Speaker 1: There were multiple times when the search parties came here
Speaker 1: and scoured the bluffs with fancy helicopters and airplanes and
Speaker 1: boats and everything else. But in the end, what really
Speaker 1: was was the ocean stirring things up and calming down again,
Speaker 1: and then diligent people looking. No one that I know
Speaker 1: of witnessed the accident. That's that's the word. Every time
Speaker 1: I go by there, I think of those poor kids.
Speaker 1: It's the part about those kids losing their life that
Speaker 1: I think of the most, because even though all of
Speaker 1: it and all the search and rescue and all the
Speaker 1: people who came here, what I remember is because I'm
Speaker 1: a father, the most important thing is is that those
Speaker 1: kids don't go home and they don't have a life.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what happened, but I know that
Speaker 1: that's the end result of all of it. That's Valentine Hail,
Speaker 1: also known as VOW. He's the owner of VAL's Towing
Speaker 1: in the Westport Community Store, which is the social hub
Speaker 1: of the town where the Hearts died. He had a
Speaker 1: bird's eye view of what happened in the aftermath of
Speaker 1: the crash. It turns out Justine and I weren't the
Speaker 1: only ones who couldn't stop thinking about this case. People
Speaker 1: from as far away as Italy and Australia wondered what
Speaker 1: had happened to the hearts. And we're worried about Hannah
Speaker 1: and Davante, whose whereabouts were still unknown. But in January
Speaker 1: two th nineteen, almost ten months after the crash, officials
Speaker 1: announced that a foot discovered near the crash site belonged
Speaker 1: to Hannah. Davante's body has not been found. From Glamour
Speaker 1: and How Stuff Works, this is Broken Hearts. I'm Liz
Speaker 1: Egan and I'm Justine Harmon. Our focus was on finding
Speaker 1: the kids because we mainstream media did not seem interested
Speaker 1: and there wasn't a lot of articles about it, and
Speaker 1: I thought, how can they just be a race? That's
Speaker 1: Ami Atlas, who started a Facebook group called Finding the
Speaker 1: Missing Heart Children and Honoring the Heart Children back in April.
Speaker 1: The heart story piqued her interest, mostly because she felt
Speaker 1: there was enough urgency to the search for the missing kids.
Speaker 1: Amy's group now has two hundred and seventy four members.
Speaker 1: There are other groups, so many others, Heart Family Case Discussion,
Speaker 1: which has one thousand, four hundred and eleven members. Heart
Speaker 1: Family Case discussion, this time in all caps, with one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy members, What happened to the Hearts, their history,
Speaker 1: the Crash, the Kids four hundred and ninety members, Heart
Speaker 1: Family Crash Theories on one members, and Let the Heart Shine,
Speaker 1: a two three member closed group for people who quote loved, knew,
Speaker 1: or were connected to the Heart Family in some way.
Speaker 1: In order to get into this one, you have to
Speaker 1: explain how you knew the Hearts. Lauren and Liz tried
Speaker 1: and failed. Apparently it wasn't enough to have examined every photo,
Speaker 1: read every article, and even taken a virtual tour of
Speaker 1: their house via an old real estate listing, because no
Speaker 1: matter how much we felt like we knew the Hearts,
Speaker 1: we did and actually know them at all. Last Spring,
Speaker 1: I joined to Facebook groups at the time they were
Speaker 1: at peak activity, but conversation in both forums remains busy
Speaker 1: to this day, with dozens of comments following each picture
Speaker 1: or post. In both groups, there's a lot of discussion
Speaker 1: about adoption, about Jen and Sarah's history of child abuse,
Speaker 1: about whether or not they were racist, and about whether
Speaker 1: or not the drive over the cliff was premeditated or spontaneous.
Speaker 1: Did Sarah know what Jen was planning to do was
Speaker 1: one of them. Terminally ill members even reached out to
Speaker 1: the Decalves about organizing a search party. They debated about
Speaker 1: the hearts financial situation, their clothing, their smiles, their sleeping arrangements,
Speaker 1: the contents of their refrigerator, their decor, and even why
Speaker 1: Jen and Sarah let their chickens roam free in the house.
Speaker 1: For months, I read every post and all the comments
Speaker 1: in both groups. I was the quintessential lurk, her never
Speaker 1: contributing to the conversation myself, but still going numb while
Speaker 1: I poured over pictures of the Hearts in happier times.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of disagreements in the Heart Facebook groups.
Speaker 1: Several women and they're almost all women as far as
Speaker 1: I can tell. Are members in other groups too, and
Speaker 1: tensions rise when a member of one group share secrets
Speaker 1: with another group and word trickles back to the original group.
