WEBVTT - "Owies" 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.440 This past. Can I help you? Who are we checking on? 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:08.440 The mothers are Sarah and Jennifer Hart and according to 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:12.160 my intake, they have six children in the home. Six 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.480 children okay, the eldest being nineteen, so not technically legally 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.920 a child. Okay. The children are in Ragne between nineteen 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.000 and twelve according to my intake. Okay. And are you 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.840 with CPS or you are the concern c with CPS 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.559 in Callot's County, Yes, ma'am, okay, let's see here the 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:36.360 home Monday and Friday. I knocked on the door just 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:38.360 this morning and no one I can get in a response. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.400 Are you there now? No, unfortunately, and you've tried two 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.159 times and you can't reach them. Correct. I've knocked on 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.519 the door twice. Different cars have been moving in and 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.760 now I noticed, so I feel like someone's there. Okay. 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.480 And when were you there last? This morning and thirty Okay. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:58.440 I've got a deputy on the way and he will 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:01.800 call you back when he I have something to tell you. Okay, 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.480 thank you so much to appreciate your alrighty today. Thanks 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.400 a good dame. Bye. The call you just heard came 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:09.920 in the day the hearts died. You can hear the 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:12.759 operator speaking with a case worker from Clark County Social 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.840 Services requesting a wellness check at the Heart family's home 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.240 in Woodland, Washington. The case worker was responding to a 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.640 call from Dana to Kalb, who lived next door with 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:24.120 her husband Bruce and shared a driveway with the Hearts. 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:26.840 She wasn't the first person to report the Hearts to 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.959 the authorities. You may recall that her own dad had 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.399 reported them four months earlier. Hi, how can I help you? Yeah, 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:37.400 there's some kids that I feel as being highly abused 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:43.199 in Woodland, Washington and basically my southern laws, like most people, 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.560 they don't want to get involved, and so he was 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.680 keeping my daughter out of it. But since you told 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.040 me about it, I just can't live with it. I'm 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.960 very concerned for these kids. So how did these women, adventurous, 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.520 tree hugging, free spirited peace necks as Jed called them 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:05.680 on Facebook go from being groovy, idealistic trailblazers to moms 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.920 who abused their kids and drove off a cliff? And 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:12.720 when did the abuse begin? From glamour and how stuff works? 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:24.919 This is broken Hearts. I'm Lizzie Agan and I'm Justine Harmon. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.639 Here's Lauren Smiley talking with Amy Olstad Rstad, whose son 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:34.600 went to Woodland Elementary School with the Hearts. Describe what 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:36.920 you did see when they were there going to the 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.040 same school as your kids. Just kind of walk me 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.240 through what you knew about the Hearts. They just caught 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:47.000 your eye. I can't It's like something you can't really. 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.920 They had an aur of you know, just saying these 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.760 five and I only saw five of them because Marcuts 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:57.040 must have been at the middle school by them. I 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.800 can remember them all getting out and standing in a line, 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.440 and us waiting until they were all out in this line, 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.480 and then they would just walk right in, just like 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.160 little soldiers. And you know, we thought it was. My 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.639 husband and I would talk about it and say, well, 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.800 I guess you know their well behave. We thought they 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.000 were all the same age. That's one thing that I 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:22.720 do remember is, you know, our son was in kindergarten then, 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.240 and we thought they were small, so we thought they 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.320 had to be in kindergarten. The kids Amy saw from 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.920 her car window were the Hearts, Abigail, Hannah, Davante, Jeremiah, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.880 and Sierra. The woman dropping them off would have been Jen. 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:38.320 At this point, Sarah was working full time at her 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:41.280 Burger's while Jen stayed home with the kids. If you've 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.320 ever done school drop off, you know the scene, big backpacks, 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:49.760 shuffling sneakers, maybe a little sister waving from the back seat. 