Speaker 1: What can you really tell about someone from a picture?
Speaker 1: Can you determine their ethnic background, whether they're introverted or extroverted?
Speaker 1: Can you tell if they're genuinely happy or just playing
Speaker 1: the part? What if you zoom in or out, can
Speaker 1: you infer things like wealth or religion from the furniture
Speaker 1: or personal objects in the background. What about a tight
Speaker 1: shot of a presidential hopeful on the campaign trail? What
Speaker 1: kind of crowd would you want assembled around you to
Speaker 1: communicate that you're the other guy, the progressive, anti establishment choice,
Speaker 1: and who could say those things for you simply by
Speaker 1: being at your side? Now you're seeing this little bird
Speaker 1: doesn't know it? Oh, I think, I think that may
Speaker 1: be some symbolism here. I know it doesn't look like it,
Speaker 1: but that bird is really a dove asking us for
Speaker 1: world peace, no more wars. That's Bernie Sanders at a
Speaker 1: two thousand sixteen rally in Portland, Oregon. You may remember
Speaker 1: this moment. He's going on about the merits of public
Speaker 1: education when a tiny finch lands on his podium in
Speaker 1: the heart of the Pacific Northwest. It's a moment straight
Speaker 1: out of the show Portlandia, Irony and Serendipity. All wrapped
Speaker 1: into one. Sanders takes one look at the bird and
Speaker 1: raises his fists like a magician who just conjured a
Speaker 1: rabbit from a hat. It was a whole thing. The
Speaker 1: Sanders campaign started selling Bertie Sanders merch. Of the more
Speaker 1: than eleven thousand attendees who was stationed directly behind Sanders,
Speaker 1: Jen Sarah, Marcus Davante, Abigail Jeremiah, and Sierra Hart. There
Speaker 1: they are on a Friday morning in March, jumping up
Speaker 1: and down in matching royal blue Bernie T shirts. I
Speaker 1: saw them, and they're you know, they're right in the
Speaker 1: direct head on. This is Mark Levitt. He worked as
Speaker 1: Bernie's director of scheduling in advance work during his presidential campaign.
Speaker 1: He even helped create and popularize Sanders a Future to
Speaker 1: Believe in branding efforts. He remembers the bird moment, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, jeez, best laid plans right, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we we have no way of planning for that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I mean that was that was actually a
Speaker 1: level of serendipity that in my entire time working in
Speaker 1: scheduling in advance, I don't think I'd ever encountered. It
Speaker 1: was said half jokingly at the time, but you know,
Speaker 1: there was some sense in which he had sort of
Speaker 1: performed a miracle or whatever. I mean. This is this
Speaker 1: is what people were saying online. And this wasn't the
Speaker 1: first time the Heart Tribe had gotten near the Senator.
Speaker 1: Earlier that same week, Jen roused her family at four
Speaker 1: thirty in the morning to attend a rally in Vancouver, Washington.
Speaker 1: She wrote on Facebook that she had the kids stand
Speaker 1: for four hours in the rain to ensure they wouldn't
Speaker 1: miss out on this opportunity. She even made the blue
Speaker 1: shirts herself. Family friend Machine baktr says members of the
Speaker 1: Sanders campaign approached the family and invited them to attend
Speaker 1: to the Portland rally. Here's Lauren talking to Machine about
Speaker 1: that day. They went to the Washington rally and there
Speaker 1: it was Bernie's campaign people that sort of gave them
Speaker 1: tickets to come to the Oregan one. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: asked them and they put them they like wanted them
Speaker 1: to sit right behind them. That video of Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: putting a bird on it with the Heart family squarely
Speaker 1: in the shot. It's been viewed over two point three
Speaker 1: million times on YouTube. Part of the reason that you, um,
Speaker 1: you know you want to craft that shot behind the
Speaker 1: candidate very carefully? Is because uh and then this happened
Speaker 1: with Obama on an handful of occasions that the people
Speaker 1: in that shot functionally sharing with the candidate. From Glamour
Speaker 1: and how stuff works, This is Broken Hearts, I'm Justine
Speaker 1: Harmon and I'm Liz Egan. Crazy things like this, moments
Speaker 1: of infamy, seemingly random or unsolicited brushes with fame, like
Speaker 1: that vibral photo of Davante crying and hugging the cop.
