Speaker 1: The cliff is the kind of place Jennifer Hart would
Speaker 1: have loved to photograph her kids. Located two hundred miles
Speaker 1: north of San Francisco, it has a green edged bluff
Speaker 1: right off of California's Highway One, with a gravel path
Speaker 1: leading to a dramatic one foot drop into the Pacific.
Speaker 1: On other trips, Jan and her wife Sarah might have
Speaker 1: pulled to the side of the road and had their
Speaker 1: brood line up, as they often did, backs to the camera,
Speaker 1: hands raised in peace signs, a technicolor sunset framing their silhouettes.
Speaker 1: They were Marcus nineteen, Hannah sixteen, Davante fifteen, Abigail and
Speaker 1: Jeremiah both fourteen, and Sierra twelve, two sets of biological siblings,
Speaker 1: both black, adopted by two white moms. A beautiful family
Speaker 1: by most accounts. Friends called them the Hart Tribe, but
Speaker 1: this trip wouldn't be like the others the tribe took
Speaker 1: to places like Bliss Idaho or Zion National Park in Utah.
Speaker 1: Investigators have been desperate to figure out how that family
Speaker 1: flew off that cliff in California and whether it was
Speaker 1: on purpose. I was at the scene two days ago.
Speaker 1: There were no skid marks. We have no evidence and
Speaker 1: no reason to believe that this was an intentional act.
Speaker 1: Certainly people are wondering what plaused this. On March two, eight,
Speaker 1: a German tourist spotted the families two thousand three GMC
Speaker 1: Yukon x L belly up on the rocks below the
Speaker 1: picturesque Mendocino Cliff. The car plummeted more than a hundred feet.
Speaker 1: Here's what we know happened in the days leading up
Speaker 1: to the crash. On March at three am, Sarah's co
Speaker 1: workers at Cole's, where she worked as an assistant manager,
Speaker 1: received a text from Sarah saying she was too sick
Speaker 1: to open the store that more n that same morning,
Speaker 1: the Hearts next door neighbors, Bruce and Dana Deco, noticed
Speaker 1: that the Yukon was no longer in their driveway and
Speaker 1: that the bright red kayak that typically sat on top
Speaker 1: of it had been removed. Cinder Blocks littered the driveway,
Speaker 1: suggesting that the family had crashed into a retaining wall
Speaker 1: in their rush to leave. On March at eight oh
Speaker 1: five am, a surveillance camera in a Fort Brag safeway
Speaker 1: captured gen in eyeglasses and an ill fitting gray hoodie,
Speaker 1: paying twenty dollars and eight cents in cash for groceries.
Speaker 1: She bought bananas, saltines, and Chef Boyardi ravioli, and used
Speaker 1: a club card for discounts. Friends said she looked twenty
Speaker 1: five pounds heavier than they'd ever seen her. On March
Speaker 1: at one pm, Sarah's co worker, Cheryl Hart no relation,
Speaker 1: called asking for a welfare check on her friend. Thanks
Speaker 1: for all and can I help you because I was
Speaker 1: calling to Seethe Willford checks done? Okay? And her? Are
Speaker 1: we checking on Sarah? Hart told me the reason that
Speaker 1: we're checking on her? Um. She sent out a text
Speaker 1: message at three o'clock in the morning on Saturday morning
Speaker 1: stating that she was sick, But nobody's been able to
Speaker 1: get ahold of her talk to her or being her
Speaker 1: since that text message. Okay or her wife was his jin,
Speaker 1: So we're just confirmed, okay. And did she say when
Speaker 1: she said she was sick? Did she say what was
Speaker 1: going on? Or she just said that she just is
Speaker 1: unable to come out and wasn't able to go to
Speaker 1: work and thought she was gonna have to go to
Speaker 1: the doctor. Um, I've checked the hospital. If they didn't
Speaker 1: have any records of her, and I think her phone
Speaker 1: is now dead. Okay. And just the children was there?
Speaker 1: They have six children, okay. Any known medical history, not
Speaker 1: that I'm aware of. Now. She has been sick, and
Speaker 1: I think she's like a cool okay. Has she been
Speaker 1: so vital at all? Or see? Not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 1: The call you just heard came several hours too late.