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.280 For lots of kids, the next seven hours are a 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:56.600 drudgery to be endured. For the hearts, the school day 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:58.720 might have been a welcome respite from what was going 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.000 on at home. The abuse started in Alexandria, Minnesota, and 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.080 it would follow the family across three states. We'll never 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.680 know why Jen and Sarah moved so many times, but 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.200 wherever they went, people noticed their kids odd robotic behavior, 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.960 their bruises, their hunger. Here's Ian Spurling, Jen and Sarah's 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.080 friend who you've heard from before. Looking back on it, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.000 it doesn't look like they were normal kids. They didn't 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.440 really have friends. They didn't hang out with other kids 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.440 any That's one of those red flags when I had 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.960 stated that in my post, like duh, that's one of 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:31.000 the other things looking back, like, why didn't we notice 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.839 they didn't have like friends? You know, the kids weren't 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:37.640 allowed to just go hang out with friends. The paper 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:42.440 trail starts. On September nine, two eight. According to a 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.360 police report, someone on the staff at Washington Elementary School 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:51.680 noticed a suspicious bruise on Hannah Hart's arm. She was six, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.640 and this was her second week of first grade. Did 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.640 a teacher see it first? A cafeteria aid is school nurse. 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.080 According to a police report, Hannah told someone at school 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.200 that her mother had struck her with a belt. Davante 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.400 was nearly six too, most likely adjusting to life in 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.240 a different kindergarten class. Marcus was somewhere else in the 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.600 same building. He was ten. Did Hannah tell her brothers 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.480 what had happened while they waited for Jen to come 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.680 pick them up after school? Here's what we know. When 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.520 Sarah and Jen were questioned, they told the police that 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:32.200 the bruise on Hannah's arm was probably from a fall 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.560 down stairs. Eight stairs to be exact, which is an 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:38.680 odd detail to have on the tip of your tongue. 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:41.800 I've walked from the first floor of my house to 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.279 the second one at least a thousand times over the 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:46.960 thirteen years we've lived there, and I couldn't tell you 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.200 how many stairs there are. Two months later, a week 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.039 before Thanksgiving, break Jen and Sarah Withdrew, Hannah, Davante, and 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.159 Marcus from Washington Elementary School to be homeschooled. This must 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.120 have been a terrifying moment for the kids, relinquishing their 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.119 cubbies and their spots on the rug. What was running 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.680 through their minds when they left the classrooms that day 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.080 was Marcus, who was in the fifth grade, relieved to 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.600 be sprung from the looming specter of long division. Were 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:15.640 they dreading being stuck in the house all day with Jen? 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.120 Jen painted a colorful picture of homeschooling on Facebook. Lessons 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.159 on the beach, meditation on the deck, our class on 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.840 the dining room table. But who knows how long the 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.479 days were for her six students and how much they 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.080 might have missed having classmates who weren't their siblings and 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:35.040 a teacher who wasn't their mom. In September two thousand nine, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.000 the Heart family took a road trip so Jen and 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.240 Sarah could get married in a civil ceremony in Connecticut, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.479 where same sex marriage was legal. For the next nine years, 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.080 Jen would mark their anniversaries on Facebook, showing the two 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.320 of them in front of a waterfall or a thicket 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.159 of evergreens. Alongside a flowery ode to her bride, who, 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.400 by all accounts, was not a regular user of social media. 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.159 When we were finally able to get married, Jen wrote 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.960 in two thousand seventeen, the only people present were our children, 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:11.040 simply because our support system was so small. That same fall, 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.240 all five school aged Chart kids were re enrolled in 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.800 public school. Later, Jen and Sarah would tell a social 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:21.400 worker that this was a requirement of their adoption agency, 0:07:21.560 --> 0:07:26.000 So off the older five went. Marcus, Hannah Davante, Abigail, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:30.760 and Jeremiah Sierra stayed home with Jen. You beautiful thing you, 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:35.120 Jen wrote about her on Facebook, according to a police report. 