WEBVTT - Wicked Words - Roxanna Asgarian: We Were Once a Family 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:04.480 This story contains adult content and language, along with references 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.680 to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.720 This book is about grief, It's about loss, and it's 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:26.680 about what parents we consider good parents and which parents 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:28.720 we give chances to. 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:39.720 I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.760 in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.040 true crime podcast tenfold More Wicked and the co host 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:50.080 of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.080 around the world interviewing people for the show, and they 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.560 are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.240 crime stories, and now we want to tell you those 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.840 stories with the details that have never been published. Tenfold More 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:06.840 Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make, 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.559 good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:15.360 behind the stories. Most of you have probably heard the 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.280 story of the Heart Family, the couple that drove a 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.920 car off a cliff with all of their adopted children inside. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.640 Our guest rock Sanna as Garian unfolds the story with 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:30.240 details that we've never heard before, including an investigation into 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:34.080 the child welfare system. I'll warn you that much of 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:38.959 this is difficult to hear. Well, why don't we start 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.560 with the story of the birth families. How these kids, 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.119 these six kids, ended up with these two women, and 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:46.880 how potentially these two women ended up in the state 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.680 they were in when they made this terrible decision. So 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:50.920 let's start with the families. 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:53.240 So there's two birth families. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.960 The first birth family that I encountered where the Davis is, 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.920 and that's a birth family of Divine Tay, Jeremiah, and Sierra. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.880 And so they were actually the second group of kids 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.880 that were adopted, but I started with them because we 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.000 were all living in Houston. So the kids were removed 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.840 from their mom because she had a drug problem. She 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.000 used cocaine that came up when she gave birth to 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:23.880 Jeremiah at first, and then when Sierra was born and 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:28.760 Sherry tested positive for cocaine. The kids were ultimately removed 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.560 from her care and she was living with a man 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.240 named Nathaniel who was a much older guy who was 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.799 actually the primary caretaker. And Nathaniel was sober, he received 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:43.600 disability benefits, and he was, by all accounts, are really 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:47.280 loving father. He was the first person I actually ended 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.240 up talking to was Nathaniel. They were removed from him 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:55.400 when they were removed after Sierra's birth, so ultimately they 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.040 moved to their aunt's house. And their aunt's name was Priscilla, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.560 and Priscilla as a church going woman who worked full 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:08.200 time at a hospital in Houston at the time. DeVante, Jeremiah, 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:11.839 and Sierra had an older brother named Dante, and all 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.840 four of those kids were initially involved in this CPS case. 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:18.880 So all four of those kids lived with Priscilla up 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:24.520 until this fateful day when she was unable to find childcare. 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.400 She got called into work and her daughter, who was 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.320 a grown woman at that time, usually watched the kids, 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:34.600 but she was unable, so she asked Sherry, who's their 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.040 birth mother, to watch the kids. And while she was 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.320 out and Sharry was there with the kids, a caseworker 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.920 stop by unannounced, and because Sherrie's rights to her kids 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.560 were terminated, she wasn't allowed to be around them, and 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.840 so the kids were removed immediately when the caseworker showed up. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:56.480 So this is four kids at this point who were removed. 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.480 Yes, and Dante was the oldest, so he was ten 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.320 at this time. He was acting out. He was the 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:04.760 oldest so he understood sort of what was going on 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.200 more than the other kids. He really didn't want to 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.600 be removed from his family. He was fighting and arguing, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:14.640 and he ended up getting sent to a residential treatment center, 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.160 which is sort of like an institutional setting for mostly 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.880 foster youth. So he was split from his siblings at 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.039 that time. Kind of the frustrating thing about this story 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:29.800 is that Sherry terminated her rights voluntarily because she was 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.040 told that she needed to do that in order for 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.159 Priscilla to adopt the kids, because you can't adopt kids 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.159 when they have legal parents already. 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.080 So these four kids go into foster care, well one 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.680 of them goes into a residential facility, but the other 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.440 three kids go into foster care. What is their journey 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:48.760 to where they eventually land with the hearts? 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.000 So Texas has a website that you can look at. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.239 It's called the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange, and you can 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.719 essentially shop for kids that you would like to adopt 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:05.400 using that website. So Jennifer and Sarah Hart, who are 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:09.000 a white married couple who both were from South Dakota 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.000 but at this time we're living in Minnesota. They were 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.360 looking at the Texas Adoption Resource Exchange which they called 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.680 TAR and they stumbled on DeVante and Jeremiah and Sierra, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.520 and they had used this website two years earlier when 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.360 they adopted their first set of three children, also from Texas, 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.200 so by that point they'd already been through the process 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.159 once it went really quickly. Kids have to live in 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.719 pre adoptive homes for at least six months before you 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.680 can initiate adoption, and they had lived with their aunt 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.800 Priscilla for five and a half months. She was attempting 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.680 to adopt them even though they got removed. She had 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:49.839 hired an attorney, she got denied, and then she appealed 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.359 that decision, but before that appeal went through in the courts, 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.600 the kids were already adopted by the Hearts. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.839 I'm surprised that they did not give prential treatment to 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:03.840 a family member, but I guess she had a mark 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.440 against her for leaving the kids with their birth mother, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.400 who had no rights and who obviously had some problems 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.920 to begin with. Is that the thinking? Why would they 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.000 not hold to see what Priscilla was going to do? 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.479 Yeah, So I actually spoke to another judge who wasn't 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.560 involved in this case, but he was a judge for 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:23.880 these types of cases in Harris County, and he said 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.719 that was actually not the way that it should have gone. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.960 If her appeal would have gone through, then the adoption 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:30.920 would have been void. 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:32.400 It felt pretty rush. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.919 It was basically at the exact time when it could happen. 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.760 It happened despite the fact that there were family members, 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.720 and despite that there is a federal mandate that family 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.320 members must be given preference for placement of kids who 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.520 are involved with CPS. That is there for a reason, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.000 and that's because there's plenty of research that shows that 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.159 kids do best with their families, They do best with 0:06:56.200 --> 0:06:58.560 their parents, and when they can't be with their parents, 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:02.440 they do best in family homes. And we understand this 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.160 across the child welfare system, but I think in the 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.039 case of the Davis family, it became clear that to 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:13.240 me that sometimes the preference is more theoretical than it 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:14.120 is actual. 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:17.640 So will you educate me a little bit on in 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.840 time where we are and what is the view of 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.040 a same sex couple adopting kids, because I just assumed 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.120 it was not going to be that easy, particularly in 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:29.080 a state like Texas. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.280 Yeah, that's a good question, and it's an interesting wrinkle 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.520 in the case. I think I started looking into the judges, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.200 you know, in Harris County, and there's a whole history 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:43.560 of corruption and racism, and there are actually instances of 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.880 not the judge in this case, but a judge next 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:51.760 door being very vocally anti LGBT for adoptive parents. So 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.520 I think that that is true that there. It kind 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.520 of depends on the judge. The judge in the Davis 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:03.080 family's case was really super interested in speed in clearing 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.080 out the docket, so to speak, you know, in his mind. 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.640 And I spoke to him actually about this case, and 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.360 he said, there are kids that languish in foster care, 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:15.480 which is true, especially sibling groups, because they're hard to 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.679 place multiple kids. And he said Minnesota has been great 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:23.960 for like providing people who want to adopt essentially, and again, 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.400 because they had already adopted three kids from Texas, they 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.800 kind of knew the process. I will say that at 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.920 the time that the Davis kids were adopted, there had 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:37.520 already been an allegation of abuse against Jennifer and Sarah 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.640 Hart regarding the three children that were already adopted. 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.360 Were they in Minnesota during that accusation or were they 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:44.679 in Oregon at that point. 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.680 They were in Minnesota and that either got totally missed 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.200 by Texas, which it kind of looks like it did. 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:54.720 I have some records, so I have their actual adoption paperwork, 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.640 and I also have the foster care case file of Dante, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:08:59.280 the oldest. 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:01.960 All of the movil stuff that was happening. 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.400 Is in that file as well, because they kind of 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.240 grouped the file by birth mom. 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.920 So this judge is moving through his docket quickly. Are 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.440 we also thinking that he's looking at these three black 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.640 children and thinking they are better off with a white family. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:20.040 I think that the facts of this case make that 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.920 pretty clear. The officials that were involved assumed that the 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.200 white women were a better home for the kids. There's 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.120 a couple of ways that that becomes clear. Like in Priscilla, 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.000 the aunt's appeal that got denied, the court said why 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.280 should she have another bite at the proverbial apple, you know, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.800 like they were saying, no, you can't adopt these kids, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:41.800 and we're going to be a little. 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:42.760 Mean to you about it too. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:43.520 Amazing. 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.520 But on the other side, the you know, the abuse 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.680 allegation sort of just went by. I mean, there was 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.480 no charge, you know, like criminal charge. Yet at that 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.959 point a criminal charge did happen later, but it felt 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.480 very clear that Texas thought, Okay, this is the best 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.120 place that these kids can end up, and after that 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.200 just kind of wipe their hands and never really checked, 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.240 although they did continue to pay monthly payments per child 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.120 to the Heart Women until their murder. 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.400 Will you tell me about the first family and those 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.680 kids before we sort of get into Sarah and Jennifer 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:20.440 and what they were like. 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.640 Sure, So, as I was reporting this story, nobody knew 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.160 who the family of Marcus and Hannah and Abigail was, 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:33.760 and that was partly because Texas refused to disclose that information, 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:38.440 even to the police who were investigating the murders, which 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.960 is I would say an unusual level of confidentiality given 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:46.200 specifics of the case. So it was six months after 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.720 the crash when I noticed a family name for Marcus 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.720 in a big passle of records that the Sheriff's department 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.640 in Washington, which was the last place that the family lived, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.559 released to the public. I guess it's important to note 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.920 that the police did have these files as well. I 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:05.600 just looked up the name on Facebook. I knew they 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.360 came from the Corpus Christi area, and I ended up 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.640 reaching out to their grandmother, and it became clear almost 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.400 immediately that she did not know what had happened to 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.760 the children. So I ended up telling her that, which 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.360 was really awful because it had been six months. It 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.400 was a huge national story, as you remember, so that means, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:30.400 you know, millions of people heard this awful news before 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.720 the family was told. I got to know Tammy, who's 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.520 the birth mom of Marcus and Hannah and Abigail, and 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.760 her story which involves experiencing childhood sexual abuse at a 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.280 really young age and having resultant mental health struggles, so 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.520 she spent time in like a state mental hospital as 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:53.000 a child. She was experiencing homelessness and housing instability when 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.240 she had Marcus, who's the oldest. Marcus was being raised 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:02.400 mostly by Tammy's grandparents great grandparents, but ultimately the reason 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.200 they were removed from Tammy was Hannah got really sick 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.520 and needed to go to the hospital, and Tammy didn't 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.400 trust the hospital in Columbus, Texas, where they were living, 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.920 and she wanted to go to Houston, but she had 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.199 two other kids and they couldn't fit in the ambulance 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.280 and she didn't have a ride there, and so there 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:22.319 was this period of time that she was trying to 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.760 figure out a way to get Hannah to the hospital, 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.520 and she ended up calling her caseworker, who picked her 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.440 up and took them to the hospital and immediately handed 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:35.080 her removal paperwork and the kids were removed at that point, 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:39.400 and Tammy was actually charged with medical neglect and she 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:42.360 ended up having to spend time in jail because she 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.480 couldn't afford to pay the fees that resulted from the case. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.600 And she had the same situation as Sherry. When she 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.200 gave up her rights. She was under the impression that 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.520 they were going to a foster home. Like that foster 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.600 home was going to adopt them. It was a black 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:04.079 couple who also had black children, and who told Tammy 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:05.959 that she would be able to be in their lives. 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.079 But again, you give up your rights, and you give 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.760 up your right to know anything and anything can happen 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.520 to the kids after that, and so she doesn't know 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.800 what happened with the prospective adoptive family. And there's actually 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.120 no records that I could ascertain because of how Texas 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.160 is very confidential with its records. In cases like this, 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.880 But they did end up in Minnesota with Jennifer and Sarah. 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.560 So at what point in what year do Jennifer and 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.600 Sarah have all six kids together? 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:38.400 In two thousand and eight, they were all adopted, But 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.760 there are some files that show that Jennifer and Sarah 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:47.400 did not necessarily think that their family was complete. They 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.360 had continued to look for kids on the Texas Adoption 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:56.120 Resource Exchange, and they had also tried IVF successfully. 