Speaker 1: There's discussion about who's racist and classist and who's not,
Speaker 1: and who's even entitled to level this charge in the
Speaker 1: first place. The groups are pretty diverse, both racially and geographically.
Speaker 1: The most incendiary debate arises again and again and again,
Speaker 1: and the conversation goes on and on and on. When
Speaker 1: someone suggests they might feel a shred of sympathy for
Speaker 1: Jen and Sarah, these people are swiftly attacked, flamed to
Speaker 1: the point of being char broiled. The prevailing senses the
Speaker 1: Heart Moms were monsters, and if you don't agree, you
Speaker 1: should go start your own discussion group for friends of
Speaker 1: mass murderers. As much as I wonder why Jen kept
Speaker 1: her foot on the gas, I also wonder what drives
Speaker 1: someone to invest so much time interacting with complete strangers online.
Speaker 1: Seven months after the accident, before Hannah's foot was positively identified,
Speaker 1: I decided to check in with Amy Atlas to find out.
Speaker 1: The group is called Finding the Missing Heart Children and
Speaker 1: Honoring the Heart Children. The short term goal or to
Speaker 1: find Sierra, Davonta, and Hannah now Davon, Dan, Hannas and
Speaker 1: Sierra has been found, and also honoring all the children
Speaker 1: for the abuse that they endored and though that they
Speaker 1: did not die in vain through longer term solutions such as,
Speaker 1: you know, homeschool regulations or adoption reform. I think that
Speaker 1: at the maximum capacity we probably had, maybe it was
Speaker 1: five people. We asked people what their skills were from
Speaker 1: you know, being the grant writer, a lawyer, somebody who's
Speaker 1: worked in the legislature, to somebody's who's worked in social services, community,
Speaker 1: you name it. We asked like what people's skills were,
Speaker 1: and according to that, we would assign people have different responsibilities.
Speaker 1: At the peak level, I would absolutely say, you know,
Speaker 1: myself and a few others who were working on this
Speaker 1: twenty hours a day. So we were sleeping four hours
Speaker 1: and we were doing this full time twenty hours a day.
Speaker 1: That is a serious commitment for someone with a family,
Speaker 1: a career, a life. Amy is a mom of two
Speaker 1: and a cookbook author who happens to have a law degree.
Speaker 1: There really were only about four of us that were
Speaker 1: in the core group like standing up twenty hours a day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there was probably a group of you know,
Speaker 1: fifteen people that had like a real interest in helping.
Speaker 1: We were calling all of the counties every single day
Speaker 1: to all the different county sheriffs to find out what
Speaker 1: was happening with the search. That was all the counties
Speaker 1: that Cannifer and Sarah drove through in Washington and Oregon
Speaker 1: and California. From calling there to having correspondence with the FBI.
Speaker 1: We also tried to organize peaceful protests and also create
Speaker 1: media awareness of the story. Didn't die. We created flyers
Speaker 1: for them and put them all over everywhere we could
Speaker 1: on the web, from Facebook pages to emailing different inflorishers
Speaker 1: and asking them to speak out. We'd also emailed their
Speaker 1: flyers to a missing Christon organizations or authorities and kind
Speaker 1: of like missing person investigations. Mostly it was an online effort.
Speaker 1: We tried to make an effort where we would go
Speaker 1: to the West Coast when there wasn't enough interest. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I was ready to go out there. Even when we
Speaker 1: gave it a tip to the FBI, they didn't reach
Speaker 1: back out to us, and so we sent an email
Speaker 1: to the press person for the FBI. I think it
Speaker 1: was six days for somebody to get back to us,
Speaker 1: which I thought was rather alarming since it was still
Speaker 1: very much a case the same like they were looking into,
Speaker 1: and it was a designated phone line for tips. The
Speaker 1: FBI still has a site soliciting information about the heart crash,
Speaker 1: and the messaging on there includes a warning that tips
Speaker 1: may not be followed up on. But still Amy was
Speaker 1: frustrated and when you're putting that kind of time in
Speaker 1: it just was frankly disgusting because it felt like, Wow,
Speaker 1: there are lives were erased when they were living, and
Speaker 1: now it's so easy to erase them when they're not
Speaker 1: a lot. How would you react if you found out
Speaker 1: your sister or friend was investing twenty hours a day
Speaker 1: in trying to solve a crime that happened in a
Speaker 1: far away state involving strangers. I asked Amy what people
Speaker 1: in her life had to say about it and how
Speaker 1: she knew when it was time to dial back her
Speaker 1: time in the group. The reaction from the people that
Speaker 1: I spoke with that were offline was mick. First of all,
Speaker 1: some people hadn't even heard about the case, and then
Speaker 1: I sent them more information about it, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that it wasn't something that they had heard about
Speaker 1: or they hadn't recalled seeing a headline of family drives
Speaker 1: off of a cliff but didn't have all the information.
