WEBVTT - "There Were Good Times" 0:00:01.960 --> 0:00:06.560 On November eight two, eighteen, our field reporter Lawrence Smiley 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.240 made the four hour drive from San Francisco to the 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:13.640 Mendocino Cliff where the Heart family died. I'm sitting here 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.120 at the memorial on the edge of the bluff. There's 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.880 a wooden cross, and on it is we honor and 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:25.000 remember you love from your adopted brothers and sisters from 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:31.840 around the world. Adoptees deserve better hashtag adopted Voices. There's 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.240 six stuffed animals lined up in a row, a lion, 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.839 a bear, a monkey, another bear, cow, kind of a 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.519 draggled teddy bear. There and in front of them are 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:52.320 stones that have the kids names on them. Davante, Canna, Abigail, Marcus, Sierra, Jeremiah. 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:55.080 It's right on the edge of the bluff here whether 0:00:55.160 --> 0:01:02.120 it's just the sheer straight drop. In video she captured 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:05.360 that day, you can see the makeshift memorial, she describes. 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:09.360 It's a colorful pile of rock formations, fresh flowers, and 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:13.039 teddy bears covered in a thin coating of dust. There's 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.640 a wooden sculpture of a heart with wings bearing the 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:20.560 handwritten inscription please take care of yourselves and others lives 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:25.240 are not for the taking. The teal green Sea turns below. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.399 As we sit down to record this final episode. It 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.360 has been eight months since the crash. In that stretch 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.640 of time, I Justine have found out that I'm expecting 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.960 my second child and am now weeks away from giving birth. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.400 It's been surreal to watch the rough sketch of a 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.760 human life take form while also contemplating the lives of 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.720 six children who will never get to grow up. Some 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.360 days we feel like we know Marcus, Hannah, Vante, Abigail, 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.920 Jeremiah and Sierra. Then in telling this story, we are 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.400 honoring them. At other times we feel dirty, as if 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.600 for counting the gruesome but incomplete details of their short 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.600 lives makes us grave Robbers. For Lauren, who has spent 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.640 countless hours reaching out to the people closest to the 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.040 heart family and has endured her share of slammed doors, 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:26.280 It's been an especially strange journey. As I was coming 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:29.919 up here, I felt like this sense of dread as 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.119 I got closer and closer to this area. Um it's 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.640 been so many months that I've been looking into every 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:39.799 last lead that I could find, calling so many people, 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.560 some who talked to me, many who wouldn't and requesting 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:48.200 all these documents. It's been so much for six months now, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.919 and to actually come to the spot where the story 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.959 both began for me and and in for them, it 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.600 just had so much anxiety about it, honestly, and sort 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:04.400 of feeling to write about it. In April two tho nineteen, 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.560 a full year after the crash, a formal coroner's inquest 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.679 will be released to the public. At that time, a 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.280 jury will convene to decide whether this was a murder 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.320 by one person, a conspiracy to murder by more than 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:21.800 one person, or an accident. And then in so many ways, 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.200 it will be over from glamour and how stuff works. 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:31.200 This is Broken Hearts. I'm Justine Harmon and I'm Liz Egan. 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.400 There are a lot of people whose voices we tried 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:43.840 but were ultimately unable to include in this podcast. In 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.600 November two eighteen, over the course of three consecutive days 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:52.360 and after several months of outreach, Lawrence spoke with Sarah's father, 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.880 Alan Gengler. He decided not to go on the record. 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.760 We also reached out to Sarah's brother Matt, but did 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.160 not year back. Jen's parents and her brother Christopher Heart 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.000 declined to speak to us. Her other brother, Jonathan, says 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.280 his older sister has not been in his life since 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.960 two thousand and wanted only to make a few things clear. 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:20.120 In an email to Lauren on September eighteen, Jonathan wrote, 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.960 one thing I would like to clarify for myself and 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.960 my family is that Jen was not ousted from the 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.000 family for being gay. I have been openly gay, even 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.960 in high school, and it never affected me living in 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.960 my mom or dad's home. He continued, If anything, all 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.919 this time, my family did nothing but try to help 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.360 and understand Jen, not work against her. Two months after 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:49.159 he sent that email, Jonathan spoke with us over the phone. 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.200 He doesn't want his voice on this podcast, but he 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.920 gave us permission to relay the following. Nobody has done 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.560 anything to warrant this, he says. All I have seen 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.880 my whole life is her getting my parents, grandparents, anybody 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.280 jumping through hoops to give her what she wanted. And 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:11.239 that's all I can say. People loved her, They really 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.160 stuck up for her. It really hurts me when this 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:18.120 stuff gets reflected on my parents. That really hurts my feelings. 