Speaker 1: Early the morning of March, rescue workers were pelled down
Speaker 1: the cliff, where they lifted the dead bodies of three children,
Speaker 1: later identified as Marcus, Abigail and Jeremiah Hart, and spotted
Speaker 1: two more, Sarah in the back and Jen in the
Speaker 1: driver's seat. The corner found an ingredient commonly used in
Speaker 1: allergy medicines like benadro, in the bodies of Sarah and
Speaker 1: two of the kids. Jen's blood alcohol content was over
Speaker 1: the legal limit. No one had been wearing a seatbelt.
Speaker 1: The cars computer revealed that Jen had stopped on a
Speaker 1: pull out some seventy ft from the cliff moments before
Speaker 1: the free fall. She then gunned it off the ledge.
Speaker 1: Ten days later, the county sheriff issued a statement about
Speaker 1: the gruesome incident. I'm to the point where I no
Speaker 1: longer I'm calling this an act sit in. I'm calling
Speaker 1: it a crime from glamour and how stuff works. This
Speaker 1: is broken Hearts. I'm Justine Harmon and I'm Liz Egan.
Speaker 1: Together we've been looking into this story for the past
Speaker 1: six months, and what has emerged is one of the
Speaker 1: most complex and compelling stories of abuse, neglect, privilege, and
Speaker 1: confusion in the digital age we've ever encountered. One astounding
Speaker 1: element of this story is that this family, the Heart Tribe,
Speaker 1: didn't just burst into the news after the horrific crash.
Speaker 1: Over the years, they had somehow managed to be at
Speaker 1: the center of multiple news events. Remember that picture of
Speaker 1: a young black boy in a blue fedora embracing a
Speaker 1: white cop in riot gear at a Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: rally in two thousand fourteen, and the debate that ensued
Speaker 1: over whether it was a symbolic moment of racial healing
Speaker 1: or semi staged theater. That was DeVante Hart, the third
Speaker 1: oldest of the Heart kids. Davante was a trumpet player
Speaker 1: who loved to brush his dog, Kenya. He had big
Speaker 1: teeth and big eyes. His whole face looked like a smile.
Speaker 1: He often wore a free hugs sign around his neck.
Speaker 1: He was an extrovert and an EmPATH. That photo from
Speaker 1: the rally was taken in two thousand fourteen, nearly four
Speaker 1: years before the family's death, and that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: time the Hearts found themselves in the spotlight, but we'll
Speaker 1: get into that later. A few weeks ago, our producer
Speaker 1: Jason asked us what drew us to this story in
Speaker 1: the first place. Our answers were different. I was on
Speaker 1: a ten day road trip with my family. One afternoon,
Speaker 1: after spending about nine hours in the car with my
Speaker 1: three kids, who are seventeen, fourteen, and eleven, I looked
Speaker 1: at the New York Times homepage and I read a
Speaker 1: story about the Hearts. I was really surprised by how
Speaker 1: quickly it fell out of the news. There weren't that
Speaker 1: many stories that sent me down a rabbit hole of
Speaker 1: wondering what had happened. At Glamour morning meetings, we discussed
Speaker 1: not only what we're working on currently, but what stories
Speaker 1: are sort of piquing our interest, and Liz brought up
Speaker 1: this story that I had almost surreptitiously clicked on the
Speaker 1: night before. Something about the picture. I saw these two women,
Speaker 1: white very attractive, sort of every day looking. Nothing seems
Speaker 1: sinister about them, and six really adorable. I mean, the
Speaker 1: kids just looked so happy and so to have that
Speaker 1: juxtaposed with such an egregious storyline and headline, I was
Speaker 1: instantly captivated by, Well, what have driven these women to
Speaker 1: do such a thing? How does someone get to a
Speaker 1: place where they're willing to choose not only a path
Speaker 1: for yourself, but that of six young people. I am
Speaker 1: a mother of a two year old. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: ever being pushed to the brink that way. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, it is a relatable feeling as a mother,
Speaker 1: as a woman to feel trapped by the choices you make.