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.400 Well, now I think we need to talk about them 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.480 because all of the lives and at this point, what 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.000 can you tell me about either woman? Whichever one you 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:05.439 want to go with first. 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.480 We'll start with Jennifer because Jennifer was the much more 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.920 vocal person in the couple. Jennifer grew up in here 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.200 on South Dakota. She was gay, but she never actually 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:21.080 came out to her dad, at least not explicitly. She 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.200 met Sarah in college, and Sarah was from an even 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:29.560 smaller town in South Dakota, right on the border of Minnesota. 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.520 They moved to Minnesota after college, and Sarah was working 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:38.280 for a department store and Jennifer she never got her degree, 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.880 And I think they started planning pretty quickly after that 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.680 for adopting through the foster care system. So they originally 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.640 got a foster youth named Brie, who was a teenager 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:57.120 who lived in Minnesota. I think Bree's experience actually shows 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.160 a lot because she was able to mean, she lived 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.920 there with a couple. Well, she actually saw them looking 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.640 through the website and talking about adopting kids, and she 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.800 was under the impression that she would be a part 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:09.600 of that family. 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.000 Shortly before they went to go pick up. 0:15:11.960 --> 0:15:15.480 Marcus and Hannah and Abigail from Houston, they dropped Brie 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:19.040 off for her therapy appointment, and the therapist told Brie 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.960 that it wasn't going to work out and that they 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.640 had already had all of her stuff packed up, and 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.880 she had no idea and still basically to this day, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.640 has no idea what caused their change in thinking. 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:33.600 I mean, she was really upset. 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.680 She said that she saw later saw them with their 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.280 kids and felt really awful, you know, because it was 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.160 this pretty small town in Minnesota where they all lived. 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.880 And she still to this day is like very confused 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:50.480 about what happened, especially in light of what came afterwards. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.000 Did you say Brie was black? I can't remember if 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:53.440 you said. 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.320 That Bree was white, and also her rights to her 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.720 mother were not terminated, so she wasn't open to be 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.400 a permanently. That's part of an issue with the foster 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.400 to adopt is that there are some people who use 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.840 the foster system as it means, like directly to adopt, 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.040 But there are a lot of kids in the foster 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:17.880 system who need temporary safe places with loving parents and 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:20.560 don't need to have. 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.880 Their rights of their parents totally severed. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.000 Are people in her life, their lives? Sarah and Jennifer 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:31.920 shocked based on what they know, not about the crash necessarily, 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.360 but the allegations that came before it. Does this just 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:38.960 seem completely out of character for either of these women. 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.880 But when they came together, something happened, something changed with 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.280 both of them. What is even the dynamic? 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.000 Yeah, that's a really good question. 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:51.280 I think that first and foremost, Jennifer was very active 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:56.160 on social media, and she spun a story, a narrative 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:02.920 about her relationship, about her family, about the kids, and 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.760 that heavily influenced how people perceived her and the family. 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.960 There were a ton of friends that were completely shocked 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:13.840 by what happened. You know, one of her friends right 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:16.399 after the crash had said, Jennifer and Sarah are the 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.960 kinds of parents that this world needs. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:21.320 So that was a fiction. 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:26.440 Really that was spun with really beautiful photography of the children, 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:30.760 like in their chicken coop and at the Grand Canyon 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:31.720 and all of this. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:32.400 Kind of stuff. 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.480 That's partly I think why people were so drawn to 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.240 this case is because there was this whole record of 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.760 a life, the reality of the situation, and those things 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.800 were so hard to reconcile with each other. Before the 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:51.199 inquest happened, there was a line of thinking from a 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.120 lot of people who were following the case that Jennifer 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:59.040 was probably the abuser of the family. I think in 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.320 this case, though, it became pretty clear that the evidence 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:08.040 that was there actually pointed to both women being involved 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:13.360 in the abuse. The first thing is Sarah was charged 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:17.000 with domestic violence for putting bruises on one of her 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:21.520 children that was in Minnesota. She pled guilty and serve probation. 