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.760 My mother is wonderful and she did put up with 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:27.200 a lot from my sister. We all did. Sources close 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.360 to the Genglers told us the family had not been 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.080 in touch with Sarah for a long time, but it 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.159 was Sarah's choice to cut off contact. The distance, one 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.600 says had nothing to do with them rejecting Sarah's sexuality. 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:50.240 Back in August, Lauren connected with Hannah Scott, a professor 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.039 of criminology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.599 who has spent a lot of time studying the psyche 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.440 of women who commit heinous crimes in ad into her 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.080 work as a criminologist victimologist. Scott is the author of 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.440 one of the only known studies on female family annihilators, 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.160 or women who kill their children and or their spouses. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:13.760 She said she wasn't surprised to hear that Jen and 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.560 Sarah fiercely controlled who had access to them and the kids. 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.440 She was, however, surprised by the way Jen used Facebook 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.080 to maintain a facade of familiar bliss in the case 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:27.400 of an abusive person. And it's clear that either one 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:30.800 or both of the parents in this family were abusive. 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.159 The outward impression management using social media is kind of 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.960 an interesting twist. Although most people now are using social media, 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:40.960 but nobody I didn't think it's really looked at the 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.920 abusive partner and how they negotiate their identity. We assume 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.600 that people who are abusive are abusive both in their 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.280 private lives but also in their public lives, and we 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:56.120 know this now not to be true. Many people who 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.840 are abusive in their private lives are well respected in 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.680 their communities and not considered abusive, and this is problematic 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.200 for us. It's inconsistent, and I think as human beings 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.120 we like to see consistency. If you want to continue 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.160 to abuse and have access to victims in your family, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.480 these acts of private violence have to be managed because 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.800 if you do anything outside the house that might alert 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.119 people to the fact that you're abusive, you may lose 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.720 your ability to continue to abuse, or, in this case, 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.840 I suspect, lose the ability to raise the children in 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.600 a way that they felt was appropriate and not be 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:38.200 objected by other people. And when we say it that way, 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.480 certainly we can understand all parents understand that they should 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.040 raise their children in a way that they feel as appropriate. 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:50.080 Scott says that female annihilators are vastly understudied demographic, and 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:51.800 a lot of that has to do with the fact 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.360 that we as a culture have a hard time believing 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.679 that a woman or women would kill their own children. 0:07:58.160 --> 0:07:59.840 As we started to go through the literature and we 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.600 discussions and we pursued this idea as women in criminology, 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.600 which is largely a male dominated discipline with a lot 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:11.560 of male focused and patriarchal values, we started to understand 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.720 that there was something that was missing. One of my 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:17.559 first writings was looking at the female serial killer, which 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:19.760 at the time when I started my writing way back 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.040 in the day, didn't exist according to many people, and 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.840 so I spent a lot of time challenging those values 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.240 and saying, yes, they do exist, and not only exist, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.440 they exist in large numbers. The monikers that we tend 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.920 to give to women, both in serial and mass homicide, 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.400 giggling grinnies, things like that, murdering moms, these are very 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.040 sexist when we compared to the names that the men 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.720 are given. We tend to make light of the fact 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.600 that women may engage in these criminal acts, and as 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.079 a result, often we don't take them seriously. We don't 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.760 take them seriously. It's something to keep in mind when 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.400 considering that cryptic note from a Minnesota child welfare worker 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.400 after the first incident of abuse was report it back 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:04.679 in two thousand eight. The problem, it said, is these 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.800 women look normal. Though Hannah Scott has never seen a 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.720 case quite like this, one that continued abuse across several 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:14.200 states makes it unique, and there has been little research 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:17.680 on same sex domestic violence, she has seen incidents of 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.120 women who kill their families with what might sound like 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:25.400 a counterintuitive motivator love. The woman and her children are 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.720 often separated and living in a separate dwelling, or have 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.599 left the spouse and are living in another place, even temporarily. 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.280 They killed their children because they couldn't see them being 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:39.640 raised by the opposite parents, for example, or they couldn't 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:43.400 see themselves actually sustaining these children now that they were alone. 