CA CA - Hannah, 16, Devonte, 15, & Sierra Hart, 12, Mendocino County, 26 March 2018 #1

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I suspect there was a check in the mail monthly for these children.

I was curious so I did a little search and here’s what I found.

“The amount of aid a family receives for a foster care adoption will depend upon the adoptee’s personal needs and age; it includes a cash grant, MediCal coverage to age 18, and reimbursements for certain expenses. The adoption subsidy payments may not exceed the rate the child would have received if the child had remained in foster care, a base rate that is currently $445 a month. The California adoption subsidy is negotiated between the adoptive family and the county with legal custody of the child, so it cannot be estimated before the child is actually placed for adoption with the family.”

http://www.fcadoptions.org/the-process/fos-adopt.php/foster-care-adoption-costs.php




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I didn’t see the gray video, and don’t have time to watch it right now, but what makes him think Sarah is really 48? The court documents show her birth year as 1979. I think Hart is Jennifer’s maiden name. Sarah may have changed her name before they got married bc maybe they didn’t expect to ever be able to get married? Obviously I’m speculating.

He said something about finding the property records, maybe? And now I realize I'm not sure which one he supposedly thought was older.
 
I read an article (that must have been linked here in the last few hours) that stated the children had different reports about how discipline happened in the home. One child reportedly said spanks were always with an open hand, one said they never got physically disciplined, only time outs. This is what I remember.... can anyone help me out? Anyone remember reading it? It was an article that talked about the abuse of the young girl back in 2011.


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To my knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong please) there are more prospective foster and adoptive parents who are white than black, and for children it's the other way around, and then add in mixed race kids).

I agree with you that I don't see anything wrong with adopting children of a different skin color, I just want them to have good families and good parenting.

And these kids were adopted in sibling groups, much harder to place, and apparently coming from backgrounds with abuse and that had led to the children displaying problems, so again they're going to be harder to place in adoptive families.

If someone/a couple are simply looking beyond color to adopt children who need a good home, I don't have anything negative to say about that.

But I do have a bit question mark for these women on how these things, and especially taking in two sibling groups with all six being fairly close in age to each other, how it might have had a large part in their desire to appear super-altruistic, maybe wanting to create a narrative that the whole world is racist *except for us!*

The kids have been in this family for a long time, is it 9 years and 14 years? But there seems to be a mixed narrative of how the kids came from terrible backgrounds that had given the kids issues (no fault of the children) and then these two parents have erased all the damage. Then on the other hand it feels like constant reminders of where the children have come from and that some of it is being used to say that the children, who on the one hand are 'cured' and 'perfectly behaved' are still displaying damage from the early childhood stage. I feel like there's a disparity in how the kids are two things at once and all the negative is attributed to their pre-adoption lives, while all the positive is attributed to their post-adoption lives.

The story about the encounter in the store, combined with neighbors saying they didn't see the kids out in the garden playing games, people saying there's a lack of child stuff like balls and things in the garden. Was it really the six kids who didn't want to play sporty games or ball games or was it the parents telling the kids they didn't want to do those sorts of activities? You don't have to want to grow up to be a sports star to kick or throw a ball around the garden and spend time outdoors playing games? feel like these women have sucked the life out of these children and tried to imprint the children with their own image? None of this has anything to do with race, it has to do with children...and out of six kids, sure there might be a bookworm or two in there, but even bookworm kids can go out and run around and play ball games and work off excess physical energy? And surely that's especially true in a household without TV where video games and electronics are discouraged?

I'm not keen on when parents want children to be image that their parents want them to be instead of growing up to be themselves with their own interests. But these two are apparently combining this with extreme abuse. How much are they using abuse to get the desired outcome and to drain these kids of their own individual development in six different ways?

I agree 100%. There is certainly nothing wrong with adopting children of a different race, but white parents adopting African-American children because they are African-American is almost as bad as people who will only adopt white children, and doing it to makes some kind of political or other statement, is even more messed up.

Social service agencies, need to do a better job of screening out these type of people. Just because children come from an abusive background, is all the more reason not to place them in a new abusive situation.
 