Speaker 1: But then the people that did know about the case
Speaker 1: a little more. It was a combination of Wow, this
Speaker 1: is so wonderful that you're doing this, and then there
Speaker 1: were a few people like, well, why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: But I would say by a large more people thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: it's so great that somebody is doing something. Sleuth groups
Speaker 1: often pop up after an especially grizzly crime, possibly as
Speaker 1: a receptacle for all the emotions sparked by tragedy. But
Speaker 1: there's a certain poetic justice to the hearts immortalization on Facebook,
Speaker 1: considering it was Jen's preferred mode of communication, and in
Speaker 1: recent months we've uncovered another world where she was equally entrenched.
Speaker 1: Jen was an a a video gamer. The name of
Speaker 1: her game of choice, ironically enough, was Oz Broken Kingdom.
Speaker 1: She played for hours on end while Sarah was at work.
Speaker 1: That may explain why Davante told Dana Decalb that his
Speaker 1: moms weren't really paying attention to what went on at home.
Speaker 1: Jen was a guild leader, which is kind of like
Speaker 1: being a team captain, and she kept meticulous handwritten notes
Speaker 1: of her players moves. Investigators found pages and pages of
Speaker 1: them when she died. We're about to hear from Drew,
Speaker 1: who knew Jen through the gaming world. He asked us
Speaker 1: not to use his last name. If my employer knew
Speaker 1: the amount of hours I dedicated to gaming, I would
Speaker 1: be fired. Drew met Jen when they were both playing
Speaker 1: oz and ended up in the same clan. If you're
Speaker 1: a gaming novice like us, you might be wondering what
Speaker 1: in the world this means. Online gaming offers social components,
Speaker 1: at least the best games do, and to foster this
Speaker 1: social environment, they've created these entities called clans, and usually
Speaker 1: clans consist of about fifty people, and you join a
Speaker 1: clan and then you compete against everyone else, and enjoining
Speaker 1: a clan, the benefit you gain, of course, is obviously
Speaker 1: the social component. In order to keep you hooked, gaming
Speaker 1: developers understand they have to foster that social environment. So
Speaker 1: what they'll do is offer you rewards in game for
Speaker 1: being part of a clan. And so to put it simply,
Speaker 1: if you're highly competitives and you also happen to like
Speaker 1: people on any level, then you will definitely join a
Speaker 1: clan because it's the only way to really win. Jen
Speaker 1: was a co leader of the clan that I happened upon,
Speaker 1: and she was good, and by good, I mean she
Speaker 1: developed relationships very quickly with people. With all clan members,
Speaker 1: she got to know them on a personal level, talking
Speaker 1: to people, making sure everyone's good and Jin really signed
Speaker 1: when there was a newcomer if someone didn't know how
Speaker 1: to conquer a particular part of the game. That was
Speaker 1: her wheelhouse. She loved the the bird with a broken Wing.
Speaker 1: I became part of the leadership board for for that
Speaker 1: clan with Jin, and we would have conference calls on
Speaker 1: a fairly regular basis where we would just touch upon
Speaker 1: gaming concepts on a weekly basis, you know, we would strategize.
Speaker 1: Jen's clan was called Dropping Houses and her screen name
Speaker 1: was simply Heart. There were a bunch of different characters
Speaker 1: you could choose from. Hers was the tin Man. Remember,
Speaker 1: the tin Man was the one who went down the
Speaker 1: Yellow Brick Road in search of a heart juice. As
Speaker 1: it isn't unusual for a player to spend twelve to
Speaker 1: fourteen hours a day building a character, there's opportunities in
Speaker 1: these games where you could have hours, endless hours of
Speaker 1: intense concentration. There would definitely be weeks where I mean,
Speaker 1: just judging by her rank, it was clear that she
Speaker 1: had spent a ridiculous number of hours. Drew describes Jen
Speaker 1: as highly competitive. Another gamer we spoke to called her
Speaker 1: a stone cold narcissist because she kept her clan members
Speaker 1: on such a tight leash, bossing them around at all
Speaker 1: hours of the day. It was common for Jen to
Speaker 1: sit near the top of the rankings, not just the
Speaker 1: clan rankings, but the individual ones, which is a bigger deal.