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.400 We haven't found convincing evidence that Jen and Sarah were 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.160 headed towards a breakup, or, as we explored in the 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.720 previous episode, that there was some catastrophic future event on 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:59.600 the horizon, but their relationship had been strained over the 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:03.480 years they had spent months of time apart. Jen would 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:05.880 often travel with some or all of the children while 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:09.840 Sarah would stay home to work. Sarah was the sole 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:14.439 breadwinner and money was tight. Jen once emailed a friend 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.480 that she and Sarah expressed themselves in different ways. She wrote, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.400 for quite some time, I have felt very underappreciated and 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:27.160 taken for granted in our relationship, and at times unloved. 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:30.720 While I know deep in my heart how much she 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.560 loves me, she is just horrible about showing it. We 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:39.240 are complete opposites in this regard. The email continued, I 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.679 never missed an opportunity to tell someone how much they 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.800 mean to me and that I love them. As a mom, 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:46.840 I have felt that I've been raising the kids on 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.800 my own. She admits this too. While she loves them 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.920 with all her heart, she has not been fully present 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:58.920 with me or the kids. The last known footage of 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:03.600 Sarah Hart is of her leaving Coals at PM on 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:08.480 March eighteen, three days before the crash, and a mirror 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.320 seven minutes before child protective Services arrived at their home. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.080 She's wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt pulled over her head 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.880 and is clutching her cell phone. It's impossible to know 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.520 what was going through her head, or if she knew 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.640 what was about to happen. It's impossible to know what 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.600 she and Jen did or didn't talk about over the 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.000 course of the next few days, but Hannah Scott says 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:37.240 the unimaginable might have seemed well logical to these women. 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:42.040 People can be overwhelmed to not necessarily experiencing mental illness. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.640 In some cases, homicide, even though we feel comfortable saying 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.160 it can be a very rational choice to some people 0:11:49.880 --> 0:12:19.200 given their life circumstances. When Lauren met with Mendicino County 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:23.240 Sheriff Tom Allman, he reiterated what he said many times before. 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.720 He is no longer viewing this incident as an accident. 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.520 He holds out very little hope that DeVante will be 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.560 found alive. Do I have any hope? I guess I 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.559 have hope. Do I have any realistic hope? No, I don't. 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.959 The fact that there's been no indication that he's alive 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.920 should cause someone to say, well, he was in a car. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:49.160 But I have no problem of someone bringing DeVante into 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:52.560 our office today and saying, listen, DeVante is alive and 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:54.400 well and he was just hiding out. I'd give the 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.079 kid a big hug and say we've never met it's 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.240 very nice to meet you. Sheriff Allman and his team 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.920 have spent the past eight months trawling the coastline for 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.280 the missing children, examining the evidence they do have, and 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:11.040 preparing for the upcoming Corners inquest. Almond says, an inquest 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.400 of this nature hasn't happened in Mendocino County in over 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.920 fifty years, but according to the law, its function is 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:22.520 to inquire into and determine the circumstances, manner, and cause 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.640 of all violent, sudden or unusual deaths. Over the course 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.960 of two days in April, a jury of twelve citizens 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:32.520 will rule what the cause of death was for all 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.640 the bodies found at the crash site. Sheriff Allman says 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.240 he hopes to live stream the event in order to 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.520 put the questions to bed once and for all. We 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:44.160 have a job to do just to find out the 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.560 truth of what happened. We have gathered a team of 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.840 experts that will be making sure that what we are 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.880 going to say at the inquest is true and accurate. 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.760 And a Corner's Inquest is going to, in my opinion, 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:06.240 give evidence that will shock the consciousness of people who 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.400 are following this case. What can you give not a bit. 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:10.720 I'm not going to talk about any of that. I'm 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.319 gonna tell you that we're not on a fast timeline 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.040 to throw this information out right now. But um, this 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.880 will be a water cooler conversation throughout our nation. For 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.040 those who were critical of how long it took to 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:28.720 positively I d Hannah's remains, Almond says d NA simply 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:33.000 isn't something you can match overnight. I think that TV 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:37.440 has presented a false narrative to viewers regarding how easy 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:41.040 it is to get DNA compared to fingerprints. Fingerprints are 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.760 really good if you know which fingerprint to compare it to. 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.000 It I've taken I'm going to guess hundreds, if not thousands, 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.480 of burglar reports where fingerprints were obtained. But if you 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.200 don't have anybody to compare them to, Okay, so you 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.080 have fingerprints and DNA is the same way. If we 0:14:57.160 --> 0:15:00.160 have DNA, you know, from a foot and we said, 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.080 all right, gosh, we have the DNA results. If we 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.520 don't have anybody to compare them to, then it's the 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.760 same as a fingerprint. These children were adopted and we 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.400 didn't have a lot of information, so it wasn't an 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.720 easy task to do. He says. The biggest hold up 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.640 in this case has been trying to get information from 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:23.880 the adoption agencies. The fact that law enforcement has been 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:30.280 stymied at finding out information regarding the adoption records and 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:35.600 the accountability of foster parents should concern a lot of people. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:37.920 Whether or not this was a crime or an accident 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.080 when it happened, I don't think law enforcement should have 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.680 been told no by adoption organizations that say we're not 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.000 going to give you that information. Prior to this case happening, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:54.640 I had no idea the amount of confidentiality that adoption 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.680 agencies focused on. While I don't want to disrupt somebody's 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.360 life with adoption record, when a death happens, I would 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.800 have to ask myself, why would an adoption agency or 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:11.920 government agency be so determined to keep information private? So 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.040 how much of what happened to the heart children can 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.640 be put on the agency's tasked with making sure our 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.880 youngest citizens are being looked after properly. Dr Doris Houston, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.640 the interim director at the Illinois State University School of 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.560 Social Work, points to the lack of interstate communication between 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:32.160 all parties. She also singles out the state of Texas, 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.240 from where all six children were adopted, as keen to 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.520 terminate parental rights and collect placement fees from the government. 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.280 On average, she says, a family like the Hearts could 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:44.960 stand to collect twelve hundred dollars a month for each 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:48.440 adopted child. We have found that over the past decade, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:51.520 the Hearts have taken roughly two hundred and seventy thousand 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.720 dollars from the state of Texas. These are taxpayer dollars 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.240 that are being spent to support children. Why can we 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:04.600 then expect that families would be expected to at least 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.240 do an annual check in, maybe goes for the first 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.439 few years ago to some of the support groups, I 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.640 was surprised to find that Texas essentially has a standard 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:23.719 of automatically preparing the paperwork for adoptions. It makes it 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.840 difficult to envision the effort is really being put into 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:34.879 family reunification if from day one, that is the policy 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:40.040 to begin to prepare children for adoption. Dr Houston says, 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.920 once an interstate adoption is completed, the state of origin 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.280 is no longer responsible for an adopted child's well being, 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.240 with Texas allowing the children to be adopted in Minnesota, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:56.800 they essentially are absolved of all of those responsibilities if 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:01.360 now rests at the hands of the receivings eight. Frankly, 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.000 there really has not been movement in in a real 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:11.600 meaningful way to do a national adoption protection registry where 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.600 information is shared. Hannah Scott, the author of the study 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:21.440 on annihilators, calls these interstate disconnects linkage blindness, a term 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.760 coined by criminal justice expert Steven Egger. We still do 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.360 have trouble in the United States finding individuals who both 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:35.639 move frequently and kill or commit serial crime. Sometimes cities 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.440 don't even time each other, but states certainly have more 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.600 difficulty talking to each other. Each state has its own 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.600 set of laws. We know that there are eight people 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.200 who reported to the police that there was an use 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.440 of situation. This happened over ten years in three states, 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.159 and once the family became detected, they moved to another state. 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.280 This stopped the process of investigation in one state and 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.600 allowed them a reprieve to some degree in the new 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.960 states that they had moved to. Because the states cannot 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.000 talk to each other, cases of child abuse like this 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.960 can go and detected islam As the family continues to 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.280 stay moved. Abril Dinwoody, the former executive director of the 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.080 Donaldson Adoption Institute, agrees that this story should serve as 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.960 a nationwide wake up call. I was that a camp 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:30.120 for families who adopted transractional in and I talked about 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.840 that case being a cautionary tale of how broken the 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.399 system can be and how important it is for us 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.600 all to be taking care of ourselves and doing well 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:43.760 and and getting the help that we need and getting 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.600 the help for ourselves and our children. Um and I 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.440 talked about it at another sort of gathering of professionals, 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.760 some were transracial adoptive parents, and and there's a lot 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.119 of head hanging and a lot of tears, and people 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.200 are failing it. But I hope that just translate sent 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:04.600 us some more action and more eyes wide open with 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.000 some of the real challenges that the system faces, and 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:11.879 quite frankly, that people face. Look, I didn't know the hearts. 