WEBVTT - "Stone-Cold Narcissist" 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.600 There were multiple times when the search parties came here 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:07.640 and scoured the bluffs with fancy helicopters and airplanes and 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:10.640 boats and everything else. But in the end, what really 0:00:10.760 --> 0:00:13.680 was was the ocean stirring things up and calming down again, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.880 and then diligent people looking. No one that I know 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.560 of witnessed the accident. That's that's the word. Every time 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:21.640 I go by there, I think of those poor kids. 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.360 It's the part about those kids losing their life that 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.840 I think of the most, because even though all of 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:29.720 it and all the search and rescue and all the 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.840 people who came here, what I remember is because I'm 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.280 a father, the most important thing is is that those 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:36.000 kids don't go home and they don't have a life. 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.440 So I don't know what happened, but I know that 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.400 that's the end result of all of it. That's Valentine Hail, 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.760 also known as VOW. He's the owner of VAL's Towing 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.280 in the Westport Community Store, which is the social hub 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:53.159 of the town where the Hearts died. He had a 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.680 bird's eye view of what happened in the aftermath of 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.560 the crash. It turns out Justine and I weren't the 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.360 only ones who couldn't stop thinking about this case. People 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.920 from as far away as Italy and Australia wondered what 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.160 had happened to the hearts. And we're worried about Hannah 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:15.280 and Davante, whose whereabouts were still unknown. But in January 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:19.720 two th nineteen, almost ten months after the crash, officials 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:23.120 announced that a foot discovered near the crash site belonged 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:28.440 to Hannah. Davante's body has not been found. From Glamour 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:34.360 and How Stuff Works, this is Broken Hearts. I'm Liz 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:39.480 Egan and I'm Justine Harmon. Our focus was on finding 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.440 the kids because we mainstream media did not seem interested 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.360 and there wasn't a lot of articles about it, and 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.960 I thought, how can they just be a race? That's 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:52.880 Ami Atlas, who started a Facebook group called Finding the 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:56.080 Missing Heart Children and Honoring the Heart Children back in April. 0:01:56.640 --> 0:01:59.680 The heart story piqued her interest, mostly because she felt 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.360 there was enough urgency to the search for the missing kids. 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.680 Amy's group now has two hundred and seventy four members. 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:10.800 There are other groups, so many others, Heart Family Case Discussion, 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.560 which has one thousand, four hundred and eleven members. Heart 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.600 Family Case discussion, this time in all caps, with one 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.800 hundred and seventy members, What happened to the Hearts, their history, 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:26.560 the Crash, the Kids four hundred and ninety members, Heart 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:31.400 Family Crash Theories on one members, and Let the Heart Shine, 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:36.920 a two three member closed group for people who quote loved, knew, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.079 or were connected to the Heart Family in some way. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.440 In order to get into this one, you have to 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.680 explain how you knew the Hearts. Lauren and Liz tried 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:50.000 and failed. Apparently it wasn't enough to have examined every photo, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.240 read every article, and even taken a virtual tour of 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.040 their house via an old real estate listing, because no 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.240 matter how much we felt like we knew the Hearts, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:04.000 we did and actually know them at all. Last Spring, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.440 I joined to Facebook groups at the time they were 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.720 at peak activity, but conversation in both forums remains busy 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.440 to this day, with dozens of comments following each picture 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.640 or post. In both groups, there's a lot of discussion 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.800 about adoption, about Jen and Sarah's history of child abuse, 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:26.520 about whether or not they were racist, and about whether 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.079 or not the drive over the cliff was premeditated or spontaneous. 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:34.000 Did Sarah know what Jen was planning to do was 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.480 one of them. Terminally ill members even reached out to 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.040 the Decalves about organizing a search party. They debated about 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:45.840 the hearts financial situation, their clothing, their smiles, their sleeping arrangements, 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.040 the contents of their refrigerator, their decor, and even why 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.040 Jen and Sarah let their chickens roam free in the house. 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.200 For months, I read every post and all the comments 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.720 in both groups. I was the quintessential lurk, her never 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.520 contributing to the conversation myself, but still going numb while 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.280 I poured over pictures of the Hearts in happier times. 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.320 There are a lot of disagreements in the Heart Facebook groups. 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.680 Several women and they're almost all women as far as 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:18.279 I can tell. Are members in other groups too, and 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.520 tensions rise when a member of one group share secrets 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.599 with another group and word trickles back to the original group. 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.200 There's discussion about who's racist and classist and who's not, 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:31.960 and who's even entitled to level this charge in the 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.440 first place. The groups are pretty diverse, both racially and geographically. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:41.000 The most incendiary debate arises again and again and again, 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:44.920 and the conversation goes on and on and on. When 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.440 someone suggests they might feel a shred of sympathy for 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.919 Jen and Sarah, these people are swiftly attacked, flamed to 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.120 the point of being char broiled. The prevailing senses the 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.560 Heart Moms were monsters, and if you don't agree, you 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:03.200 should go start your own discussion group for friends of 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:07.440 mass murderers. As much as I wonder why Jen kept 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.560 her foot on the gas, I also wonder what drives 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:15.480 someone to invest so much time interacting with complete strangers online. 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:21.400 Seven months after the accident, before Hannah's foot was positively identified, 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:25.040 I decided to check in with Amy Atlas to find out. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.920 The group is called Finding the Missing Heart Children and 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:34.599 Honoring the Heart Children. The short term goal or to 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.880 find Sierra, Davonta, and Hannah now Davon, Dan, Hannas and 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.200 Sierra has been found, and also honoring all the children 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.480 for the abuse that they endored and though that they 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.160 did not die in vain through longer term solutions such as, 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:53.039 you know, homeschool regulations or adoption reform. I think that 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.360 at the maximum capacity we probably had, maybe it was 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:01.520 five people. We asked people what their skills were from 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:04.920 you know, being the grant writer, a lawyer, somebody who's 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.799 worked in the legislature, to somebody's who's worked in social services, community, 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:12.320 you name it. We asked like what people's skills were, 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:18.039 and according to that, we would assign people have different responsibilities. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:22.039 At the peak level, I would absolutely say, you know, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:23.960 myself and a few others who were working on this 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:26.880 twenty hours a day. So we were sleeping four hours 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:32.240 and we were doing this full time twenty hours a day. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.880 That is a serious commitment for someone with a family, 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.680 a career, a life. Amy is a mom of two 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.320 and a cookbook author who happens to have a law degree. 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.040 There really were only about four of us that were 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.279 in the core group like standing up twenty hours a day. Yeah, 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.040 and then there was probably a group of you know, 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.960 fifteen people that had like a real interest in helping. 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:01.520 We were calling all of the counties every single day 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.200 to all the different county sheriffs to find out what 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:07.800 was happening with the search. That was all the counties 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:11.760 that Cannifer and Sarah drove through in Washington and Oregon 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:18.200 and California. From calling there to having correspondence with the FBI. 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:23.400 We also tried to organize peaceful protests and also create 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.680 media awareness of the story. Didn't die. We created flyers 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.760 for them and put them all over everywhere we could 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:35.360 on the web, from Facebook pages to emailing different inflorishers 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.960 and asking them to speak out. We'd also emailed their 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:43.640 flyers to a missing Christon organizations or authorities and kind 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.640 of like missing person investigations. Mostly it was an online effort. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.400 We tried to make an effort where we would go 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:54.120 to the West Coast when there wasn't enough interest. Unfortunately, 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:56.360 I was ready to go out there. Even when we 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:58.800 gave it a tip to the FBI, they didn't reach 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.200 back out to us, and so we sent an email 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.160 to the press person for the FBI. I think it 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.040 was six days for somebody to get back to us, 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.840 which I thought was rather alarming since it was still 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.600 very much a case the same like they were looking into, 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.000 and it was a designated phone line for tips. The 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.920 FBI still has a site soliciting information about the heart crash, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.640 and the messaging on there includes a warning that tips 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.240 may not be followed up on. But still Amy was 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.440 frustrated and when you're putting that kind of time in 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:35.319 it just was frankly disgusting because it felt like, Wow, 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:38.160 there are lives were erased when they were living, and 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.200 now it's so easy to erase them when they're not 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.320 a lot. How would you react if you found out 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.600 your sister or friend was investing twenty hours a day 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.680 in trying to solve a crime that happened in a 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:54.320 far away state involving strangers. I asked Amy what people 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.440 in her life had to say about it and how 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.280 she knew when it was time to dial back her 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.640 time in the group. The reaction from the people that 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.480 I spoke with that were offline was mick. First of all, 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.120 some people hadn't even heard about the case, and then 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.560 I sent them more information about it, and they couldn't 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.240 believe that it wasn't something that they had heard about 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.800 or they hadn't recalled seeing a headline of family drives 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.000 off of a cliff but didn't have all the information. 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:22.840 But then the people that did know about the case 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.400 a little more. It was a combination of Wow, this 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.000 is so wonderful that you're doing this, and then there 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.360 were a few people like, well, why are you doing this? 