Speaker 1: Team members teased her about how she was the first
Speaker 1: to crack a really complex part of the game. Drew
Speaker 1: told her she must have developed a diagram to figure
Speaker 1: it out. In fact, she had. Sometime in the summer
Speaker 1: of two thousand seventeen, Jen abruptly left the game, claiming
Speaker 1: she wanted to spend more time with her kids. Drew
Speaker 1: believes her hasty departure was because of a conflict with
Speaker 1: a fellow gamer who she believed was cheating. Jen refused
Speaker 1: to continue on if he stayed in the clan, and
Speaker 1: when he didn't leave, she signed off the chat with
Speaker 1: a picture of her kids at the beach. She would
Speaker 1: consistently show photos of her with her kids you know
Speaker 1: in the woods, are all at the beach or wherever
Speaker 1: in clan chat and talk about these escapades that they've
Speaker 1: gone on or that they are planning. She taught and
Speaker 1: nauseam about the fact that they were adopted. But far
Speaker 1: more than that, even just the amount of oppression that
Speaker 1: she experiences because she is the mother of black children.
Speaker 1: Jen and Drew spent hours chatting about everything, the game, politics,
Speaker 1: their families, but he says there was one subject that
Speaker 1: never came up. S Aaron. She never once and I'm
Speaker 1: talking like six months of consistent talking. She never once
Speaker 1: mentioned her wife Sarah in personal communication with me or
Speaker 1: in the clan chat. She never mentioned her sexual orientation
Speaker 1: to me um For whatever reason, Drew happened to check
Speaker 1: in with Jen shortly before she died. We had both
Speaker 1: left the game. I hadn't talked to her in several months,
Speaker 1: and I just reached out to say, hey, see how
Speaker 1: things were going. And in that conversation and we got
Speaker 1: around to uh talking about our real life personas a
Speaker 1: little more. She once again sided a scenario where she
Speaker 1: was oppressed. She had been grocery shopping with the kids
Speaker 1: and a person in Lyne, you know, gave her a
Speaker 1: nasty look because of what she believes. She believes it
Speaker 1: was because of the color of her kid's skin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she illustrated that in far more words, but that was
Speaker 1: the basic gist of it. And I really did sympathize
Speaker 1: with her like I wanted. It was clear that because
Speaker 1: she talked about these scenarios so often, Like it was
Speaker 1: pretty clear that she was being hyperbolic, but Jim was
Speaker 1: just such a fun personality you couldn't help but give
Speaker 1: her the benefit of a doubt. So I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is absurd. I can't believe you're enduring this. Again. In retrospect,
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that almost none of it actually happened, and
Speaker 1: that I guess I should preface this by saying, I've
Speaker 1: never met anyone like Jim. I think she became so
Speaker 1: fixated on this persona that she really did become convinced
Speaker 1: of it herself. And you know, when she's following these
Speaker 1: statements up with these these photos of her precious children
Speaker 1: like it, I mean, it just it pulls the dart strings.
Speaker 1: Drew has five young kids, so he and Jen bonded
Speaker 1: about the challenges of living in a crowded house. Her
Speaker 1: message to him enjoy it while it lasts. He says
Speaker 1: he got the impression that she missed being able to
Speaker 1: control her kids. Who doesn't when they have teenagers. We wondered,
Speaker 1: did she ever talk about her kids being delayed? The
Speaker 1: way she communicated it to me was more focused on
Speaker 1: the idea that they were developmentally delayed when she adopted them,
Speaker 1: but thanks to her efforts, they've come so far. They're
Speaker 1: different people, they're better people. Of course, the bird with
Speaker 1: the broken wing, this sounds like the Jen we've come
Speaker 1: to know. We wondered if Jen talked about the kids
Speaker 1: futures Withdrew never never once to read now that she
Speaker 1: was reportedly depriving them of food, like it is in oriating,
Speaker 1: like not just to me, but to all of us
Speaker 1: who spent so much time online with her, because we
Speaker 1: can't help but think that the hours that she was
Speaker 1: devoting to us and to our clan and to our game,
Speaker 1: the money that she was devoting to the game, it
Speaker 1: should have it should have gone to the children. When
Speaker 1: I realized that she was a home school mom, I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's no way in hell those kids are learning. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: it's impossible with the amount of time she spending on
Speaker 1: this game, and with the with the gaming community there,
Speaker 1: it's impossible that six kids could be learning. Like many
Speaker 1: people who thought they knew jenn Hart, Drew has really
Speaker 1: struggled to figure out why she did what she did.