Speaker 1: They were nothing new to the Heart family, yet, despite
Speaker 1: the relentless fascination from the outside world, friends like Ian
Speaker 1: Spurling marveled at Gen's ability to protect her children from
Speaker 1: prying eyes. Our Field reporter Lauren chatted with Ian over
Speaker 1: the phone back in May You and Spilling as a
Speaker 1: dad who often met up with the Hearts that shows
Speaker 1: around Portland, Jen would tell him that the kids were
Speaker 1: developmentally delayed from their terrible lives before they were adopted,
Speaker 1: and he had bought it, so that was why the
Speaker 1: kids acted a little differently. Maybe that's why Davante smiled
Speaker 1: all the time and seemed to act a little younger
Speaker 1: than his age, or why Marcus and Jeremiah would look
Speaker 1: listless and suddenly snap into smiles and personality when he
Speaker 1: greeted them. Jen also explained why the kids were so
Speaker 1: thin they had a vegetarian organic diet. She always had
Speaker 1: an answer for everything. I mean when I say that
Speaker 1: Jen was good, she was good, and she made parenting
Speaker 1: look unbelievably easy and awesome and there was no red flags, zero,
Speaker 1: Like the way she respected Davante's privacy when he was
Speaker 1: took the picture with the cop, and the way she
Speaker 1: would talk to us about that stuff in private. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like we looked up to her, like, Wow, she's
Speaker 1: the best parent in the world. Were horrible, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Jen often wrote about the importance of
Speaker 1: protecting her kids privacy. Once, when a Facebook follower asked
Speaker 1: if she'd ever considered a reality TV show, she said, no,
Speaker 1: We've had multiple offers in this area. She wrote, no
Speaker 1: amount of money would ever be worth the trials and
Speaker 1: tribulations that would surely come from media slash producers manipulating
Speaker 1: our lives on a TV show. Ian remembers hearing about
Speaker 1: the offers, she was extremely stressed, doesn't know what to
Speaker 1: do with getting offers from like Good Morning America or
Speaker 1: the Today Show specifically, and a few others to take
Speaker 1: him on there, and she declined to do that. Now,
Speaker 1: that plays into what we're learning now because obviously we
Speaker 1: learned now that there was some abuse charges in Minnesota there,
Speaker 1: you know, um fleeing to Oregon for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, and so there's probably more of a reason
Speaker 1: why she didn't want to go on national TV. At
Speaker 1: the time, we're thinking, Wow, phenomenal parenting. Nice work, you're
Speaker 1: not exploiting your children. Perfect. That's just adds more to
Speaker 1: the legacy. You know, Liz and I have talked about
Speaker 1: this part of the story a lot. How could one family,
Speaker 1: one seemingly interested in maintaining a low profile and living
Speaker 1: off the grid, consistently find itself in the news. How often,
Speaker 1: really do people become famous, like virally famous by accident?
Speaker 1: Mark Levitt says, from his experience, not that often. With
Speaker 1: respect to getting back and behind Bernie at the Bernie rally,
Speaker 1: I would say that if they had seen the process
Speaker 1: at the rally that they had been to a few
Speaker 1: days earlier, that would have given them a hint that
Speaker 1: most people otherwise don't have as to how to do
Speaker 1: it so that you know, most people when they arrive
Speaker 1: at these rallies, is that their first rally or their
Speaker 1: only rally or whatever. It's not that common to have
Speaker 1: people go to these rallies twice, in part because they
Speaker 1: are pretty onerous affairs. You know, you wait for a
Speaker 1: long time for the candidates, that sort of thing, so
Speaker 1: you don't get a whole ton of repeat customers. But
Speaker 1: if these were repeat customers, that they could have very
Speaker 1: easily seen how the selection process goes forgetting people in
Speaker 1: that shot in the head on shot. So be honest,
Speaker 1: what does a photo of two moms and six black
Speaker 1: kids say to you? Depending on how you were raised,
Speaker 1: your background, and your life experiences, it could mean any
Speaker 1: number of things. For Zippy Lomax, who first encountered the
Speaker 1: Heart Tribe back in two thousand thirteen, the family was
Speaker 1: the perfect visual symbol for the kind of transformational, inclusive
Speaker 1: music festivals she attended and often photographed. They were very unique,
Speaker 1: you know, and I know I'm not the only person
Speaker 1: who could who It was just sort of like a
Speaker 1: natural term that would kind of come out when you
Speaker 1: would see them showing up at places though there's a heart,
Speaker 1: there's a hard time. Beloved is just one of many
Speaker 1: many that have this very similar kind of uh the
Speaker 1: goal I guess of like, you know, like experimental community,
Speaker 1: different ways of coming together and being supportive rather than competitive.