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.360 But I would say by a large more people thought, Wow, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.400 it's so great that somebody is doing something. Sleuth groups 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.400 often pop up after an especially grizzly crime, possibly as 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.240 a receptacle for all the emotions sparked by tragedy. But 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.240 there's a certain poetic justice to the hearts immortalization on Facebook, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.240 considering it was Jen's preferred mode of communication, and in 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:58.040 recent months we've uncovered another world where she was equally entrenched. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.120 Jen was an a a video gamer. The name of 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:07.200 her game of choice, ironically enough, was Oz Broken Kingdom. 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.800 She played for hours on end while Sarah was at work. 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.160 That may explain why Davante told Dana Decalb that his 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.680 moms weren't really paying attention to what went on at home. 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.560 Jen was a guild leader, which is kind of like 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.959 being a team captain, and she kept meticulous handwritten notes 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.959 of her players moves. Investigators found pages and pages of 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:39.920 them when she died. We're about to hear from Drew, 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:43.240 who knew Jen through the gaming world. He asked us 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.679 not to use his last name. If my employer knew 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.720 the amount of hours I dedicated to gaming, I would 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.480 be fired. Drew met Jen when they were both playing 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.559 oz and ended up in the same clan. If you're 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.360 a gaming novice like us, you might be wondering what 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:04.160 in the world this means. Online gaming offers social components, 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.480 at least the best games do, and to foster this 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.680 social environment, they've created these entities called clans, and usually 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:16.760 clans consist of about fifty people, and you join a 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.880 clan and then you compete against everyone else, and enjoining 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.640 a clan, the benefit you gain, of course, is obviously 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:28.560 the social component. In order to keep you hooked, gaming 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:33.040 developers understand they have to foster that social environment. So 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:37.000 what they'll do is offer you rewards in game for 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:41.080 being part of a clan. And so to put it simply, 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.880 if you're highly competitives and you also happen to like 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:49.199 people on any level, then you will definitely join a 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.720 clan because it's the only way to really win. Jen 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.240 was a co leader of the clan that I happened upon, 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:00.800 and she was good, and by good, I mean she 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:06.840 developed relationships very quickly with people. With all clan members, 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.600 she got to know them on a personal level, talking 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.640 to people, making sure everyone's good and Jin really signed 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.960 when there was a newcomer if someone didn't know how 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.480 to conquer a particular part of the game. That was 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:28.120 her wheelhouse. She loved the the bird with a broken Wing. 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:33.079 I became part of the leadership board for for that 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.760 clan with Jin, and we would have conference calls on 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.199 a fairly regular basis where we would just touch upon 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:45.520 gaming concepts on a weekly basis, you know, we would strategize. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.040 Jen's clan was called Dropping Houses and her screen name 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:52.680 was simply Heart. There were a bunch of different characters 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.880 you could choose from. Hers was the tin Man. Remember, 0:12:56.000 --> 0:12:57.360 the tin Man was the one who went down the 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.160 Yellow Brick Road in search of a heart juice. As 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.440 it isn't unusual for a player to spend twelve to 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:07.120 fourteen hours a day building a character, there's opportunities in 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.680 these games where you could have hours, endless hours of 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:14.280 intense concentration. There would definitely be weeks where I mean, 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.280 just judging by her rank, it was clear that she 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:22.719 had spent a ridiculous number of hours. Drew describes Jen 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.480 as highly competitive. Another gamer we spoke to called her 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:31.120 a stone cold narcissist because she kept her clan members 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.160 on such a tight leash, bossing them around at all 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.200 hours of the day. It was common for Jen to 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.000 sit near the top of the rankings, not just the 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.160 clan rankings, but the individual ones, which is a bigger deal. 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.199 Team members teased her about how she was the first 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.360 to crack a really complex part of the game. Drew 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.800 told her she must have developed a diagram to figure 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:56.160 it out. In fact, she had. Sometime in the summer 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.800 of two thousand seventeen, Jen abruptly left the game, claiming 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.840 she wanted to spend more time with her kids. Drew 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.480 believes her hasty departure was because of a conflict with 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.840 a fellow gamer who she believed was cheating. Jen refused 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.640 to continue on if he stayed in the clan, and 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.360 when he didn't leave, she signed off the chat with 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.320 a picture of her kids at the beach. She would 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:22.600 consistently show photos of her with her kids you know 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.480 in the woods, are all at the beach or wherever 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.880 in clan chat and talk about these escapades that they've 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.960 gone on or that they are planning. She taught and 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.160 nauseam about the fact that they were adopted. But far 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.840 more than that, even just the amount of oppression that 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:49.600 she experiences because she is the mother of black children. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:55.200 Jen and Drew spent hours chatting about everything, the game, politics, 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.280 their families, but he says there was one subject that 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:03.440 never came up. S Aaron. She never once and I'm 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:08.320 talking like six months of consistent talking. She never once 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:14.800 mentioned her wife Sarah in personal communication with me or 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:20.160 in the clan chat. She never mentioned her sexual orientation 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.480 to me um For whatever reason, Drew happened to check 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.800 in with Jen shortly before she died. We had both 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.560 left the game. I hadn't talked to her in several months, 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.840 and I just reached out to say, hey, see how 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.560 things were going. And in that conversation and we got 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.280 around to uh talking about our real life personas a 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:44.320 little more. She once again sided a scenario where she 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.520 was oppressed. She had been grocery shopping with the kids 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.360 and a person in Lyne, you know, gave her a 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.240 nasty look because of what she believes. She believes it 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.840 was because of the color of her kid's skin. Yeah, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.400 she illustrated that in far more words, but that was 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.840 the basic gist of it. And I really did sympathize 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:13.280 with her like I wanted. It was clear that because 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.480 she talked about these scenarios so often, Like it was 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:23.120 pretty clear that she was being hyperbolic, but Jim was 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.600 just such a fun personality you couldn't help but give 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.520 her the benefit of a doubt. So I'm like, this 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.880 is absurd. I can't believe you're enduring this. Again. In retrospect, 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:37.480 I'm convinced that almost none of it actually happened, and 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:39.720 that I guess I should preface this by saying, I've 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:44.640 never met anyone like Jim. I think she became so 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.440 fixated on this persona that she really did become convinced 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:52.160 of it herself. And you know, when she's following these 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:57.840 statements up with these these photos of her precious children 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:03.440 like it, I mean, it just it pulls the dart strings. 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.440 Drew has five young kids, so he and Jen bonded 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.800 about the challenges of living in a crowded house. Her 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.000 message to him enjoy it while it lasts. He says 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.520 he got the impression that she missed being able to 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:22.480 control her kids. Who doesn't when they have teenagers. We wondered, 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.480 did she ever talk about her kids being delayed? The 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:30.000 way she communicated it to me was more focused on 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:35.520 the idea that they were developmentally delayed when she adopted them, 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.600 but thanks to her efforts, they've come so far. They're 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:44.080 different people, they're better people. Of course, the bird with 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.960 the broken wing, this sounds like the Jen we've come 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:49.679 to know. We wondered if Jen talked about the kids 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:55.439 futures Withdrew never never once to read now that she 0:17:55.600 --> 0:18:00.560 was reportedly depriving them of food, like it is in oriating, 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.359 like not just to me, but to all of us 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.479 who spent so much time online with her, because we 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.399 can't help but think that the hours that she was 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.840 devoting to us and to our clan and to our game, 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.600 the money that she was devoting to the game, it 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.360 should have it should have gone to the children. When 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.520 I realized that she was a home school mom, I'm like, 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:26.359 there's no way in hell those kids are learning. I mean, really, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.119 it's impossible with the amount of time she spending on 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.040 this game, and with the with the gaming community there, 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:37.120 it's impossible that six kids could be learning. Like many 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.560 people who thought they knew jenn Hart, Drew has really 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.080 struggled to figure out why she did what she did. 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:47.439 Her life had become wrapped up in this image that 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:53.680 she so carefully crafted this image of her as this 0:18:54.000 --> 0:19:00.720 doting mom and champion of racial reconciliation. Her life had 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:05.240 become so identified, she had identified herself by this cause, 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.520 if you will, that when she came to grips with 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.040 the fact that it was all going to fall apart, 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.000 strangely enough, I think she took the same approach that 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.520 she took with that guy in the game. It was like, Okay, 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.720 it's either him or me, but in this case it's 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:27.080 it's all of us. Either I get to maintain my image, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:32.480 my my preferred image, or none of us get to 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.119 maintain anything at all. Drew also points a finger at 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.000 video games which give players a quick hit of dopamine 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:43.159 they come to crave. He describes this phenomenon as quote 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:47.359 an endless rewards based experience. I think about the Vegas shooter, 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:51.359 and his motive has been so elusive. He was spending 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:56.560 even more absurd hours and money pulling this random number generator, 