Speaker 1: The story is so complex, in fact, that we brought
Speaker 1: on Laurence Smiley, a San Francisco based investigative reporter, to
Speaker 1: help us figure out what really happened in the days, months,
Speaker 1: and years leading up to the crash. You'll hear from Lauren.
Speaker 1: She's the intrepid interviewer with the throaty chuckle and the
Speaker 1: Iowa accent. Over the course of this cross country journey
Speaker 1: that leads us from South Dakota to Minnesota, to Oregon, Washington,
Speaker 1: and ultimately a cliff in California. You'll also meet a
Speaker 1: variety of people who knew the Hearts or thought they did,
Speaker 1: and you'll get an exclusive look into a case that
Speaker 1: left six people said to missing and a nation puzzled
Speaker 1: over the perfect family they never knew. But the most
Speaker 1: important voices in this podcast belonged to the people we
Speaker 1: couldn't interview, the Heart Kids, Marcus, Hannah, Davante, Abigail, Jeremiah,
Speaker 1: and Sierra. Hannah and Davante were not found in the
Speaker 1: car that day in March, and their bodies have not
Speaker 1: yet surfaced at the crash site. Since their whereabouts have
Speaker 1: yet to be located, some fear they were killed before
Speaker 1: the plunge. Others speculate they escaped in the nick of time.
Speaker 1: Back in May, we sent Lauren to Woodland, Washington to
Speaker 1: meet with Dana and Bruce Decalb, the Heart's next door neighbors.
Speaker 1: The families shared a driveway. Take the fork to the
Speaker 1: left and you'll hit the Decalb's red split level. Take
Speaker 1: the one to the right and drive down a little
Speaker 1: bit and you're at the Hearts. This is Lauren. I
Speaker 1: got out of my car and felt like I'd landed
Speaker 1: in a postcard of the Pacific Northwest. It seems like
Speaker 1: the Decalb's property could be swallowed up by ature at
Speaker 1: any moment. Their house is blanketed by pine trees and
Speaker 1: rhododendron bushes. Just for some orientation, I'd driven up from
Speaker 1: Portland for about an hour on I five, which continues
Speaker 1: on up to Seattle. I took an exit and then
Speaker 1: drove along this twisty road with trees overhead for five minutes,
Speaker 1: even though there's this huge freeway just minutes away. By
Speaker 1: the time you get to the Decalps, it feels really remote.
Speaker 1: You move out here to be close to nature, not people.
Speaker 1: Dana agree to me at the door. She's in her
Speaker 1: late fifties and his short, curly hair. She's a talker
Speaker 1: and always wears a smart watch to track her daily steps.
Speaker 1: Two decades ago, she and Bruce moved from a California
Speaker 1: cul de sac to the spot in the foothills of
Speaker 1: the Cascades where you can see cleared amount st Helen's
Speaker 1: Bruce is about six ft tall. He's more laid back.
Speaker 1: He's chatty too, but went together. Let's Dana do the talking.
Speaker 1: Their days usually include some beating back of the Washington
Speaker 1: Wild than of venturing out on jet ski or kayak.
Speaker 1: Last September, the retirement good life was interrupted when a small,
Speaker 1: frightened girl wrapped in a fleece blanket rang their doorbell
Speaker 1: at one in the morning. Doorbell rang, and I went
Speaker 1: to the front door. Here's this girl standing there on
Speaker 1: a blanket wrapped around her. She comes bolton in the
Speaker 1: house and I'm yelling for Dana, you know, hey, wake up,
Speaker 1: come help me, and she ran up the stairs on
Speaker 1: her own. She bolted upstairs pounced on me. Because that's
Speaker 1: when I woke up, thinking who are you and where'd
Speaker 1: you come from. I came down here and was talking
Speaker 1: to her and trying to get her to calm down,
Speaker 1: to understand what was going on. And she was just
Speaker 1: frantic and begging, you know that take me to Seattle.