Speaker 1: As a photographer, Zippy observed how these festivals could serve
Speaker 1: as a form of emotional release. Attendees often dressed up
Speaker 1: in costumes, with hundreds of people standing on a lawn,
Speaker 1: rocking and swaying to the music. Footage from the events
Speaker 1: look more like emotionally raw group therapy than raucous jam sessions.
Speaker 1: In a video posted to Jen's YouTube page, Davante and
Speaker 1: Jeremiah are at the two thousand twelve Project Earth Festival
Speaker 1: in Minnesota. The boys, both under ten at the time,
Speaker 1: have flowers around their necks. Davante is wearing his free
Speaker 1: Hug sign. They're both dancing, and around the second mark
Speaker 1: you hear Jen's voice You're going to give Naco a hug.
Speaker 1: Jeremiah runs up to Jen's favorite musician, Nacobert, who is
Speaker 1: dancing shirtless in the crowd, the to embrace for a
Speaker 1: few seconds, while Abigail, Sierra, and Hannah danced nearby with Sarah,
Speaker 1: it's one of the rare moments you get a glimpse
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. Some might see it as proof that
Speaker 1: Jen coerced the kids into performing for the camera, but
Speaker 1: if anything seemed off when the family was in public,
Speaker 1: onlookers like Ian Spurling didn't notice. In ours these are
Speaker 1: superhuman people, like they're living the perfect lives there, perfect people,
Speaker 1: we have perfect kids. Zippy noticed their infallibility too. She
Speaker 1: started a friendship with Jen one mostly maintained over Facebook Messenger,
Speaker 1: and frequently took pictures of the family. All of these
Speaker 1: events are opportunities for people to kind of reinvent themselves
Speaker 1: and experiment with what it would be like to to
Speaker 1: be to show up in a different kind of way,
Speaker 1: So it's hard to say because people are maybe not
Speaker 1: showing up at those events in the same kind of
Speaker 1: wearing the same persona or even the same kind of
Speaker 1: clothes that they would wear in just everyday life. Between shows,
Speaker 1: the festival crowd kept taps on one another on Facebook,
Speaker 1: where Jen racked up the likes. Her feed was full
Speaker 1: of well staged family photos and long form captions. Opposed
Speaker 1: from January sixteen shows silhouettes of three of the Heart
Speaker 1: children at sunset. The location is Malala River State Park
Speaker 1: in Clackamas County, Oregon. It reads him sitting in the
Speaker 1: mud watching the sunset. Do you ever think society overcomplicates life?
Speaker 1: There's so much business, technology obsession and worrying about crossing
Speaker 1: things off a to do list, while forgetting what it's
Speaker 1: like to be her, be what him alive. This zest
Speaker 1: for life and jens seemingly endless off for her children
Speaker 1: is something Friends of the Hearts loved about her. In fact,
Speaker 1: she's often described as the more gregarious and social of
Speaker 1: the two women. Jen and I were closer. She's also
Speaker 1: an amazing photographer, and so we had another point of
Speaker 1: connection there and um mutual respect I guess for each
Speaker 1: other's craft. But we were friends on Facebook and we
Speaker 1: interacted in that way, and so I think that, like
Speaker 1: in this age of social media, it's interesting because we
Speaker 1: feel like we're more um engaged with people then maybe
Speaker 1: we actually are. I was very much engaged, like commenting
Speaker 1: and interacting with Jen and the all the amazing photos
Speaker 1: she was posting about the kids, and definitely kind of
Speaker 1: aware of what was happening in their lives. The last
Speaker 1: time Zippy saw the heart family in person. Was at
Speaker 1: that same Bernie Sanders rally in Portland where the bird
Speaker 1: landed on the podium. She was there once again to
Speaker 1: take pictures. Zib read us a Facebook message Jen sent
Speaker 1: after that memorable day. So she was telling me how
Speaker 1: she was watching me instead of Bernie Sanders, watching you
Speaker 1: work your magic behind the lens was so special. Seeing
Speaker 1: you just made that much more magical. She saw me
Speaker 1: capture that bird moment, caught a glimpse of you capturing
Speaker 1: the beyond amazing bird moment. I love you um and
Speaker 1: then the she just said it made her heart. This
Speaker 1: moment genuinely made my heart exploding the best possible way.