I was curious so I did a little search and here’s what I found.

“The amount of aid a family receives for a foster care adoption will depend upon the adoptee’s personal needs and age; it includes a cash grant, MediCal coverage to age 18, and reimbursements for certain expenses. The adoption subsidy payments may not exceed the rate the child would have received if the child had remained in foster care, a base rate that is currently $445 a month. The California adoption subsidy is negotiated between the adoptive family and the county with legal custody of the child, so it cannot be estimated before the child is actually placed for adoption with the family.”

http://www.fcadoptions.org/the-process/fos-adopt.php/foster-care-adoption-costs.php




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Thank you BUT
You need to read the Texas adoption procedures and financial incentives, I believe it's different than Ca.
If I recall it's much more than what you mentioned (Tx.). there's often more paid for taking siblings, hard to adopt,
and children w/ emotional trauma, etc.
 
more on the adoption-

2006- Markis, Abrigail, Hannah- from Colorado County, Tx.

2009- Devonte, Jeremiah, Sierra- from Harris Co., Tx. (Houston)

Only 1 follow-up since children were adopted.

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2018/03/for_devonte_and_his_siblings_p.html
$$ Adoption Incentives $$
including:
Monthly payments to assist with the child's needs.

https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Adoption_and_Foster_Care/About_Adoption/subsidy.asp

Texas Department of Family & Protective Services
DFPS Adoption Assistance
 
$$ Adoption Incentives $$
including:
Monthly payments to assist with the child's needs.

https://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Adoption_and_Foster_Care/About_Adoption/subsidy.asp

Texas Department of Family & Protective Services
DFPS Adoption Assistance

BINGO!! So besides being paid lump sum at time of adoption, the monthly incentive could be very attractive and be enough that only one parent HAD to work. I'd like to see receipts of totals paid to this couple through the years, from
both state and federal programs.
 
I didn’t see the gray video, and don’t have time to watch it right now, but what makes him think Sarah is really 48? The court documents show her birth year as 1979. I think Hart is Jennifer’s maiden name. Sarah may have changed her name before they got married bc maybe they didn’t expect to ever be able to get married? Obviously I’m speculating.

Well considering that he has gotten most other facts about this case wrong, it's not really too surprising. As I said earlier he just doesn't verify any of his information with a second source, and he jumps to conclusions way too fast. He also seems to blur the line between facts and his personal opinions. I find his, "If you don't agree with what I'm saying, go out and make your own videos" attitude to be counterproductive.
 
I read an article (that must have been linked here in the last few hours) that stated the children had different reports about how discipline happened in the home. One child reportedly said spanks were always with an open hand, one said they never got physically disciplined, only time outs. This is what I remember.... can anyone help me out? Anyone remember reading it? It was an article that talked about the abuse of the young girl back in 2011.


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Might be this article. KaaBoom linked to actual docs. I'll see if I can bring that fwd too.

Abigail said that Jennifer was angry because a penny fell out of her pocket. She said Jennifer dragged her to the bathroom and submerged her head under cold water in the tub, then spanking her repeatedly with a closed fist. Abigail said she was grounded, and sometimes her punishment would include missing lunch. Abigail’s siblings didn’t all back her up. One sibling said that Abigail lied about the beating and had only been given a time out. That sibling also said that the parents only used open hands for spanking. Another sibling said they weren’t spanked or made to go without food.
https://heavy.com/news/2018/03/jennifer-sarah-hart-six-children-drove-off-cliff-cause-crash/

Here are the original documents, unloaded by KOIN-6 News.

#2010 12844 Report
 
Of course the bruises on the child backed up the child's story which is why the mom pleaded guilty.
 