Speaker 1: Don't make me go back there. They're racist, they're abusive,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're just going hole, you know, Bruce
Speaker 1: Astrab what do you mean And she's like, well, they
Speaker 1: whip us with a belt and he was like, well,
Speaker 1: I've been whipped with a belt. Trying to think of
Speaker 1: you know, and in the meantime, I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where she came from, because we don't know she
Speaker 1: lives next door. I noticed that the whole family was
Speaker 1: outside looking forward with flashlights, and she's freaking out, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what they're coming. I have to
Speaker 1: figure this out. Just stay put. They came in and
Speaker 1: they just kind of pushed their way into Sarah and
Speaker 1: Jennifer did and they started going around looking through the
Speaker 1: house and went up to the bedroom. Did you invite
Speaker 1: the family to go into a house? Know? And we
Speaker 1: you know, it's one thirty in the morning, and you're
Speaker 1: freaking out. Hannah had crouched down between my bed and
Speaker 1: dresser and this little spot and she was like in
Speaker 1: the beetle position. And when they just went in and
Speaker 1: Sarah approached her first, and Hannah she was like no,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I said, well, you back up,
Speaker 1: give her some space. You know, you guys are freaking
Speaker 1: around and freaking me out. Let's just back up. At
Speaker 1: about that time, Jennifer kind of grabbed Sarah and said,
Speaker 1: I'll deal with this. You go down back downstairs with
Speaker 1: the kids. So Jennifer started talking to her and you know,
Speaker 1: calling her and being all nice and stuff. So I
Speaker 1: thought Okay, I'm gonna give him a minute, and so
Speaker 1: I left the room be correctly, and then they came
Speaker 1: back downstairs, and they when they started coming back downstairs,
Speaker 1: Jennifer told Sarah, you need to take the kids and go.
Speaker 1: Hannah's having a problem with her big brother. Right now,
Speaker 1: we were like, what her issue? Wasn't her brother at all?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? So that kind of was a
Speaker 1: little bit weird, but you know, I don't know. So
Speaker 1: they sat there saying, you know, you needed to tell
Speaker 1: these people you're sorry, yes, ma'am. And you need to
Speaker 1: explain to him you just had a really bad week, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: And she just constantly was looking at Jennifer. Never even
Speaker 1: talked to us. It was just robot And so they
Speaker 1: ended up leaving. Now it's like two thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: You're trying to figure out what, Wow, What's what's really
Speaker 1: going on here? You know? And I guess it was
Speaker 1: just beyond our imagination. For a variety of reasons. The
Speaker 1: Decals wouldn't call the authorities until nearly six months after
Speaker 1: the incident, but that didn't stop her eight year old dad,
Speaker 1: whom she told about the event, from getting involved. On November,
Speaker 1: nearly three months after Hannah visited. In the middle of
Speaker 1: the night, Dana's dad, Steve, plays the call to there
Speaker 1: are some kids that I feel as being highly abused,
Speaker 1: and how I know. Okay, I'm gonna get to the
Speaker 1: address of my daughter's house because it's right next door. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're going up to the road to her house,
Speaker 1: it's a house on the right, okay. And what's going
Speaker 1: on there, Well, they helped flock children. What's that part?
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter, they're they're new here. But the other night
Speaker 1: a little girls jumped out of the second story window
Speaker 1: on the roof and then down onto the ground and
Speaker 1: ran to my daughter. And this is like two in
Speaker 1: the morning, begging him to help her, to help her.
Speaker 1: And when they came looking for her, she was begging
Speaker 1: my daughter not to let him know she was there.
Speaker 1: And then eventually my son in law let him know.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to get involved. But the more I
Speaker 1: sit on it, I just can't live with it. Somebody's
Speaker 1: got to go there and check it. And know how
Speaker 1: old less the little kid that did that, that Randy
Speaker 1: a Gotta's house about twelve years old, thirteen and then
Speaker 1: she had all four of the kids come back later
Speaker 1: and to say everything was okay, and they're all standing
Speaker 1: at attention like they were just scared to death. And
Speaker 1: I think there's something very serious going on there, and
Speaker 1: they're here from Texas. The kids might even be kidnapped.
Speaker 1: And and basically my son in law was like most people,
Speaker 1: they don't want to get involved, and so he's keeping
Speaker 1: my daughter out of it. But since she's told me
Speaker 1: about it, I just can't live with it. I'm very
Speaker 1: concerned for these kids. Someone from the County Sheriff's office
Speaker 1: called the Helps to ask whether there have been more incidents,
Speaker 1: and Dana explained what she had observed since that night.