Speaker 1: This is how jan Hart spoke on her Facebook page,
Speaker 1: a feat of countless posts that spanned from two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: a year before she and Sarah adopted their second set
Speaker 1: of biological siblings, up until March eighteen, four days before
Speaker 1: the crash. She was effusive and passionate about everything from
Speaker 1: her children, to her wife, to the many animals the
Speaker 1: family rescued and rehabilitated. In a post from June two thirteen,
Speaker 1: she wrote, in what reads like something from a children's
Speaker 1: book of a red robin and a baby blackbird she
Speaker 1: discovered in her yard. The young blackbird hopped onto my
Speaker 1: knee and proceeded to look me in the eye and
Speaker 1: go back and forth between me and nuzzling the baby robin.
Speaker 1: It was beyond clear that he was trying to communicate
Speaker 1: a message. I lightly stroked the back of the robin's
Speaker 1: neck and checked for injuries. This has been my deeply
Speaker 1: connected purpose for as long as I can remember. Take
Speaker 1: care of all beings in need. Like so many of
Speaker 1: her posts, it feels just a little too good to
Speaker 1: be true. Along with the post is an image of
Speaker 1: Jen wearing a gray graphic tea and cuffed jeans, several
Speaker 1: beaded bracelets lining her wrist, clutching a small bird between
Speaker 1: her palms. She added an inspirational quote from an obscure
Speaker 1: science fiction author named Lloyd Biggle Jr. Life is life's
Speaker 1: greatest gift. Guard the life of another creature as you
Speaker 1: would your own. It was a kind of slightly mythological story.
Speaker 1: Ian Spurling knew well. I think she was a master
Speaker 1: Facebook poaster, like I've never seen anyone articulate so well
Speaker 1: with photos. My wife said something that made sense like
Speaker 1: after everything was done, she says, there's not even paint
Speaker 1: on the paintbrush, you know. And and that was, you know,
Speaker 1: like a Facebook picture and uh, you know when you're like,
Speaker 1: whoa what So it was like stage like stage photo
Speaker 1: maybe because they're they're sitting in front of a canvas
Speaker 1: a painting. Look what the kids are doing today, and
Speaker 1: then you look on the paintbrush and there's no paint
Speaker 1: on it. Now had idea as a mom or whatever,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, shoot, we just did that. We didn't
Speaker 1: give you pictures. Hey, you guys, let's grab a picture
Speaker 1: real quick, you know, what have you. But in hindsight,
Speaker 1: that's probably a little bit of the case. You know,
Speaker 1: it was almost too good to be true. Ian tells
Speaker 1: one story about how the Heart Children befriended a homeless man,
Speaker 1: and his version has almost the same hyperbolic language gen use.
Speaker 1: In April two, thou post there was a gentleman who
Speaker 1: was and if I told you this already, I apologized.
Speaker 1: Um they were. She took her kids down to the
Speaker 1: clack and Mr every one night and they're playing around.
Speaker 1: It was a hot, sunny summer day and they're playing
Speaker 1: around down there and swimming, and Devonte and two the
Speaker 1: other kids walked on the way to what looked like
Speaker 1: a homeless man, and Jen in her the way she
Speaker 1: told it was, I didn't know what to do, Uh
Speaker 1: if I should let my kids talk to this homeless
Speaker 1: person who looked extremely disheveled, um and a bit suspect.
Speaker 1: But she's taught her kids to not be afraid of strangers,
Speaker 1: proceed with contion, but to spread love in this world.
Speaker 1: And they went down and talk to this guy blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Then she saw them hugging this guy. Okay,
Speaker 1: and the kids walked back and she's like, well was
Speaker 1: that all about? And they're like, oh, we just wanted
Speaker 1: to brighten this guy's day, you know. Of course, beautiful kids,
Speaker 1: and that's this is an exaggeration of how they would be,
Speaker 1: because I wanted at plenty. And then the guy walks
Speaker 1: down to Jenny goes, it is are your kids, I assume,
Speaker 1: and and she said yeah yeah, And he says, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you they just changed my whole life.