Speaker 1: Her life had become wrapped up in this image that
Speaker 1: she so carefully crafted this image of her as this
Speaker 1: doting mom and champion of racial reconciliation. Her life had
Speaker 1: become so identified, she had identified herself by this cause,
Speaker 1: if you will, that when she came to grips with
Speaker 1: the fact that it was all going to fall apart,
Speaker 1: strangely enough, I think she took the same approach that
Speaker 1: she took with that guy in the game. It was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's either him or me, but in this case it's
Speaker 1: it's all of us. Either I get to maintain my image,
Speaker 1: my my preferred image, or none of us get to
Speaker 1: maintain anything at all. Drew also points a finger at
Speaker 1: video games which give players a quick hit of dopamine
Speaker 1: they come to crave. He describes this phenomenon as quote
Speaker 1: an endless rewards based experience. I think about the Vegas shooter,
Speaker 1: and his motive has been so elusive. He was spending
Speaker 1: even more absurd hours and money pulling this random number generator,
Speaker 1: seeking these flashing lights, this dopamine it. And I think
Speaker 1: in my experience, the more I played, the less impressive
Speaker 1: real the real world proved to be. I have been described,
Speaker 1: I hope, in some sense justifiably as of like a
Speaker 1: pretty great dad, like a very involved dad, like I
Speaker 1: really do take my kids. Uh, my wife and I
Speaker 1: both are very active with our children. We love to
Speaker 1: go high team, we love to play sports. We I mean,
Speaker 1: the list goes on and on. But it's strange, Like
Speaker 1: the more I played, the more in depth I got
Speaker 1: into the game, the gaming experience, the less interested I
Speaker 1: was in playing catch with my son, the less interested
Speaker 1: I was in spending time with my wife. And I
Speaker 1: really like her, like I really do, She's great. But
Speaker 1: it's just I was addicted, truly addicted to these the
Speaker 1: highs that the game provided. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to let my clanmates down, and like
Speaker 1: I wanted to win, and I didn't want to let
Speaker 1: gen down. When real life gets more stressful is when
Speaker 1: the temptation to escape and to this alternative life becomes stronger.
Speaker 1: The game is not the cause. I think the game
Speaker 1: just creates conditions that perhaps contribute to acts like the
Speaker 1: heart crash or the Vegas shooting. So maybe Jen was
Speaker 1: running away from her real life, from her six growing kids,
Speaker 1: who had little to no education and uncertain futures, into
Speaker 1: the arms of Facebook and video games. It's sad if
Speaker 1: you think about it. Of course you wish someone had
Speaker 1: heeded the cause of the kids, but you also wish
Speaker 1: Jen had gotten some help, let someone come into the
Speaker 1: house and keep her company, taking a walk with a friend,
Speaker 1: talked to a therapist, joined to support group for adoptive parents.
Speaker 1: Would any of this have made a difference. The source
Speaker 1: close to the family agrees that Jen needed help. This
Speaker 1: person says, I think that this whole thing comes down
Speaker 1: to she was always trying to fix everybody else and
Speaker 1: make herself look good, when in fact she was the
Speaker 1: one who needed the help. Of course, all of this
Speaker 1: begs the question where was Sarah. Of all the people
Speaker 1: we've spoken to, her coals colleague Cheryl Hart is the
Speaker 1: one who knew Sarah best. She had said that they
Speaker 1: used to just always go out and go to concerts.
Speaker 1: They would go to shows and and Jen was always
Speaker 1: really happy all the time and stuff, and and now
Speaker 1: Jen was just really closed off, and she was tired
Speaker 1: all the time when she had migraines. When Cheryl would
Speaker 1: press for details about medications Jen might try, or whether
Speaker 1: or not she was seeing a doctor, Sarah shut down
Speaker 1: the conversation. She'd get personal, but only to an extent.
Speaker 1: And while Sarah was willing to acknowledge that Jen might
Speaker 1: be suffering from depression, she definitely didn't want to get
Speaker 1: into specifics other details sharel remembers. The Hearts had a
Speaker 1: family library, but the kids were only allowed to check
Speaker 1: out two books at a time. Jen never slept in
Speaker 1: a bed. She always fell asleep on the couch in
Speaker 1: front of the TV. She also wouldn't let Sarah wear
Speaker 1: her hair in a ponytail. None of this paints and
Speaker 1: portrait of the happiest marriage. Jen had some sort of
Speaker 1: online game that she ran through Facebook. That was her
Speaker 1: escape ever since, kind of like the whole thing went
Speaker 1: viral with Davante. Yeah, she didn't want to do the
Speaker 1: trips or the concerts or any of that stuff, so
Speaker 1: she kind of did the virtual world. Because she did
Speaker 1: call the store one morning. It was before we had opened,
Speaker 1: so the call came to my desk, so I had
Speaker 1: answered the phone and it was a woman on the
Speaker 1: other end, and they had asked to speak with Sarah
Speaker 1: Hart and my place her on hold, and I told
Speaker 1: Sarah was for her, and Sarah had gone into a
Speaker 1: complete panic, and she had gone into an office and
Speaker 1: shut the door, and she came out about her about
Speaker 1: ten to twelve minutes later, and she had told us
Speaker 1: that it was Jen that was on the phone and
Speaker 1: she was upset with her because Sarah had not done
Speaker 1: her part of that game for the day, setting up something.