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:38.880 In November of two thousand ten, Douglas County Social Services 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.840 got another call from school. This time the subject was Abigail, 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.200 who was in the first grade. She'd been stealing classmates 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:51.480 food and digging through the garbage looking for scraps. Later 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:56.280 that month, Abigail reported AOIS to her teacher. According to 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.040 a report compiled three years later by the Oregon Department 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.520 of Health and Human Service is and I'm quoting here, 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.239 Abigail had bruising on her stomach area from her stern 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.160 um to waistband and bruising on her back from mid 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.239 back to upper buttocks reportedly caused by Jen Hart according 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.160 to Abigail, but in the CPS interview with the couple, 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.000 Sarah Hart said she was the one responsible for the marks. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.120 The worker said this incident was over a penny. They 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.480 had discovered a penny in Abigail's pocket and asked her 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.040 about it. Abigail had said she found it. Jen and 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.360 Sarah Hart did not believe her and said she stole 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.240 a penny and was lying about it, hence the spanking, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:39.040 which got out of control. Per Sarah Heart. Abigail also 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.559 said they put her head under cold water and Jen 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:50.080 had her two hands on her neck end quote. Investigators 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.440 interviewed the other Heart kids, who said they were often grounded, spanked, 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.480 or sent to their rooms without food, but when Jen 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.480 and Sarah were questioned separately, they told a different story. 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.520 Sarah said she'd been the one who had Abigail. Jen 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:08.720 backed her up, and the investigators believed them. Maybe Jen 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.760 had more to lose. She was the one who received 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.040 monthly assistance checks from the state of Texas for adopting 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.040 the kids out of foster care. She also received Social 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:23.160 Security checks for Davante and Jeremiah. All of these checks 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.080 were in her name, and she might have believed a 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:30.760 child abuse conviction would put these funds in jeopardy. The 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:36.000 case workers report said, the problem is these women look normal. Remember, 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.640 Abby was the first kid Jen held in her arms, 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.000 the one who made her a mom. She was the 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.640 one who loved dance parties and tried to teach the 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.520 chickens how to do yoga. In one of the last 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.559 pictures we see of her on Facebook, she's buckled into 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.480 a roller coaster at the Oregon State Fair, smiling bravely 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:57.440 by Sarah's side. This is the girl whose neck Jen 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.960 held in her hands under cold water. The state file 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.160 charges against Sarah in state court for two gross misdemeanors, 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:09.320 malicious punishment of a child and domestic assault. In December 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.840 of two thousand ten, Minnesota Child Welfare learned about a 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.960 bruise on Hannah's hand. By this time, she was in 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.240 third grade, the year of chapter books, when you're not 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.080 quite one of the big kids yet, but you know 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.640 your way around the school. When she was questioned, Hannah 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.839 said Jenn hit her because she lied. She said Jen 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.480 hit her all the time. Later, the school nurse called 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.920 the Hearts to report that Hannah was asking her classmates 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:38.320 for food. She said she hadn't eaten all day. Sarah's 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.320 response was not the one you'd expect of a mother 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.280 trying to put her best foot forward for the benefit 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.040 of the authorities. She said of Hannah, she's playing the 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.720 food card. Just give her water. Hannah was the oldest sister, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.319 the one with the missing front teeth. There aren't many 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:56.440 pictures of her on Facebook, but in the ones we 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:00.520 do see, she appears shy and tentative. She was the 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.040 one who would eventually jump out her bedroom window and 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:04.679 run to the neighbors in the middle of the night 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.760 to tell them her mom's were abusive, but that wouldn't 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:13.520 happen until later, much later. Ian Sperling says he hadn't 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:15.760 seen much of the family in the year before they died. 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:20.160 There were canceled plans, lots of them. He's been beating 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:24.319 himself up over some of the signs he missed. Obviously, 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.200 hindsight is my wife and I are beating ourselves up 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.920 daily because you know, why didn't we see this? Well, 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.600 you couldn't. There's not a person I know, and even 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.960 those the people that said they followed up. I get 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.360 the neighbors following up because they probably saw more. But 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.280 people are friends or acquaintances of the hearts. There's no 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.880 way they knew anything was wrong. There's it's not possible. 