Speaker 1: And she goes, oh, how so, and he goes that
Speaker 1: hug I got from him. I don't get that from
Speaker 1: anybody here. See the problem is I have face cancer
Speaker 1: and half of my face is gone, so I look
Speaker 1: really scary and it's terminal. And he goes, I don't
Speaker 1: have any hope. I look like a homeless person. He goes,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I have a all, I have money. I
Speaker 1: just looked scary and I've just completely depressed about the
Speaker 1: end of my life. And your kids just took all
Speaker 1: of that aside, saw me for who I am inside,
Speaker 1: and gave me a huge hug because that meant the
Speaker 1: world to me. I can die a peaceful person. You
Speaker 1: know something along those lines. This is Jen telling us
Speaker 1: the story. So now do you take it as a
Speaker 1: grain of salt or what. But I've watched the kids
Speaker 1: do this to people, so it didn't surprise us one bit.
Speaker 1: You know. The last time Ian saw the Hearts was
Speaker 1: in November two, four months before the crash, at a
Speaker 1: Knacko and Medicine for the People concert in Portland. In
Speaker 1: a quiet moment, Sperling told Sarah that she seemed worn down.
Speaker 1: She said, I'm just so tired. He hugged her, said
Speaker 1: he was sorry she had to put in so many
Speaker 1: hours at work to support the family of eight, and
Speaker 1: Sarah answered, thanks, I don't hear that very often, so
Speaker 1: I think she was definitely a fan girl, like following
Speaker 1: these bands like Nacho, Trevor Hall, Xavier, read some of
Speaker 1: these bands and like getting to know them. And this
Speaker 1: was her backstage pass as your kids, you know. And
Speaker 1: the look on Sarah's face every time was cool, I'm
Speaker 1: just taking along. I gotta work in a few hours,
Speaker 1: and that was it was Sarah constantly. That night at
Speaker 1: the Naco concert at Last November, Ian noticed that Sarah
Speaker 1: took most of the kids home after sound check, while
Speaker 1: Davante stayed on with Jen through the concert. This was
Speaker 1: the only time he noticed anything remotely strained, anything other
Speaker 1: than synchronicity in the relationship. And it wasn't even like
Speaker 1: they were fighting so much. It was just Sarah's tired,
Speaker 1: she wanted to go home. She took the kids, Jenn
Speaker 1: and Davante stayed dance Snia and then left, and uh
Speaker 1: so that was it, you know, and we just are like,
Speaker 1: oh cool, They're normal. To say that Jen was the
Speaker 1: fan girl while Sarah was the adult with a job
Speaker 1: would be an oversimplification, but Sarah did work a lot.
Speaker 1: She was an assistant manager at the Coles in Hazel Dell, Washington,
Speaker 1: where she put in long hours, sometimes six days a week.
Speaker 1: Her colleague Cheryl Hart, the one who requested a welfare
Speaker 1: check the same day they were found dead. Remember Sarah
Speaker 1: as super professional on the sales floor, but relaxed and
Speaker 1: chatty in the back office. One thing about Sarah is
Speaker 1: she was most definitely a talker. It was always a
Speaker 1: bit hard if you got caught up in a conversation
Speaker 1: with her because she would just rattle on sometimes. And
Speaker 1: Sarah would often talk about her home life with Jen
Speaker 1: and the kids. I mean, she would definitely talk about
Speaker 1: her family. One thing I would notice so is that
Speaker 1: she would never she would never mention like the kids' names.
Speaker 1: She would always just you know, say the kids, or
Speaker 1: you know, like the girls or the boys. I mean,
Speaker 1: when she first came on with us, she let everybody
Speaker 1: know right off the bat that her family was the
Speaker 1: family with the hug heard around the world. Basically, the
Speaker 1: hug had gone viral and I didn't know anything about it,
Speaker 1: so I actually had to look it up and I
Speaker 1: was just like, oh, okay, well that was pretty cool,
Speaker 1: and you know, she said that it wasn't cool. It
Speaker 1: caused a lot of stress in her family, and and
Speaker 1: it had really changed her wife, and not for the good.
