them, claiming Jen handled the children "like a regimented boot camp," adding that she would often get angry if they laughed too loudly.  

CPS began an investigation into the Hart children’s welfare.  This investigation included separate interviews of everyone in the family, as well as interviews of people who knew the family. Two family friends said that the children were forced to raise their hands before speaking, could not wish each other a happy birthday, and could not laugh at the dinner table. There were other reports that the children were poorly fed and looked small for their ages. One family friend reported that Jen had ordered a pizza for the children, but each was only allowed to have one small slice. The next morning when Jen discovered that the rest of the pizza was gone, she punished the children by not feeding them breakfast and forcing them to lie on their bed for five hours. 

However, the interviews of the children themselves revealed no new incidents of abuse, nor did they mention anything that had happened in Minnesota. When Jen herself was interviewed, she claimed that any family problems were the results of others not being tolerant to two lesbian mothers with six African American children. In the end, the investigation could not conclude whether the Harts were guilty of anything or whether there was a "safety threat".

While attending the Beloved festival Devonte is dressed in a zebra onesie with the word BELOVED shaved into his hair line.  On a now famous YouTube video we can see Devonte at this festival as the musician Xavier Rudd plays a guitar and chants on stage, he notices Devonte in his zebra costume and a sign around his neck reading free hugs.  Devonte approaches Xavier with tears in his eyes and they embrace, which lasts over a minute, and you can see everyone in the crowd getting swept up in the moment.  But, as you watch this scene unfold, you start to notice that something isn’t quite right, it’s almost like Devonte wouldn’t let go and needed to receive this hug more than he needed to give it.

Devonte Hart was 12 years old when he was thrust into the national spotlight, you may remember the photo of Devonte that went viral after the 2014 protest in Portland resulting from the Ferguson unrest, now I know there were a lot of protests in 2020 and for good reason, just as a reminder the Furguson unrest was because of the senseless killing of Michael Brown by officer Darren Wilson (who no charges were brought against). Now, the Hart Family is at the protests, Devante is dressed in a brown leather jacket, with a blue shirt with an orange crew neck collar and a fedora hat.  And he had his free Hugs sign as always. In the photo, Devante is seen hugging a white police officer in riot gear with tears streaming down Devonte’s face, which we will post on our Social Media.  The image became known as the "hug felt 'round the world."  

Because of the notoriety of the Hug felt ‘round the world photo the Hart family was suddenly getting a lot of attention.  The photo and the story behind it had gone out over all of the mainstream media channels and had even been parodied on Saturday Night Live that week. 

The family was contacted by the Bernie Sanders campaign team and were invited to be on the bleachers directly behind Bernie at his campaign speech in Portland Oregon in 2016.

To queue your memory, The Hart Family was standing in the bleachers behind then presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders when a bird landed on his lectern during his campaign speech.  They were exactly the right optics to be in the background of a very liberal political candidate.  

After all of the attention the family was receiving Jen decided that the family needed a break from social media.

By mid-2017, after their social media break, Jen revealed the family had moved to Woodland, Washington, their third state since adopting their children. And while they tried to remain "private," their neighbors eventually reported an incident to police.

 In August of that year, Hannah Hart jumped out of her bedroom window at around 1:30 a.m. to try and contact her next-door neighbors, whom she had never met. Hannah had jumped out of her second story bedroom window and ran across the dark yard to the DeKalbs, she started pounding on their door and as soon as it opened, she ran into their house and ran directly upstairs to hide, pleading with them, "Don't make me go back! They're racists and they abuse us!" 

Bruce DeKalb asked Hannah to explain, and she said that they whip them with belts which at first did not seem to out of place for Bruce who admitted to Hannah that he too had been hit with a belt as a child.  I mean, raise your hand if you were hit with a belt growing up, I would have to raise both of mine! The couple did not know Hannah and had never met the children.  They could soon hear the Hart family all outside in their yard looking for Hannah.  Sarah and Jen then came to the DeKalb’s house and knocked on the door, when Bruce and Dana opened the door, the Harts just pushed their way into the DeKalb house with no invitation. They started searching the DeKalb house for Hannah.  They found her upstairs curled up in the fetal position. Dana DeKalb did not call the authorities at this time but did tell her father Steve who did call the police and told them, about the night Hannah had run to their house. 

Jen later attempted to explain this by saying that Hannah was lying, that the children occasionally acted out because they were "drug babies," and that Hannah's biological mother was bipolar.  But consider that Hannah at this time was 15 years old and had been with Jen and Sarah for 11 years.  I would think that excuse would not hold much water.

After this incident, the DeKalbs were also in contact with Devonte, who was constantly begging for food and asking the DeKalbs not to tell Jen about these requests.  