Speaker 1: And Jen was really upset because it was really important
Speaker 1: that Sarah do whatever it was that she was supposed
Speaker 1: to do for that game. She was really upset. She
Speaker 1: had told Sarah that that was her only out, that
Speaker 1: was her only reason for living, and there was no
Speaker 1: If she wasn't gonna help her through that, then there
Speaker 1: was no reason for her to exist anymore. He just
Speaker 1: kind of gave me this look like of kind of
Speaker 1: like fear. And I remember making this comment like you're
Speaker 1: like an abused wife, and she just kind of gave
Speaker 1: me this look like no kidding, and it just kind
Speaker 1: of kind of like the whole tone kind of changed
Speaker 1: after that. It was just like, Okay, something's not right.
Speaker 1: Would Cheryl have responded differently if Sarah had described this
Speaker 1: kind of controlling behavior coming from a man. Now, it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you're lesbians. You guys can do whatever you want, and
Speaker 1: then you try not to delve into their personal relationship,
Speaker 1: and you don't know what boundaries you can cross. Cheryl says,
Speaker 1: Sarah was very open about her marriage to Jen. She
Speaker 1: didn't try to hide the fact that she was married
Speaker 1: to a woman. In fact, she says, Sarah probably used
Speaker 1: the word wife a hundred times a day, to the
Speaker 1: point where other colleagues teased her about it. She could
Speaker 1: never say Jen. It was always my wife, my wife,
Speaker 1: my wife, and it was like she rarely ever called
Speaker 1: her by name. We just always thought it was funny
Speaker 1: because it's like I didn't go around saying, well, my
Speaker 1: husband and my husband that Cheryl says, Sarah talked about
Speaker 1: what it was like to work long hours and then
Speaker 1: go home and take over from Jen, who had been
Speaker 1: alone with the kids all day. Cheryl got the impression
Speaker 1: that Sarah did most of the cooking. Sarah was also
Speaker 1: open about the pressure of being the breadwinner. She carried
Speaker 1: most of the credit card debt, which Cheryl says was
Speaker 1: the result of everyday expenses and home renovations. Sarah's unpaid
Speaker 1: balance was over fourteen thousand dollars as of March two, eighteen,
Speaker 1: and Jen's was about two thousand dollars. According to a
Speaker 1: report released after their death, not astronomical, but enough to
Speaker 1: keep you up at night if you're supporting a family
Speaker 1: of eight on forty five thousand a year and you're
Speaker 1: about to lose your monthly stipends for adopting kids out
Speaker 1: of foster care. Sarah made a payment to her Discover
Speaker 1: card early on the morning of the crash, which suggests
Speaker 1: she didn't know what was going to happen later. The
Speaker 1: payment also could have been an automatic one. Some Facebook's
Speaker 1: loose speculate that the Hearts decided to end it all
Speaker 1: because of their debt, But while fourteen thousand dollars is
Speaker 1: no joke, the bank wasn't foreclosing on their home, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem so in surmountable that Jen would kill
Speaker 1: the whole family. Another persistent theory that one of the
Speaker 1: Heart moms was terminally ill. In a Facebook status update,
Speaker 1: Jen vaguely blames health issues for a month long hiatus,
Speaker 1: but nothing in our interviews and the Hearts emails and
Speaker 1: paperwork points to any kind of physical illness. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like such a big lead to say Jen suffered
Speaker 1: from depression, she was isolated, she had removed herself from
Speaker 1: real life. She didn't have a strong support network, no
Speaker 1: family nearby or in the flesh friends she saw it regularly.