Speaker 1: The kids next door were almost always indoors. She remembers
Speaker 1: being told it's not illegal to keep kids inside. On August,
Speaker 1: a little less than a year after her dad called,
Speaker 1: I contacted County Sergeant Brent Wadel over the phone, so
Speaker 1: Dana's dad and called down here and reported that Dana's
Speaker 1: neighbor child had come over in the middle of the night,
Speaker 1: and the deputy contacted Dad and also contacted Dana. When
Speaker 1: the deputy talked with Dana, there was no indication that
Speaker 1: there's any ongoing issues or anything like that. What else
Speaker 1: wasn't the one who talked with Dana, but the department
Speaker 1: had done an internal review of how they handled their
Speaker 1: interactions with Dana and her dad. He inquired and documented
Speaker 1: that he talked with Dana and they had discussed is
Speaker 1: there anything over there, sense that's happened, anything concerning And
Speaker 1: Dana basically said, you know, we never see him, see
Speaker 1: him out. For us to go up and knock on
Speaker 1: the door, we would need something a little bit more.
Speaker 1: People have rights in this country and in this state,
Speaker 1: and just because your neighbor, you know, if there's something
Speaker 1: a little bit more current, and some other factors. Again,
Speaker 1: we don't know what happens behind closed doors. So just
Speaker 1: because the kids aren't playing outside or aren't outside aren't
Speaker 1: seen that much, that amongst itself is not a trigger
Speaker 1: or red flag hindsight being who knows, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's you know, the deputy and Dana had a conversation
Speaker 1: and and the deputy was okay with not going up
Speaker 1: and knocking on the door, But what really went on
Speaker 1: behind the white door in that baby blue split level?
Speaker 1: Who are these women and how did they come to
Speaker 1: adopt six children? Two sets of three black siblings. Their
Speaker 1: story starts in small town South Dakota, where Sarah Gangler
Speaker 1: and Jen Hart both grew up. A photo of five
Speaker 1: year old Gen shows her dressed up in a roughly
Speaker 1: blue dress with knee high white sox outside a cornflower
Speaker 1: blue home with astro turf covered stairs. Extremely rare, fine,
Speaker 1: she wrote on Facebook in May of two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: me in address. The women met when they were twenty
Speaker 1: years old as undergraduates at Northern State University in Aberdeen,
Speaker 1: South Dakota. It was American pie was the biggest thing
Speaker 1: at the box office. Jfk Jr. Had just been found
Speaker 1: dead off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, still strapped into
Speaker 1: the pilot's seat of his plane. Live in La Vida
Speaker 1: Loca was the biggest thing on the radio. But it
Speaker 1: would be more than a decade before Ricky Martin would
Speaker 1: publicly come out as gay. At Aberdeen, Sarah would go
Speaker 1: on to earn her degree in education, Jen never graduated. Later,
Speaker 1: Jen would describe on Facebook how she called Sarah her
Speaker 1: friend or her roommate once they did come out as
Speaker 1: a couple. However, the Midwestern mindset, she wrote, was relentlessly unforgiving.
Speaker 1: The pair eventually moved to Alexandria, Minnesota, a laketown famous
Speaker 1: for Big Olie, a foot tall statue of a Viking
Speaker 1: that was built for the sixty four World's Fair. Her
Speaker 1: Burger's where the women worked, Jen in the junior's department,
Speaker 1: Sarah as a department manager, was the biggest store at
Speaker 1: Viking Mill Plaza, a one level strip mall located off
Speaker 1: of Root twenty nine. Jen was probably the one I
Speaker 1: met first. She was taller than me. She had like
Speaker 1: the big, bright red hair. I remember her feeling so
Speaker 1: much older than she actually was, like she probably was
Speaker 1: twenty six or twenty seven at the time, and she
Speaker 1: was confident and assertive and intimidating. I immediately did not
Speaker 1: feel like I was on the same level as her.
Speaker 1: This is Jordan Smith. Jordan worked with Jen and Sarah
Speaker 1: in the summer of two thousand four at her Burgers.
Speaker 1: We asked Lauren to find out what they were like.