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:44.960 Maybe if you really wanted to be a very critical, 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.439 judgmental person, you may have said, well, they're too perfect, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:49.240 I'm going to dive into this, or you know the 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:51.280 kids are skinny, Well we just thought they were eating 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.200 organic food in that scene. There's a lot of people 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.920 who are skinny, and I think the whole food thing. 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.880 You know, Look, if I was not wanting to ulified 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:01.720 himanized Jen, I would say, well, she didn't know how 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.199 to punish them, because six kids who have developmental disabilities 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.520 are going to be tough to raise, and so maybe 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:09.360 this was her way of trying to find a punishment 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.480 that was appropriate. Was you know, well you're going to 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.320 bed without dinner tonight type of thing, and they morphed 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.040 into a bigger deal with reheards in the neighbors finding 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:20.120 out about and stuff like that. Who knows. That's one 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.640 way to look at it. I think the more realistic 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.679 way to look at it is she actually was holding 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.240 from them for quite a bit. I think another way 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:30.520 to look at it was that's how she controlled them. 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.440 On Tuesday, April five, two thousand eleven, all six Heart 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:38.320 kids were pulled out of Woodland Elementary School. This time 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.720 they never went back. The Heart family was officially off 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:47.839 the grid. The following year, Sarah Hart was discharged from 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.840 supervised probation in Minnesota and moved to Oregon to find 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.120 a new job. We don't know how often the kids 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.920 got to see Sarah during this time, but her absence 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:00.480 must have been hard on them. They already had a 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.400 lot of disruption in their lives. They've been removed from 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.120 the homes of their biological families, in some cases, families 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:12.559 they would have remembered during this time. On December twelve, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.040 Jen had a car accident with the kids in Missoula, Montana. 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.360 The car she was driving was the Yukon, the same 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.240 one she was driving when she went off the cliff, 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:27.120 as she described it on Facebook, once, twice, three times. 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.040 Finally we crashed into the side of the gently sloping mountain. 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.880 In what was most likely seconds, so many inexplicable thoughts 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.400 ran through my mind. Was I dead? There was no 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.200 way we could have all survived such an incident. I 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.640 unclenched my fists from the steering wheel, brushed off the glass, 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:47.840 and turned my head back to see all six kids 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:54.000 hanging upside down? Are you okay? Every single child was 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.240 safely secured by their seatbelts. Jen then goes into a 0:13:57.320 --> 0:13:59.760 lengthy description of a couple who bent over backwards to 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:02.640 help them, even offering to drive the Hearts the rest 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.080 of the way to Portland, where they were going to 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:11.360 see Sarah. We weren't able to find any record of 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.800 the accident, Jen describes. However, after the Hearts died, Brian Lee, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.439 the husband from the couple who offered to drive them 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.720 that night, was interviewed by The Oregonian. He remembers meeting 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.360 the family after they were involved in what he calls 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:29.320 a rollover accident. He says he and his wife rented 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.800 a trailer to tow the Hearts car to Spokan and 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.280 the Jen talked for the entire three hour drive. She 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:41.040 must have been starved for adult company. Interestingly, Lee says 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.680 the accident happened the day after Christmas, not two days before, 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.640 as Jen said in her Facebook post when she posted 0:14:48.640 --> 0:14:51.800 about the event. Years later, she made the family's survival 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.320 sound like a Christmas miracle. The fact that the accident 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.160 happened right before Christmas seemed to be the whole point. 