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.760 There was some confusion maybe that like jen had sort 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.240 of asked her to fess up to it or something, 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.560 but that's not what the evidence showed, and ultimately after 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.760 the crash, they looked through the women's cell phones and 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:39.520 they found a whole bunch of really incriminating Google searches 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:44.600 on Sarah's phone about how much benadryl would kill a 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.119 certain pound person. The kids were all found to have 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:52.399 ingested huge quantities of benadrul before they went off the cliff, 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:57.760 and you know, searches about like hypothermia, of drowning and 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.399 all kinds of really awful stuff. And it became clear, 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.880 at least to me, that it was both Jennifer and 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:06.359 Sarah that were involved in the abuse of the kids. 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.639 Let's take these offenses and now let's pick up the 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.879 timeline sort of in real time. They're in Minnesota with 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:18.560 these kids, and there's this domestic abuse allegation against Sarah 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:22.080 and she pleads guilty, but they don't lose the kids, 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.040 right What happens step by step? Where did they go 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:26.960 and what do they do and what do people see 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:28.159 as this escalates? 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:34.359 Yeah, so, prior to the criminal complaint, the teachers of 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:40.280 the kids in Minnesota were reporting alarming behavior. So they 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.239 were reporting that the kids were really hungry and that 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:45.719 they didn't seem to have enough food to eat, and 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.000 that they were asking other people for food and even 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.160 looking in trash cans, and to that, Jennifer and Sarah 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:55.880 said that the kids had food issues because of foster care, 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:00.520 which is not rare actually, but it became clear to 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:04.440 the teachers that when they were calling home that the 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.200 kids were getting disciplined, and so they stopped basically reporting 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:12.119 this stuff. But when Sarah pled guilty, they pulled their 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.680 kids from public school, and that was the last time 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.800 the kids were in public school or any school, and 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.560 because of that, they lost contact with really any other 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.720 adults besides their parents. Sarah had to finish probation, but 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.879 once that probation ended, they immediately moved to Oregon. They 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.919 lived in Oregon for a little while before a second 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:38.639 investigation started, and this one was reported by friends of 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.720 the family who witnessed some really alarming punishment of all 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.320 of the kids, but particularly of Marcus. They had gone 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.720 to visit this woman at her house and they were 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.480 only each allowed to have one small piece of pizza, 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:56.359 but they had ordered a lot of pizza, and so 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.879 they had a bunch in the fridge, and when they 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.520 woke up in the morning, the woman made a comment 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.600 to her husband, like did you eat all the pizza 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:08.159 in the fridge, and that set off Jennifer, who forced 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.359 all the kids to lay on their air mattress with 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.520 eyemasks on for like the whole day. And it was 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.640 Marcus's birthday and she wouldn't let anyone say happy birthday 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:21.520 to Marcus. And the kids were very skinny at this point, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.439 like alarmingly skinny, and Hannah was so small that people 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.560 regularly thought that she was like five years younger than 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.240 she actually was. That woman reported this, and there was 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.440 another investigation, and they actually reached out to the Minnesota 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.919 child welfare officials who said, you know, the problem is 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:44.679 these women, they look normal, and when they're confronted with 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:48.960 these alarming behaviors, they have a tendency to put them 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:51.879 back onto the kids and explain it by their trauma 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:57.320 histories and their experience in foster care. And that Oregon investigation, 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.399 a doctor found that five of the kids were so 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.960 small that they weren't even on the growth charts at 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:07.920 all for their ages, and still they were not removed. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.480 Shortly after that, they moved to Washington, not too far away, 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:14.320 just sort of the other side of Portland basically, and 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:19.840 essentially DeVante started going to their neighbor's house and asking 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.280 for food, large amounts of food, and Hannah had one 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.280 time ran away in the middle of the night and 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.760 told the neighbors that she was being abused and her 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.760 parents were racist, and finally the neighbors called that in 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.400 to CPS and that was sort of the inciting incident 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.960 that led to the family leaving and driving to California 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:41.760 in the first place. 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.960 Tell me about the racism allegations. What did Hannah say 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:47.359 was going on in this house? 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:51.119 Well, the thing with Hannah was that she basically jumped 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:53.919 out of the second story window ran over to the 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:55.920 neighbor's house in the middle of the night. The neighbors 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.240 were like sleeping and kind of confused and obviously really 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.040 like alarm. The other thing is that Hannah, again she 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:04.720 looked really young, so they're thinking like, maybe this is 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:06.639