A few thoughts about the video of Sarah's 37th birthday:

1.) It is almost two years old. She turned 37 on April 8, 2016. She was due to turn 39 in 6 days.
2.) Even being two years old, the children are really small. The young girl with the missing teeth is also not in it much. The oldest boy is filmed playing by the water or in a group with the other children. It is obvious that 4 of the children were either easier to direct, or more highly favored.
3.) The shoes the children (and I think the women too) are wearing are not expensive. Target perhaps? I don't see name brands and they seem to lack support that would be common in more expensive shoes. The shoes also look fairly worn. I would guess they were used for every day wear or maybe they were used or hand me downs. I only mention this because it seems very normal for people with a large number of children and not a lot of money.
4.) I don't see a single candid action on that video. It all appears staged to me.
5.) It seems odd to me to spend all that time filming and taking pictures that were obviously choreographed during a birthday get away. It did have a "promo" vibe to it. The "meditation" scene was nice looking but the rest seemed painfully staged.
6.) While the video doesn't scream "I'm going to run my children and myself off a cliff," there is something about it that does seem really *off*.
 
I read an article (that must have been linked here in the last few hours) that stated the children had different reports about how discipline happened in the home. One child reportedly said spanks were always with an open hand, one said they never got physically disciplined, only time outs. This is what I remember.... can anyone help me out? Anyone remember reading it? It was an article that talked about the abuse of the young girl back in 2011.

Open handed spanking is not going to leave any marks that a teacher could see. So I think it is apparent that the abuse was much worse than either of those scenarios.
 
I always feel really weird when white people adopt several kids from a specific race, like, these two only adopted black kids. Why is that? And someone might be thinking "well, why not?", and that is absolutely valid too. There is NOTHING wrong about only adopting black children. I'm not saying that, since they are white, they should exclusively adopt white children. I'm not saying that black children are unwhorthy of being adopted. What I'm saying is that I always feel weird when white people go above and beyond just to adopt black kids, or hispanic kids, or asian kids, and so on. It doesn't feel right to me, it always seems like they're making it about them and about the image of themselves that they want to be perceived by everyone else. And I'm aware that white people are not the only ones that do this. I'm sorry if this is confusing or if this doesn't seem relevant to this case.

I think we need to be careful when making judgments like this. When choosing to do domestic adoptions, one finds a large percentage of available children to be black or mixed race ethnicity. So it is no surprise that some white families will end up adopting black children.

And once they have done so, it's no surprise they might want their kids to have black siblings, since they already have white adoptive parents. I don't think this should be seen as a negative thing at all.

And I really don't believe that most adoptive parents choose their children because they 'want it to be about them' or anything like that. I think we end up being brought together in some fashion and it fits together, for many various reasons.

I really hate for this adoptive set of parents to be seen as some representative 'example' of adoptive parents anywhere from now on. :cry:
 
Thank you for your post. I appreciate it. I agree there was a lot going on with the family.

I fell like we really don’t know enough about the children’s backgrounds, their birth parents, any therapy they may be receiving, etc etc to form a solid theory on what was absolutely happening.

There is a lot of judgement on this thread in general. (NOT directing that at you Webby). I’m kind of surprised so many people are rushing to judgement.

I’ve read conflicting reports about how the parents disciplined. I’m going to keep reading before I form any opinions about what “must have happened”.

I’m not stating opinion one way or the other yet. The one thing I will say is that this is very very tragic. Anytime lives are lost it’s very sad.

Back to reading.


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Although I respect your caution, and of course there have been cases of troubled children making false accusations, I have to say that any “rush to judgement” you may have seen here is based on a number of factors stemming from WS members’ vast experience in child abuse cases.

First of all, it is appropriate to initially believe rather than doubt a child’s story of abuse. There are multiple children claiming abuse of some kind. The neighbors’ stories are credible. The bruises on the child in MN tell a story, as does the conviction of Sara for abuse. Children in abusive families will often deny that a sibling was abused or minimize it to protect themselves. This family moved two or three times due to CPS investigations. That would make new arrangements for therapy, support and monitoring difficult since their moves involved different states. They were putting Devonte in troubling situations for a child of his background. They kept the children isolated, not even obeying the law requiring notice of homeschooling to the local district. Learning more about the backgrounds of these children doesn’t change what happened. That the children were available for adoption means that their backgrounds were very troubled. And based on the women’s social media, the children were used as props in the positive image these two women presented to the world, much like the Turpin’s Disneyland and Las Vegas trips.