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.720 Of course, Lee might have been mistaken about the date, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.280 but this discrepancy could be yet another bit of evidence 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:21.760 that Jen had her own interpretation of facts. A few 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.840 months later, Jen and the kids reunited with Sarah for 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.240 good in their new home in West Lynn, Oregon, about 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:33.240 fifteen miles outside of Portland's. Jen immortalized their goodbye on Facebook, 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.800 leaving out the mom's brushes with the law. Here's what 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.520 she wrote, Packing the past ten years of my life 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:45.360 into boxes. It's almost surreal walking through the house. Empty walls, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:53.000 empty drawers, empty cupboards, empty rooms. The kids arn't supplies, instruments, games, 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.120 and toys are packed. I was feeling kind of awful 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.040 about the lack of things for them to do during 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.840 the transition time until this morning. I was taking down 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:04.000 the boy's bunk beds and heard the loudest, silliest, full 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.400 on belly laughs and cafaws coming from the other room. 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.160 I walk in to see a trio of the kids 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.640 sitting slash laying on the bare floor Not a single 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.000 thing exists in that room aside from their little bodies. 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.240 They were telling stories, making up silly songs, and laughing 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.560 themselves into sprawled out piles of utter bliss. Ah. Yes, 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.360 simplicity at its finest. What a beautiful reminder that the 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.040 things that matter most are not things at all. We 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.800 have each other. Our songs are laughter, our love. These 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:40.560 are the magic moments, live, love, laugh. People liked this post. 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.680 I headed south of Portland to the suburb of West Lynne. 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.280 It's in Clackamus County, the area or Tanya Harding had 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.320 grown up. I've recently seen Tanya, so I've been expecting 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.360 the scruppy, white working class neighborhoods from the movie. Instead, 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.399 on the bluff over the Willamette River and it's mostly 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.480 defunct paper Mills, is an upscale main drag filled with 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.840 pilate studios, a juice shop, a plastic surgeon offering botox. 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.159 The nearby streets are lined with tidy clapboard houses and 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.399 picket fences, but two stuck out for being less manicured 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.600 than the others. When had been the house that the 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.240 Hearts rented when they moved to Oregon and next to 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.800 it the house of Bill Groner. Groner is in his sixties, 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.080 ruddy cheeks, belly, white goatee. You get the sense he 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.479 be a really good mall Santa. Inside his house, an 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.600 electric piano sits on his kitchen table, and his fridge 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.040 is plastered with pictures of grandkids and a magnet that 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.760 reads pray without ceasing. This is Bill. You can hear 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.040 baseball games up all the way up here from the 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:52.680 park down below. A lot of water skiing, a lot 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.399 of boating. Actually got two neighbors down here across the 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.760 street that have have boats, a lot of camping. The 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.520 arts love to camp, I know, because they were seemed 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:09.760 like they were often going out on expeditions with their 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.840 canoes on the top of their their vehicle. They love 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:19.520 getting away, which is one reason I thought, you know, 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:24.600 they were good parents in the regard they were doing 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.600 like fun outdoor stuff with their kids. It seems like 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:31.080 they've been here like maybe for three years. Oh. First 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:34.480 time I talked was at the mailbox, and one of 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.960 them was a little though Gallop. I think she worked 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:41.560 up at Cole's and Vancouver. I forget is that Sarah, 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:46.240 And she was kind of the more open friendly one, 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:50.600 and not that the other lady wasn't friendly. But I 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:55.679 talked to Sarah at the mailbox. Conversation came up once 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.600 there was something at the mailbox that she thought I 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.240 can't remember what it was, whether it was uh, somebody 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:07.240 had written something put in their mailbox, something that that 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.679 she talked like she thought that she had gotten away 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.720 from that by coming out here. So that was that 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:19.359 was an issue for her again, you know, being uh gay, 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:26.160 I guess, uh, and that that upset her. Basically intimated 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.199 that she had the experience that they had experienced that 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:34.920 because she had mentioned that that they had some problems before, 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.560 you know, and she didn't go into detail, but she 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.760 was just conscious that being gay that you know, in 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.520 our society, and uh so I just thought, well, maybe, 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.120 you know, I don't want her to think that I'm 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:53.920 being judgmental, and I just want to be a good neighbor. 