Speaker 1: Um that Jen had come really closed in and really depressed,
Speaker 1: and just it had just changed her immendsly. But Cheryl,
Speaker 1: a mother of two herself, understood the pressures of co
Speaker 1: managing a household as a new mom, especially with so
Speaker 1: many kids. She would talk about how the the kids
Speaker 1: would stress her out. Um, you know, I have two
Speaker 1: kids myself, so I mean, obviously two kids versus six kids,
Speaker 1: that's it's different. But you know there's three times where
Speaker 1: you know, parents get times where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: my two girls are be like, oh my gosh, my
Speaker 1: kids are driving me insane, you know. And she would
Speaker 1: say the same thing like, oh yeah, when I get home,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to take over and deal with
Speaker 1: the kids because you know Jen's had them all day.
Speaker 1: You know, when I get home, I got to deal
Speaker 1: with them. Tensions plagued the family, according to newly released
Speaker 1: emails made public in October two eighteen, in the months
Speaker 1: following the adoption of Davante, Jeremiah, and Sierra, Their days
Speaker 1: appear to be a chaotic jumble of post office runs, paperwork,
Speaker 1: and dentist appointments, six dentist appointments. Sarah wrote to Jen
Speaker 1: in April two nine, I will take my lunch hower
Speaker 1: from one to two to help out with the kids
Speaker 1: during that time waiting there. Sorry, I made such a
Speaker 1: mess of everything. That same spring, Sarah tried to get
Speaker 1: pregnant with donated sperm and later suffered a miscarriage. Jen
Speaker 1: wrote in July two tho nine to an administrator at
Speaker 1: the agency that facilitated the adoptions, I don't know what
Speaker 1: else to say really now, we just take it one
Speaker 1: day at a time, true to form. If there was
Speaker 1: anything stressing the family, overwhelming schedules, infertility or mental health issues,
Speaker 1: even racist stalkers, you would never know it from Jen's Facebook.
Speaker 1: But back in June of two thousand seventeen, gent old
Speaker 1: family friend neu Sheen baktr that someone had left upsetting
Speaker 1: racist notes in their mailbox. The first time Neuchen baked
Speaker 1: are encountered the Hart family was at an event Machine
Speaker 1: put on called Portland's for the Philippines. It was a
Speaker 1: concert series for charity hosted in New Sheen's dad's place,
Speaker 1: a Mediterranean restaurant called blew Olive. She noticed that all
Speaker 1: the hard kids were sitting at a table and had
Speaker 1: incredible posture. Sheen had Jen in her phone as Je
Speaker 1: double in because she says Jen dropped F bombs all
Speaker 1: the time, so Jen was her favorite four letter word.
Speaker 1: The first show was at my dad's place. It was
Speaker 1: all ages, and they brought Jen and Sarah both came
Speaker 1: and they brought all six of their children. And at
Speaker 1: first they were sitting at a table right in front
Speaker 1: of the stage, and um, they were just eating food
Speaker 1: and they were super polite and they were all sitting
Speaker 1: really like, um, it was just the best posture that
Speaker 1: I had ever seen like kids have. And then to
Speaker 1: see like all the kids have that great posture, it
Speaker 1: was like, holy crap. So that's actually I think what
Speaker 1: I commented on and how I started talking to Jen
Speaker 1: and Sarah and then um, yeah, I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, what is up with your kids? How are
Speaker 1: they so well behaved? And she's like, oh, you don't know.
Speaker 1: That's just because there's not a dance floor. That's how
Speaker 1: it happened. So we moved the tables and we moved
Speaker 1: their table. They were done eating and we made a
Speaker 1: dance floor. And that was like my first connection with
Speaker 1: the children. We spent the rest of the night, you know,
Speaker 1: dancing and having fun and all those like pictures. A
Speaker 1: lot of those pictures are literally from the first night,
Speaker 1: and like we're all holding each other and there was
Speaker 1: just like this really great connection. I've always thought that
Speaker 1: that's because I think other people tell me it's because
Speaker 1: I'm a person of color, But I always forget that
Speaker 1: I'm a person of color. So like people who are
Speaker 1: young who are like that, who are pocs, need other
Speaker 1: pocs to look up to, but I never I always forget.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what POC meant until somebody applied
Speaker 1: for a job last year and they're like, hey, saying,
Speaker 1: as you're a POC and I'm a POC, I think
Speaker 1: we could get along. And I was like, what, that's
Speaker 1: not how that works. We're all just humorous. Now, she
Speaker 1: remembers the good times they had and the collective effortvescent
Speaker 1: she experienced when the family was all together. She even
Speaker 1: talks about Jen and Sarah like they're still alive. Jen
Speaker 1: loves Sarah Uh to an insane degree, and she always has,
Speaker 1: and she says the most beautiful things about her. Have
Speaker 1: you seen Jen's Facebook In fact, even though Jen would
Speaker 1: text Machine about her growing anxiety about being stalked, harassed
Speaker 1: and threatened on social media about the Trump election or
Speaker 1: the never ending racist, bigoted feedback from that photo of
Speaker 1: Davante at the rally, she was convinced the family was
Speaker 1: adjusting well to life in Washington. The last year of
Speaker 1: my friendship with John was pretty much me reaching out.