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:01.439 seeking these flashing lights, this dopamine it. And I think 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.640 in my experience, the more I played, the less impressive 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:11.000 real the real world proved to be. I have been described, 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.800 I hope, in some sense justifiably as of like a 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.520 pretty great dad, like a very involved dad, like I 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.480 really do take my kids. Uh, my wife and I 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.439 both are very active with our children. We love to 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:26.560 go high team, we love to play sports. We I mean, 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.439 the list goes on and on. But it's strange, Like 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:32.080 the more I played, the more in depth I got 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:36.680 into the game, the gaming experience, the less interested I 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.359 was in playing catch with my son, the less interested 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:42.040 I was in spending time with my wife. And I 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.639 really like her, like I really do, She's great. But 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.280 it's just I was addicted, truly addicted to these the 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.840 highs that the game provided. And then on top of that, 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:56.679 I didn't want to let my clanmates down, and like 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:58.760 I wanted to win, and I didn't want to let 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.880 gen down. When real life gets more stressful is when 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:08.600 the temptation to escape and to this alternative life becomes stronger. 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.040 The game is not the cause. I think the game 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:19.800 just creates conditions that perhaps contribute to acts like the 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:36.200 heart crash or the Vegas shooting. So maybe Jen was 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.520 running away from her real life, from her six growing kids, 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:43.280 who had little to no education and uncertain futures, into 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.800 the arms of Facebook and video games. It's sad if 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.360 you think about it. Of course you wish someone had 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.280 heeded the cause of the kids, but you also wish 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:54.960 Jen had gotten some help, let someone come into the 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.200 house and keep her company, taking a walk with a friend, 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:02.080 talked to a therapist, joined to support group for adoptive parents. 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.679 Would any of this have made a difference. The source 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:08.800 close to the family agrees that Jen needed help. This 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.120 person says, I think that this whole thing comes down 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:16.000 to she was always trying to fix everybody else and 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:18.800 make herself look good, when in fact she was the 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.280 one who needed the help. Of course, all of this 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:26.359 begs the question where was Sarah. Of all the people 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:29.600 we've spoken to, her coals colleague Cheryl Hart is the 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:34.479 one who knew Sarah best. She had said that they 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:36.760 used to just always go out and go to concerts. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.439 They would go to shows and and Jen was always 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.160 really happy all the time and stuff, and and now 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:45.040 Jen was just really closed off, and she was tired 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.280 all the time when she had migraines. When Cheryl would 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.880 press for details about medications Jen might try, or whether 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.640 or not she was seeing a doctor, Sarah shut down 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.639 the conversation. She'd get personal, but only to an extent. 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.000 And while Sarah was willing to acknowledge that Jen might 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.119 be suffering from depression, she definitely didn't want to get 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.480 into specifics other details sharel remembers. The Hearts had a 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.080 family library, but the kids were only allowed to check 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:15.040 out two books at a time. Jen never slept in 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:17.679 a bed. She always fell asleep on the couch in 0:23:17.720 --> 0:23:20.960 front of the TV. She also wouldn't let Sarah wear 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.680 her hair in a ponytail. None of this paints and 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:27.040 portrait of the happiest marriage. Jen had some sort of 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:33.280 online game that she ran through Facebook. That was her 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:37.000 escape ever since, kind of like the whole thing went 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:40.199 viral with Davante. Yeah, she didn't want to do the 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:43.040 trips or the concerts or any of that stuff, so 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:46.640 she kind of did the virtual world. Because she did 0:23:46.680 --> 0:23:50.560 call the store one morning. It was before we had opened, 0:23:51.160 --> 0:23:53.919 so the call came to my desk, so I had 0:23:53.920 --> 0:23:56.560 answered the phone and it was a woman on the 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:58.560 other end, and they had asked to speak with Sarah 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:01.120 Hart and my place her on hold, and I told 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.720 Sarah was for her, and Sarah had gone into a 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:08.600 complete panic, and she had gone into an office and 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:13.000 shut the door, and she came out about her about 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:17.520 ten to twelve minutes later, and she had told us 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.359 that it was Jen that was on the phone and 0:24:20.440 --> 0:24:23.480 she was upset with her because Sarah had not done 0:24:24.000 --> 0:24:28.840 her part of that game for the day, setting up something. 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:33.240 And Jen was really upset because it was really important 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:35.320 that Sarah do whatever it was that she was supposed 0:24:35.359 --> 0:24:38.600 to do for that game. She was really upset. She 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:41.040 had told Sarah that that was her only out, that 0:24:41.200 --> 0:24:44.240 was her only reason for living, and there was no 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:47.120 If she wasn't gonna help her through that, then there 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:51.000 was no reason for her to exist anymore. He just 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:53.119 kind of gave me this look like of kind of 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.440 like fear. And I remember making this comment like you're 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:59.480