Speaker 1: Seven months after the Hearts died, Lauren Smiley made a
Speaker 1: trip to Mendocino County to talk with Sheriff Tom Allman,
Speaker 1: who has been leading the investigation since day one. He
Speaker 1: was at the scene of the crash hours after it
Speaker 1: happened and has returned countless time since. Here's Lauren. I
Speaker 1: stopped by the Mendocino County Sheriff's office on my drive
Speaker 1: up from San Francisco to the cliff. The office is
Speaker 1: on edge of the county seat town of Yukayah, right
Speaker 1: next to the jail. Mendicino County is known for redwoods,
Speaker 1: marijuana farms, and a inspiring coastline. Alman has been the
Speaker 1: sheriff coroner here for more than a decade. He looks
Speaker 1: like the sheriff from the movies, white fisherman, mustache, really
Speaker 1: ruddy skin. A bust of George Washington sits behind his desk.
Speaker 1: His start helmet from his time as a civilian peacekeeper
Speaker 1: in late nineties. Kast of Oh sits on a shelf.
Speaker 1: My name is Tom Almond, I'm the sheriff of Mendicino
Speaker 1: County and I've been sheriff three terms. I'm about to
Speaker 1: start my fourth term, and I've worked for the county. Listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to downplay the super slouths because we've
Speaker 1: gotten good information from people who have found good information,
Speaker 1: and so law enforcement would be full party to say,
Speaker 1: oh no, this is our job, go away. We're actually
Speaker 1: sleuth too, you know. We can think of these things,
Speaker 1: and we we work with chemists and the forensic labs
Speaker 1: and the old fashioned police work of saying, you know,
Speaker 1: who done it? How can we solve this crime. We
Speaker 1: are following up leads and we're not putting out press
Speaker 1: releases of of new shocking information that we find to
Speaker 1: satisfy some sluice curiosity. Sheriff Allman told us something we
Speaker 1: hadn't heard before, that there was a group of friends
Speaker 1: and acquaintances of the Hearts who came from as far
Speaker 1: away as Minnesota to help the search efforts. They used
Speaker 1: the bluff where the family died as their home base.
Speaker 1: There was a half dozen of them that were camped
Speaker 1: at that pullout for three months, four months. They would
Speaker 1: walk the beach. That's how the one gentleman from back
Speaker 1: east was walking the beach each morning he found the
Speaker 1: one body, and and then the people who found the
Speaker 1: foot and pants leg hernded over to him, and he
Speaker 1: turned over to High Patrol, and High Patrol gave it
Speaker 1: to us. The body Sheriff Allman is referring to is
Speaker 1: Sierra Hart, who was found two weeks after the accident.
Speaker 1: You remember she was the twelve year old baby of
Speaker 1: the family. She was small and spunky and loved music
Speaker 1: and animals. The foot, Sheriff Allman mentions was Hannah's. She
Speaker 1: was the one who jumped out of her bedroom window
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. One of the friends
Speaker 1: who came out to help with the search was a
Speaker 1: man named A J. He drove all the way from
Speaker 1: Minnesota shortly after the family died and stayed until the
Speaker 1: beginning of June. We weren't able to connect with a
Speaker 1: J directly. He didn't respond to messages, but Lauren chatted
Speaker 1: with thal Hale, a local resident who got to know
Speaker 1: him pretty well. Here she is to set the scene.
Speaker 1: As you drive through the tiny town of Westport on
Speaker 1: Highway one, you'll see an all wood building with a
Speaker 1: Pepsi sign and one gas pump that's VAL's store. The
Speaker 1: highway sign of announcing the town says there's two residents,
Speaker 1: but locals say only fifty actually live here full time,
Speaker 1: and all seemed to know Val. People kept telling me
Speaker 1: to go there. Inside there's a small delhi with the
Speaker 1: menu written on chalkboards and rows of groceries like wine, cookine, oil,
Speaker 1: and toilet paper to spare residents the half hour trip
Speaker 1: so south to the bigger town Fort Brag. Locals pin
Speaker 1: notices on an announcement board outside handyman for hire, a
Speaker 1: support group for people with depression. Val has lived in
Speaker 1: the Westport since he took over the store from his
Speaker 1: mom last year. Everybody knows a j very nice man,
Speaker 1: was super dedicated. Even law enforcement was worried about how
Speaker 1: he was going above and beyond, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he's just a real nice spell on And he gave
Speaker 1: you a different perspective to all the rumors and all
Speaker 1: the speculation and all the stuff. You know, because you
Speaker 1: you basically have a tragic incident that looks almost like
Speaker 1: a crime scene. No one's guilty until you're proven guilty.
Speaker 1: But there's all these speculations so it's really hard, and
Speaker 1: then you get a face to some leaked a friend
Speaker 1: of the family, and that it helped put a normal
Speaker 1: everyday thing for us, especially in this real small town.