Speaker 1: We talked, she confided in me, but me reaching out,
Speaker 1: asking her to come around, asking her if I can
Speaker 1: come up there, her sending me photos and videos of
Speaker 1: upgrades of the house, and then um, and they were happy.
Speaker 1: They actually were really really happy. I thought, when it
Speaker 1: comes down to it, isn't that the weirdest part of
Speaker 1: social media? Aren't we all guilty of looking at a
Speaker 1: picture of a smiling person and just taking it at
Speaker 1: face value? Who among us hasn't looked at someone we
Speaker 1: don't know all that well and thought, damn, those people
Speaker 1: are pretty perfect. You may remember a similar story Madison Holleran,
Speaker 1: the upen track star who jumped off a parking garage
Speaker 1: in two thousand fifteen and whose sunny Instagram feed didn't
Speaker 1: betray her own struggle with mental illness, Much like what
Speaker 1: happened there. Machine believes these social media platforms come with
Speaker 1: deadly side effects. I think if it were not for
Speaker 1: social media that they'd still be alive. Absolutely one. I
Speaker 1: just feel like because of that second persona, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I feel like if that second persona
Speaker 1: wasn't there, and she didn't dedicate so much time to
Speaker 1: focusing only on the good and only being comfortable and
Speaker 1: only being you know, only being vulnerable when it came
Speaker 1: to the good, and not just learning to be vulnerable vulnerable,
Speaker 1: then then she could have actually sought help and her
Speaker 1: experiences in this life would have been more real and meaningful.
Speaker 1: I don't think social media is a real or meaningful thing.
Speaker 1: I think it can bring about real and meaning will change.
Speaker 1: But I also think that when we're lying to ourselves
Speaker 1: and then we are posting that lie about ourselves that
Speaker 1: we want to believe, and then we're getting this fake
Speaker 1: feedback of of you know, acceptance and all this type
Speaker 1: of stuff, then then we're literally causing harm. We were
Speaker 1: crushed by this idea. So we invited Dr Amy Service,
Speaker 1: a psychologist for the online therapy site talk Space, to
Speaker 1: discuss the psychological effects of social media. She says, the
Speaker 1: medium can trick of your into thinking they have more
Speaker 1: information than they actually do. That sort of two dimensional
Speaker 1: or even one dimensional, flat perception of what's going out
Speaker 1: there or going on with somebody's somebody's life, and so
Speaker 1: you might that sort of lack of compassion or even
Speaker 1: curiosity because you already know it's like a full complete
Speaker 1: picture out there. If they are then revealing that this
Speaker 1: is what's going on, we might not really be invested
Speaker 1: to reach out or to care to connect because those
Speaker 1: pictures tell a different story. One of the things that
Speaker 1: really stuck out to me is that when they're quote
Speaker 1: unquote friends that they saw and interacted with were interviewed,
Speaker 1: they kind of were like, maybe we didn't know them
Speaker 1: as well. And I think that begs the question what
Speaker 1: were their interactions Like were they not sustained and why
Speaker 1: weren't they sustained? Were they rely on social media as
Speaker 1: opposed to picking up the phone or continuing a more
Speaker 1: in depth relationship. But we become lazy and we kind
Speaker 1: of rely like, oh, I'll just catch up with them
Speaker 1: because I'll see these posts on Facebook as opposed to
Speaker 1: a real conversation, And those are that sort of question
Speaker 1: and bigger concept of relationships and how we sustain them
Speaker 1: in the meaningfulness of relationships that really stuck out that
Speaker 1: really wasn't present for them. Zippy refers to the process
Speaker 1: of looking at pictures and only seeing what we want
Speaker 1: to see as confirmation bias. You might remember that term
Speaker 1: from psych one oh one. Here's zippy. We had our
Speaker 1: own confirmation bias that we were looking at them through
Speaker 1: this lens of compassionate understanding or who we thought we
Speaker 1: knew them to be, and of love and care. And
Speaker 1: of course can you blame us for not being so
Speaker 1: quick to to believe that our these people we loved
Speaker 1: and cared about were capable of something like this. We
Speaker 1: were looking at them with a lot more willingness to
Speaker 1: imagine that this was a horrible accident, and so the
Speaker 1: details looked very different to all of us. Ultimately, the
Speaker 1: inability to sess out the truth about who her friends
Speaker 1: really were and the inability to see past her own
Speaker 1: confirmation bias is why is it be got off Facebook?