This started as once per day but escalated to Devonte showing up at their house up to three time per day.  They eventually put a box out in the yard between the two houses so Devonte could pick up food from it with less chance of getting caught by his mothers. In later conversations with Devonte, he told them that his mother’s withheld food as punishment and that the children were sometimes abused. This, combined with the earlier incident with Hannah, made the DeKalbs report the Harts to Child Protective Services. CPS workers tried to reach the Harts twice with no success. 

It appeared that the family had packed up all 6 kids and the family dog and they had just vanished. 

In their final days the family members left their home in woodland CA and headed south.  Little is known of their seemingly hasty departure – or the days that followed – but the details speak of a possibly disturbing demise for these children.

On March 26th one of Sarah’s friends called 911 requesting a welfare check.  The friend stated she had received a text from Sarah saying she was sick, and her phone was now dead, and no one had seen her or her wife.

What happened to the family is not totally clear but at some point, on the 24th, the day after CPS was contacted by the DeKalbs, the Hart family made it to Mendocino County California.

On the morning of March 25th, Jen Hart was recorded on surveillance video at a Safeway in Fort Bragg, about 15 miles south of where the family would be found dead the next day.  They remained in the area until at least 9 PM, but there is no further information regarding the family’s whereabouts until their SUV was found upside down on the Pacific Coast.

The vehicle appears to have left a highway for a dirt turnout, then accelerated on that turnout for about 70 feet until it sailed off the cliff Thelma and Louise style.  No skid marks were found and this led investigators to determine that Jen had intentionally driven her entire family off of the cliff.

After some investigation and time here is what we now know.

Sarah was googling questions such as, 

“Can 500 ml of Benadryl kill a 120 woman”,

 “What over the counter medications can you take to overdose?”, 

“How can I easily OD on over-the-counter medications?”, 

“Is death by drowning relatively painless?”, 

“How long does it take to die of hypothermia in water while drowning in a car?”, 

“What will happen when overdosing with Benadryl?”

Lastly, Sarah searched for no kill shelters for dogs.

At the time of her death Sarah had taken 42 doses of an off-brand Benadryl.  The family had stopped to by the medicine before leaving Washington, they had purchased both pill and liquid forms of the drug.

Markis had 19.2 doses, Abby had 14 doses, Jeremiah had 8.8 doses at the time of their autopsies. 

Jenn who was driving did not have the drug in her system but had a blood alcohol level of .10 or around 5 beers.  Jenn did not drink so she was probably intoxicated quickly, and she was probably almost nonfunctioning. 

Sarah was googling so many things it stands to reason that they had no formal plan on what their intentions were going to be.  The day before their accident, when Sarah bought those groceries at SafeWay she bought 8 toothbrushes and deodorant at a nearby dollar tree.  Not items you purchase hours before you planned on taking your life. However, on Saturday night they switched off their SUV’s GPS system for the first time in 8 years.  

Jen and Sarah Hart murdered all six of their children when Jen Hart drove their SUV over a 100-foot cliff on California State Route 1, in Mendocino County, California, near Westport. The bodies of five of the children (Hannah, 16; Markis, 19; Jeremiah, 14; Abigail, 14; and Ciera, 12) were found in or nearby the vehicle, which landed upside down on a Pacific Ocean beach. The body of Devonte, 15, has not been found. A superior court judge ruled that Devonte was in the vehicle at the time of the crash, and a death certificate was signed on April 3, 2019. 

When police searched their home, investigators described it as "sterile," with empty picture frames hung on the wall. The kids' room had two small beds, a mattress on the floor and not much else.

"I did not get the indication that children lived in the house," one office wrote in the report.

While the women had been together for over 18 years after meeting at Northern State University, and Jen often posting loving tributes to Sarah on social media, records released by the Clark County Sheriff's Office November reveal marital issues.

In a 2010 e-mail, Jen described their home life as "very rollercoasterish."

She explained to a friend, "For quite some time I have felt very underappreciated and taken for granted in our relationship...and at times unloved. While I know deep in my heart how much she loves me....she is just horrible about showing it."

In a Facebook post in 2016, Jen wrote, "We've come to realize that some think our lives are next to perfect. We're human, and we struggle through life's ­obstacle course just like everyone else." Later on, she looked back on the first half of 2017, claiming, "This. Year. Slammed. Us. Hard."

So here we are, left with a family full of secrets that they took to their untimely and watery grave.

The secrets of Sarah and Jen and their true motives, their true intentions for having these precious children

The secrets of Devonte’s childhood innocence and the walls that crumbled in the public eye letting us glimpse into his beautifully tragic soul.

What secrets do you think this case is hiding and how can we help to make sure a tragedy like this does not happen so easily again. 

We Dance Round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.