Speaker 1: And a J brought that to us. And he was
Speaker 1: also very polite, very honest, and just really wanted to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of things. It wasn't really one
Speaker 1: way or the other. It was just wanting to find
Speaker 1: and he did. Now he did make a difference. Val
Speaker 1: talked about how a J walked out on the cliffs
Speaker 1: so far out the fire chief was concerned he wouldn't
Speaker 1: make it back before dark. I can't even imagine how
Speaker 1: many miles he walked on those beaches and bluffs and
Speaker 1: drove around and sat on the cliff with his binoculars
Speaker 1: day after day after day after day after day. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was just a figure of our town for months.
Speaker 1: And you know, once you become a part of a
Speaker 1: little community like this, it's not like Fox News where
Speaker 1: they come up and set up their stuff and then
Speaker 1: you know, go home. This was a whole different thing,
Speaker 1: and it was interesting. It was definitely nice to have,
Speaker 1: like I said, a human connection to something that seemed
Speaker 1: hard to put words with. Would he come into your
Speaker 1: store about every day? Not every day in the beginning, yes,
Speaker 1: every day and look for um, you know, have questions
Speaker 1: on what might be the word out on the street,
Speaker 1: so to speak. And then it came down to where
Speaker 1: would be a few times a week towards the end,
Speaker 1: and what sort of tips did you share with him?
Speaker 1: Just the tips of the weather on what to look for.
Speaker 1: The big tip for him was was when one of
Speaker 1: my guys that I grew up with, it was on
Speaker 1: the fire department, said, you know, there's a certain way
Speaker 1: that the water, um, the currents work and even though
Speaker 1: the winds blowing south um where that particular incident happened,
Speaker 1: we need to look north in the bay north and
Speaker 1: and he did, and he did, and he did, and
Speaker 1: that he found stuff. He learned the tricks of the
Speaker 1: trade very quickly. He adopted himself. He hadn't been to
Speaker 1: the ocean, you know, he didn't know about the civic
Speaker 1: and you know, he adopted and he stayed dedicated. And
Speaker 1: that was the key to everything. I mean, that was
Speaker 1: the key to making the difference. Maybe A j had
Speaker 1: it right. The key to making a difference is about
Speaker 1: actually showing up, lacing up a pair of boots and
Speaker 1: walking along the cliffs rain or shine alone or with
Speaker 1: other heart friends. A j did that he was at
Speaker 1: the place where his friends died and looked for them
Speaker 1: in real life. He didn't just click through pictures of
Speaker 1: them or sit in front of a computer a thousand
Speaker 1: miles away. He didn't try to piece together the clues
Speaker 1: from afar then bounce ideas and hypotheses off strangers. Maybe
Speaker 1: the key to real friendship is being there in the
Speaker 1: flesh for better or worse, in sickness and in health.
Speaker 1: As Val said, some people look for crowds and some
Speaker 1: people look for lonely places. If we've learned one thing
Speaker 1: from The Hearts, it's this there are lots of lonely
Speaker 1: places in the world, too many, and once you've lost
Speaker 1: yourself in one of them, or several, as we believe
Speaker 1: Gen did, it's really hard to find your way back
Speaker 1: next time. On Broken Hearts, we assume that people who
Speaker 1: are abusive are abusive both in their private lives but
Speaker 1: also in their public lives. And we know this now
Speaker 1: not to be true. Because I was coming up here,
Speaker 1: I felt like this sense of dread, a corner of inquest,
Speaker 1: is going to, in my opinion, give evidence that will
Speaker 1: shock the consciousness of people who are following this case.
Speaker 1: This will be a water cooler conversation throughout our nation.
Speaker 1: If you suspect a child as being abused, call one
Speaker 1: eight hundred for a child that's one eight hundred numeral
Speaker 1: four A C H I L D. Or visit child
Speaker 1: help dot org to find out how to report your concerns.
Speaker 1: For access to exclusive photos and videos and documents about
Speaker 1: the case, visit glamour dot com slash Broken Hearts. Have
Speaker 1: questions for us about this podcast, reach us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Glamour mag or at Broken Hearts Pod. If you
Speaker 1: like what you heard, leave us a view. Broken Hearts
Speaker 1: is a joint production between Glamour and How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Hearts is co
Speaker 1: hosted and co written by Justine Harman and Elizabeth Egan
Speaker 1: and edited by Wendy Nogal. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter,
Speaker 1: Samantha Barry is Glamour's editor in chief. Julie Sheen and
Speaker 1: Dianna Buckman head up the business side of this partnership.
Speaker 1: Joyce Pandola, Pat Singer and Luke Zeleski are a research team.
Speaker 1: Jason Hope is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: along with producers Julian Weller, ben Kie Brick and Josh Sane.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jen Lance