Speaker 1: Most people who knew the women back then noted their differences.
Speaker 1: Jen was more colorful, outgoing, abrasive. That would be the
Speaker 1: Minnesota term for it. Smith says Sarah could be more
Speaker 1: emotional and stressed, but she lovingly kept the picture of
Speaker 1: her in Jen cuddling on her office desk. When I
Speaker 1: talked to Jordan's she remembered the time Jen complained about
Speaker 1: a mannequin's nipples being sexist. Jen hauled the mannequin to
Speaker 1: a back room at her burgers and manually cut them
Speaker 1: off with a hack saw. She pulled the mannequins in
Speaker 1: the back to do it. She wasn't doing it like
Speaker 1: on the floor in front of customer. Um. It was
Speaker 1: probably her relationship with Sarah that like gave her, you
Speaker 1: know that kind of like I can do this as
Speaker 1: a couple. They were very uh discreet. It took me
Speaker 1: almost nine months to realize they were a couple. I
Speaker 1: mean we're talking real rural Minnesota, like the Bible Belt
Speaker 1: of Minnesota. That's Alexandria. In two thousand four, Alexandria, Minnesota,
Speaker 1: a town located one and thirty two miles northwest of Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: had a population of around eleven thousand. It was a
Speaker 1: bit more progressive than rural South Dakota, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly the most tolerant of places either. As Jordan recalls,
Speaker 1: it was pretty usual to get called a diake or
Speaker 1: a bag and uh, you're gay and everything negative. It
Speaker 1: may not seem that long ago, but two thousand four
Speaker 1: was a very different time socially, especially in the rural Midwest.
Speaker 1: You could kind of describe the mentality as well, don't ask,
Speaker 1: don't tell. Jordan identifies as queer now, but back then
Speaker 1: it wasn't so easy to be out to Sarah and
Speaker 1: John Credit they were probably one of very rare handful
Speaker 1: of open and out um homosexual couples in the area.
Speaker 1: Years later, in a Facebook post, Jen would recall the
Speaker 1: realities of being a gay woman living in the unforgiving
Speaker 1: and unaccepting Midwest. The truth of our love was clouded
Speaker 1: with fear, she wrote, Fear of rejection from family and friends,
Speaker 1: fear of being unwanted, unloved, fear of not being able
Speaker 1: to get a job, fear of acts of violence, fear
Speaker 1: of not being able to have a family, fear of
Speaker 1: walking through this life alone with our love keeping it
Speaker 1: a secret. The Hearts would eventually find a community over
Speaker 1: the years. They became regulars at transformational festivals, days long
Speaker 1: socially conscious mashups of music, yoga, dance, and creative costumes.
Speaker 1: The kids would join too, often dressed in colorful costumes
Speaker 1: and carrying motivational signs and interacting with the musical acts.
Speaker 1: In one YouTube clip, we see Davante at the Beloved Festival,
Speaker 1: and annual gathering dedicated to what its website describes as vulnerability, belonging,
Speaker 1: and liberation. In the clip, a large group of adults
Speaker 1: dressed in tai edie and bucket hats congregate around the
Speaker 1: musician Xavier Rudd as he plucks at a guitar placed
Speaker 1: across his lap. Rudd is shirtless, his long blonde hair
Speaker 1: is pulled back with a headband. His eyes are closed.
Speaker 1: About eight minutes into the song, he notices someone in
Speaker 1: the crowd and beckons him to the stage. Davante, dressed
Speaker 1: in a zebra costume, a free Hug sign around his
Speaker 1: neck and the word Beloved shaved into his head, approaches
Speaker 1: the musician and gives him a hug, their tears in
Speaker 1: his eyes. The embrace lasts over a minute. The whole
Speaker 1: moment is a lot, but it was also at these
Speaker 1: festivals that friends like Zippy Lomax, a Portland based photographer,
Speaker 1: first encountered Jen and Sarah. After the news of the
Speaker 1: crash broke Lomax, like so many of the people in
Speaker 1: the Heart's inner circle, took to social media to defend
Speaker 1: the women. She knew. They were that really bright kind
Speaker 1: of presence. It was pretty hard to miss them any
Speaker 1: event that I was at where they were if I
Speaker 1: had a camera, I was of course attracted to that.