Speaker 1: So much of my um engagement with John in particular
Speaker 1: was via Facebook, so I only saw what was represented there,
Speaker 1: but it it basically corroborated. I had experienced when I
Speaker 1: witnessed them in person. So there was like there was
Speaker 1: nothing about the way that that Jen was presenting their
Speaker 1: life that seemed um at all at odds with with
Speaker 1: my understanding of who they were. It is in a
Speaker 1: different place now than she was when she knew the Hearts.
Speaker 1: She's gotten to a point where she can picture Jen
Speaker 1: doing something like this. I'm imagining Jen having a moment
Speaker 1: of just feeling like she'd kind of dug herself into
Speaker 1: some hole she would never be able to get out
Speaker 1: of that. I mean, I just feel like I can
Speaker 1: see her having kind of a moment of desperation. I'm
Speaker 1: imagining Sarah being maybe sleeping, maybe other kids being asleep too,
Speaker 1: and her driving and her just like, you know, the
Speaker 1: only this is the only answer, and they're never going
Speaker 1: to leave us alone, and the only answer, the only
Speaker 1: way I can protect them, or like, the only we
Speaker 1: answer is to to this awful thing. I'm going to
Speaker 1: drive off the cliff. No matter what happened in the
Speaker 1: moments leading up to that crash back in March, Zippy thinks,
Speaker 1: at the core of this tragedy is Jen a woman
Speaker 1: who had reached her breaking point. I feel like One
Speaker 1: of the things that has been totally um there has
Speaker 1: been no acknowledgement here is like, this was somebody who
Speaker 1: was desperate enough to kill herself and to take the
Speaker 1: lives of all the people she cared about in the
Speaker 1: same breadth. And what I want to know is what
Speaker 1: led to that? What happened to jen Next time on
Speaker 1: Broken Hearts, you know when you say specifically cured meats,
Speaker 1: it was like, is he gonna run away? I saw
Speaker 1: Jennifer scolding it. She went inside and left him standing
Speaker 1: out in the rain. Wow, they knocked that rock wall down.
Speaker 1: That's what we said. They're rock it. They're gone. And
Speaker 1: it was just like, oh God, actually bought into it,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, oh God, yeah, just kill me.
Speaker 1: So I finally got the okay to call it in
Speaker 1: and I made the call and then here I sit tonight.
Speaker 1: Broken Hearts will be off next Tuesday, which is Christmas Day,
Speaker 1: but look for a new episode on January one. For
Speaker 1: access to exclusive photos and videos and documents about the case,
Speaker 1: visit glamour dot com slash Broken Hearts. Have questions for
Speaker 1: us about this podcast, reach us on Twitter at Glamour
Speaker 1: mag or at Broken Hearts pot If you like what
Speaker 1: you heard, leave us a review. Broken Hearts is a
Speaker 1: joint production between Glamour and How Stuff Works, with new
Speaker 1: episodes dropping every Tuesday. Broken Hearts is co hosted and
Speaker 1: co written by Justine Harman and Elizabeth Egan and edited
Speaker 1: by Wendy Noagle. Lauren Smiley is our field reporter. Samantha
Speaker 1: Barry is Glamour's editor in chief. Julie Sheen and Dianna
Speaker 1: Buckman head up the business side of this partnership. Joyce Pandola,
Speaker 1: Pat Singer and Luke Zeleski are a research team. Jason
Speaker 1: Hoke is executive producer on behalf of How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: along with producers Julian Weller, ben Kie Brick and Josh Thine.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jen Lance