Sticking up for children is the norm on WS. And, of course, LE has now stated that the drive off the cliff was deliberate. So whatever perceived “rush to judgement” that occurred was a correct judgement, based on the above factors.

No one wants a repeat of the false memory abuse accusations in the ‘80’s. But as we have seen in the Turpin case, there are those who inexplicably question even abuse observed by LE and doctors. I’m sure more of the story of the Harts will unfold in time, but I doubt new information will undermine opinions formed here on this thread.
JMO
 
The crash one week ago in Mendocino County may have been intentional based on the absence of skid marks, data from air bag controllers and other information, the California Highway Patrol said.

A CHP spokesman told reporters that the GMC Yukon's on-board computer indicated that the vehicle stopped and then suddenly accelerated off Highway 1 — plunging about 70 feet down to the rocky shoreline of the Pacific Ocean.

"Pure acceleration all the way," said CHP spokesman Cal Robertson.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna861876



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This photo of the Hart family from sarahs bday video is around a year old if ages are correct she was turning 37 in the video she was 38 when they crashed. I noticed in the bday video 2 kids were left out of any alone shots. Markis and the little girl I'm assuming is Hannah. The one who they said her teeth were missing and she didn't want them fixed. Clearly the child did want her teeth fix when she can't even smile properly in photos maybe they were afraid of the truth of how she lost her teeth coming out. Also I wanted to point out these kids even in the bday video looked extremely sick and skinny and they didn't look like teenagers at all. The oldest I'd say they look is 12 and if this was from just last year the oldest would be 18 the other kids would be 15 and 13 minus the youngest who would be 11.
d1899e60f4e93997ad010d21f38669ee.jpg


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Here's one of the few pictures I can find of Abigail smiling and showing teeth. You can see that she is missing front teeth in this picture. Sierra is two years younger than Abigail and has her front adult teeth fully grown in. My best guess is that this picture was taken in 2015, where Abigail would be 11 and Sierra would be 9. Markis 16, Hannah 13, Devonte 12 and Jeremiah 11.

Capture.PNG
 
I think we need to be careful when making judgments like this. When choosing to do domestic adoptions, one finds a large percentage of available children to be black or mixed race ethnicity. So it is no surprise that some white families will end up adopting black children.

And once they have done so, it's no surprise they might want their kids to have black siblings, since they already have white adoptive parents. I don't think this should be seen as a negative thing at all.

And I really don't believe that most adoptive parents choose their children because they 'want it to be about them' or anything like that. I think we end up being brought together in some fashion and it fits together, for many various reasons.

I really hate for this adoptive set of parents to be seen as some representative 'example' of adoptive parents anywhere from now on. :cry:

I had to see when Angelina Jolie started adopting and when her diverse clan made headlines. She adopted Zahara in '05

If ever any adoptive set of parents should not be seen as an example to strive for....

God help me if this is an unpopular opinion or inappropriate in this thread. I'll try to wear my big girl panties about it, but that family has been in the back of my mind as I read about the Harts.
 
Everything very staged.
There seems to be a lot of footage of water - eerie now you know what happeneded.

Hardly any views or comments on this video.


Could they have stopped at the pullout, during the day, for a photo op? In the birthday video, the kids were close to the edge of a scenic spot, making peace signs. If one of the kids fell, the moms would have panicked. The other kids could have been told to get in the SUV to go get help.

Unlikely scenario, an accident, along with the recent CPS visit, could have caused the driver to make an impulsive decision.
 
Might be this article. KaaBoom linked to actual docs. I'll see if I can bring that fwd too.

Abigail said that Jennifer was angry because a penny fell out of her pocket. She said Jennifer dragged her to the bathroom and submerged her head under cold water in the tub, then spanking her repeatedly with a closed fist. Abigail said she was grounded, and sometimes her punishment would include missing lunch. Abigail’s siblings didn’t all back her up. One sibling said that Abigail lied about the beating and had only been given a time out. That sibling also said that the parents only used open hands for spanking. Another sibling said they weren’t spanked or made to go without food.
https://heavy.com/news/2018/03/jennifer-sarah-hart-six-children-drove-off-cliff-cause-crash/

Thank you Zelda. That’s it.


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