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.119 I don't I don't know what drove these women to 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.679 to do, to adopt to whatever, but like there was 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.400 something clearly wrong there too. And even those people who 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.800 do such things need to have some kind of care 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.280 and support as well, Like like they just don't get 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:31.000 erased either. There's mental health issues and all of this 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:35.640 that need to be addressed that clearly we're not. I've 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:38.720 just found, like when I talked to friends and mothers 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.679 in particular, that everyone has something to say about this case. 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.680 Everyone honestly reads something about their own life into this 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.000 case and feels guilty about that. And even you know, 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:53.679 just like a mom she has a biological child, and 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:55.600 she was just like, Yeah, that case just made me 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.840 look in the mirror and realize how much just utter 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.400 power you have over young children and how just guileless 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.800 they are. You're all they have in those early years. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.480 And it made me almost scared of my own power 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.199 that I have being a parent. There's so many layers. 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.520 There's so many layers. The power of being a parent 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.080 is something we rarely talk about in our daily lives, 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.880 but it's something most of us with kids understanding our bones. 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:26.320 Sometimes when I took my two year old in at night, 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:29.080 he recently graduated from sleeping in a crib to a 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.919 twin size, he gives me this look like I'm going 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:33.880 to get out of this bed, and I give him 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.520 another one that says, don't you dare? And he doesn't, 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:41.800 He doesn't dare What is strange influence to have over 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.200 another person? But what if I pushed it a little further? 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.200 What if I told him that something bad would happen 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:50.960 to him if he got out of bed. What if, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:53.280 and this is honestly hard for me to stay out loud, 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.400 what if I held him down until it hurts? How 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.040 long would he stay in there? Would he love me 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.800 me less? Or when his devotion to me becomes stronger, 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.439 more desperate, would he wonder what he could do to 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:08.080 make it go back to the way it used to be, 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:11.320 back to when I would line his little bed without 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.160 a blanket and cuddle him until he fell asleep, even 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:18.480 though I'm impossibly pregnant and it hurts my back. How 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.080 much would his mind go into overdrive trying to get 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.760 that feeling and that dynamic back And how would he 0:22:24.800 --> 0:22:32.560 process that nearly imperceptible shift. Years later, as Justine has 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.840 been transitioning her sweet, flaxen haired two year old from 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.679 a crib to a twin bed, I've spent the past 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.360 eight months wrapping my mind around the fact that I'm 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:45.720 moving closer to the opposite end of the parenting spectrum 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:50.720 My oldest is almost eighteen, almost Marcus his age. If 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.520 all goes according to plan, she'll be attending college next fall. 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:59.000 I think she's ready. Whether or not I'm ready is 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.720 another story. But I'll say good bye to her knowing 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:03.720 that my husband and I did our best to give 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.280 her the tools she'll need to be successful on her own. 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:10.159 She has a strong moral compass, She knows what she 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:13.160 deserves and how to ask for it. She knows more 0:23:13.160 --> 0:23:16.000 about the Battle of Gettysburg than I ever did, and 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:18.560 she also knows not to stick a fork in a toaster. 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:22.800 I share this because I suspect Jen and or Sarah 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.479 knew their kids weren't as well equipped for adulthood as 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.840 they should have been. At the very least, they had 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:32.399 hardly any experience interacting with other people their own age. 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.120 This must have scared Jen and Sarah, even though they 0:23:36.119 --> 0:23:38.160 were the ones who put their kids in this position 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.960 in the first place, who held them down in a 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:45.680 way similar to the one Justine just described. I think 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:48.280 the best thing you can do is give your kids 0:23:48.359 --> 0:23:51.880 firm ground under their feet and the heart. Kids never 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:56.119 really had that, not as babies, not when they were adopted, 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:10.959 not even in the moments before they died. You'll remember 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:13.720 that back in May, when we first started reporting this story, 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:18.680 Lauren went to Woodland, Washington. There, the Hearts neighbor, Dana Decalb, 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:22.200 took her to see where the family lived together. Lauren 0:24:22.240 --> 0:24:24.760 and Dana waited through the knee high prairie grass to 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:28.200 get to the blue split level home next door. When 0:24:28.200 --> 0:24:30.480 I was up at Dana's house in Washington, I asked 0:24:30.480 --> 0:24:32.960 the Decalbs if we could walk over to the Heart property. 0:24:33.760 --> 0:24:36.639 They agreed, and we walked down the gravel driveway and 0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:38.920 then cut into the knee high grass up to the 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:43.000 light blue house. A FedEx delivery notice was still stuck 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:45.480 on the front door, dated a month after the crash. 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:49.399 Dana and I peeked through slits in the blinds. The 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:53.080 living room was sparse except for a few chairs. Inside 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:56.080 the garage where a Christmas tree box, an electric piano, 0:24:56.359 --> 0:25:00.119 some Star Wars puzzles. In some ways, I felt like 0:25:00.160 --> 0:25:02.320 I was walking onto the set of a play after 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:06.520 the production had wrapped. All around I recognized things from 0:25:06.600 --> 0:25:11.200 Jen's Facebook posts. There in a shed was the lawnmower 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:13.439 Davante had ridden with a stalk of grass in his 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:17.000