Speaker 1: I was inspired by them. They gave me hope. Everyone
Speaker 1: considered them like the Heart tribe. It was just sort
Speaker 1: of like a natural term that would kind of come
Speaker 1: out when you would see them showing up at places, though,
Speaker 1: like there's a heart tribe. That term like tribe has
Speaker 1: been thrown around a lot in that because there's some
Speaker 1: sort of like returning, like reindigenization and like these interesting terminologies.
Speaker 1: There's even a book that this other photographer put out
Speaker 1: called Tribal Revival, and it's all about like the people
Speaker 1: from all these different festivals. So Beloved is just one
Speaker 1: of many of these kind of festivals that sort of
Speaker 1: fit under the umbrella of what would be considered transformational
Speaker 1: festivals that have this very similar kind of goal, I guess,
Speaker 1: of experimental community, different ways of coming together and being
Speaker 1: supportive rather than competitive. Looking a little deeper into understanding
Speaker 1: what that festival is kind of a part of will
Speaker 1: maybe give a little bit of context for why there
Speaker 1: were so many people quick to kind of like jump
Speaker 1: up and say, like, wait a minute, you guys have
Speaker 1: the story wrong. Zippy Lomax and Jen especially became close,
Speaker 1: often communicating over DM and social media. Zippy shared with
Speaker 1: us over three hundred of Jen's Facebook posts, often accompanied
Speaker 1: by long, well written captions, many of which served as
Speaker 1: a keyhole into who these women and who these six
Speaker 1: kids were. There are photos of Abigail and Davante eating
Speaker 1: breakfast with hens perched on their heads, vegetarian chicken and waffles.
Speaker 1: The caption reads Davante, Jeremiah, and Sierra painting on the
Speaker 1: living room floor. Minnie Jackson pollocks all six kids grinning
Speaker 1: with a kindness is contagious sign Redwood Nation is about
Speaker 1: to get blasted with kindness. Gen wrote, each post reaffirms
Speaker 1: the same storyline, two moms and their rehabilitated kids thriving
Speaker 1: against all odds. But as we've had to remind ourselves
Speaker 1: to the course of digging into the story, Jen Hart,
Speaker 1: who is far more active on social media than her
Speaker 1: wife Sarah, isn't the most reliable narrator. This is something
Speaker 1: Zippy and many friends of the Hearts struggle with. Zippy
Speaker 1: has received a lot of messages from people who once
Speaker 1: knew the family but maybe lost touch over the years.
Speaker 1: It's a nice counter, she says, to the loads of
Speaker 1: hate mail she received, like this letter she got two
Speaker 1: months after the crash from a high school friend of Gent's,
Speaker 1: with the subject line your heart subject she just said,
Speaker 1: your heart has Appora. I wanted to reach out to
Speaker 1: after all of this heart story broke. I could sense
Speaker 1: that you're a beautiful soul with good intentions caught defending
Speaker 1: some people you think you knew. I knew Sarah and
Speaker 1: Jen from college, and I too was in disbelief. I
Speaker 1: was not even brave enough to admit knowing them. So
Speaker 1: I was proud of you for stepping out there and
Speaker 1: speaking up. The people I knew in college were not
Speaker 1: capable of this act, although looking back now it's clear
Speaker 1: there were warning signs from Jen and the way she
Speaker 1: exerted absolute control over Sarah. I just thought they were
Speaker 1: in love. I'm wondering if you two have had any
Speaker 1: change of heart. I'm looking for some deep philosophical guidance
Speaker 1: on this because it is weighing heavily on my heart.
Speaker 1: I go between anger and confusion and sadness and love
Speaker 1: and then disbelief. I visited them in Alexandria in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five before they adopted their kids. After that,
Speaker 1: I followed them on Facebook and was amazed and proud
Speaker 1: of how many lives they were touching. I know you're busy,
Speaker 1: but if you ever have time, please send me a
Speaker 1: message or a point me to a person who can.