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.520 We'd like to pause here to consider what Bill Groner 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.879 is saying. Of course he doesn't want to a bad neighbor. 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.639 Nobody does. But we do think the pains Bill and 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:07.840 others took to give Jen and Sarah a wide birth 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.720 might have enabled their mistreatment of the kids. To be clear, 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:15.600 we're not placing the blame on Bill's shoulders or anyone else's, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.960 but we do want to call attention to the very 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:22.240 human tendency not to get involved. We believe it might 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.200 have landed the heart moms some free passes. Who wants 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:29.280 to be the person who comes across as being homophobic 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:35.400 or racist, or closed minded, or, as Bill himself said, judgmental. 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.240 We're taught if you see something, say something, But we're 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.200 also told you can't judge another woman until you walk 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:49.520 in her shoes. If your neighbor's family looks different from yours, 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.960 you might check yourself when you're questioning their decisions or 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.720 their parenting. And in most cases that's the right thing 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.840 to do. But where Jen and Sarah were concerned, political 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.960 correctness might have provided them some cover for their double life. 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.320 I mean, I'd see the up front once in a while, 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:15.520 I'd see the kids, not very often, though not very often. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:18.359 I never saw him like walking up the street or 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:23.119 anything like that. They were pretty much stayed in their yard. 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:28.200 They were friendly, smiled, would say hi, but didn't really 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.800 care out a conversation. I never saw any kind of 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:36.240 friends or family over there visiting them. They didn't seemed 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.880 to come out well that they didn't come outside very 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.240 often at all. It was just stayed in the house 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:46.400 a lot. So they were looking for land saving up 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.840 that they became evident the reason they were here was 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:53.240 just as a stop off place so they could, you know, 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:55.520 with that many kids. This was a you know, a 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.560 large house and kind of a nice kind of area 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.720 that you know, not it's not like some places in Portland, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.040 you know, get some land and all that they could 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.680 have animals. I know they were working on getting the 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:15.720 financing together, remember when they were talking about that. They 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:18.200 wanted to get back to the garden, as we used 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:34.720 to say in the seventies. The Hearts were in West 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:37.679 Lynne for four years before they moved an hour north 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:41.400 to Woodland, Washington, to the house next door to the Decounts. 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.240 They never registered as home schoolers, so for a while 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:47.920 at least, the state of Oregon didn't know about six 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.280 of its newest residents, but that would change. In two 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:56.160 thousand thirteen, while Jen's Facebook account was at maximum activity 0:22:56.280 --> 0:23:00.000 with near daily post throughout the year, two whistleblowers report 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:02.800 to the family to CPS. The first call came in 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:06.199 on a few weeks after Jen posted a picture of 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:12.040 a painfully thin Davante playing guitar. Me any particular reason 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:17.200 you're naked him in the most matter of factly fashion. 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:22.359 I'm not naked. I'm wearing a guitar. Yep, that's my 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:27.040 string being. According to the CPS report, the first informant, 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.280 who was anonymous, said Jen does this thing for her 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:32.800 Facebook page, where the kids pose and are made to 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:35.560 look like one big, happy family, but after the photo 0:23:35.640 --> 0:23:39.320 event they go back to looking lifeless. The same whistleblower 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:42.119 said Jen had allowed each kid only a single slice 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:44.439 of pizza for dinner, and when it turned out that 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.240 someone had helped themselves to more during the night, she 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:50.280 punished all six kids by making them wear sleeping masks 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:54.240 and line and air mattress for five hours. The whistleblower 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:56.959 noted that the kids would eat freely while Jen wasn't around, 0:23:57.040 --> 0:23:59.680 but once she entered the room, they deny that they've 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:04.480 eaten at all. The second whistleblower identified herself as Alexandra 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.840 arjiropolis She was a friend the hearts had stayed with 0:24:07.880 --> 0:24:11.480 when they traveled to San Francisco that summer. On Facebook, 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:15.280 we see Davante in a zebra unitard again whip it thin, 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:18.080 flashing a hang loose sign in front of the Golden 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:22.240