Speaker 1: I hope you're doing okay. I'm sure the painting grief
Speaker 1: you feel is a thousand times worse than mine. I
Speaker 1: was grateful for that, because, um, every other message I
Speaker 1: got was hateful and awful, like that's somebody saying that
Speaker 1: just kind of echoes what other people said, kind of
Speaker 1: in in more quiet ways. That they were grateful that
Speaker 1: I was willing to speak up. No part of Zippy
Speaker 1: is able to reconcile the women she once knew with
Speaker 1: the women who began to emerge on paper after the
Speaker 1: fateful crash. As we've been reporting, most of the Hard
Speaker 1: family was found dead at the crash site in March.
Speaker 1: That was just days after Child Protective Services tried to
Speaker 1: visit their home in Calrk County to look into reports
Speaker 1: the potential neglect against parents, Sarah and of her Heart. Tonight,
Speaker 1: investigators held a telephone news conference to confirm that they
Speaker 1: believe the suv was crashed on purpose. What first appeared
Speaker 1: to be a tragic accident now looks much more sinister.
Speaker 1: Captain Bart said information downloaded from the air bag control
Speaker 1: module shows the suv actually stopped before accelerating over the cliff.
Speaker 1: It was pure acceleration from the last break application until
Speaker 1: it hits the bottom of the Cliff's investigators are releasing
Speaker 1: new details about the Heart family tragedy, telling us that
Speaker 1: Jennifer Hart was drunk when she drove the family's car
Speaker 1: off a cliff in northern California, and her wife Sarah
Speaker 1: had a drug in her system. Even now, Zippy has
Speaker 1: a hard time believing her friends were living dual lives.
Speaker 1: There's no part of me and all of my looking
Speaker 1: back at my observations of them, that's capable of seeing
Speaker 1: that it was just a charade. Somehow, the smoke and
Speaker 1: mirrors of the compelling digital narrative Jen created was able
Speaker 1: to cloud a sense of civic responsibility. It's not unlike
Speaker 1: the same mental gymnastics we perform on a daily basis
Speaker 1: while absent mindedly scrolling through anyone's feed. We know, of
Speaker 1: course we do, that perfect is a myth, but we
Speaker 1: also convince ourselves that other people must have achieved it.
Speaker 1: Pictures have an uncanny way of making any story true. Marcus, Hannah, Davante, Abigail, Jeremiah,
Speaker 1: and Sierra died because everyone saw something different when they
Speaker 1: looked at them. The perfect family, some lucky rescued kids,
Speaker 1: a symbol for post racial kumbaya. No one saw six
Speaker 1: young people in desperate need of help, not even the
Speaker 1: people who were looking right at them. Next time on
Speaker 1: Broken Hearts are so priceful. She was eating out of
Speaker 1: the garbage, and to this day it just seems so straight.
Speaker 1: I remember vaguely hearing that they dropped the foster daughter
Speaker 1: off and like just abandoned her. That should kind of
Speaker 1: like be a clue right there and there that this
Speaker 1: is a person you don't think kind of operating the
Speaker 1: child's best interest. My inner monologue would like something not
Speaker 1: right about them. Absolutely, I think is playing a part.
Speaker 1: You know, when people are sitting in the audience thinking that, okay, well,
Speaker 1: why did the judgements, rule that way gets me. Maybe
Speaker 1: he loves you. Broken Hearts is a joint production between
Speaker 1: Glamour and How Stuff Works, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Broken Hearts is co hosted and co written by Justine
Speaker 1: Harmon and Elizabeth Egan and edited by Wendy Nogal. Lauren
Speaker 1: Smiley is our field reporter. Samantha Barry is Glamorous editor
Speaker 1: in chief. Julie Sheen and Dianna Buckman head up the
Speaker 1: business side of this partnership. Joyce Pandola, Pat Singer and
Speaker 1: Luke Czeleski are our research team. Jason Hope is executive
Speaker 1: producer on behalf of How Stuff Works, along with producers
Speaker 1: Julian Weller, ben Kiebrick and Josh Stain. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Jen Lance. Have questions for us about this podcast, reach
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at Glamour mag. For access to exclusive
Speaker 1: photos and videos and documents about the case, Visit Glamour
Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Hearts. If you like what you heard,
Speaker 1: leave us a review,