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

[gitana1]

How freaking sad. If there windows were down and they weren’t wearing seatbelts I can see how they might ejected. Poor kids.

Could they have been trying to climb out the window?

In an accident like this there's really no telling what physics is going to do. A probably explanation could go like this, think of it like a Bingo machine: you have multiple, unrestrained balls moving around the interior of the ball, as the ball spins a ball will fall out of the opening. Now think of that Bingo machine ball as a vehicle with at least two open windows, 6 unrestrained balls are freely moving as the vehicle flips down the canyon wall, due to the space in the back as the truck flips around those 6 balls really have no where else to go except through the windows as the vehicle tumbles.

This scenario is based on the speculation that the truck flipped, which I drew from the scene photo showing a steep incline of the embankment and the fact the truck landed on it's roof.

Thanks for that info. I don't have one clue about physics. It's very confusing!

 

[K_Z]

Article about Devonte and his early life trials. Very sad.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150627182651/http:/papertrail.co.nz/meet-devonte-little-boy-big-heart/

Here's a timeline of what we know so far:

2007: Sarah and Jennifer Hart adopt Devonte and two of his siblings — bringing their number of children to six, according to an article from Paper Trail, a NewZealand-based news outlet. The article said by age 4, the boy had been abused, neglected, shot at and had endured other traumas.

April 2011: Sarah Hart is sentenced to a year of probation in Douglas County, Minnesota, for misdemeanor domestic assault, Minnesota court records show. One of her daughters, 6 at the time, arrived at school with bruises on her stomach and back and told a teacher, "Mom hit me," records show.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2018/03/hart_family_deadly_crash_a_tim.html

 

[K_Z]

I wonder if Hannah and Sierra, also missing, are Devonte's bio sibs, adopted with him? If so, that is really worrisome that those 3 just happen to be missing, given their horrible early life described in the NZ article above.

 

[K_Z]

That Jen and Sarah Hart already had 3 adopted kids when they adopted Devonte and his sibs from such a horrendous amount of trauma is very, very worrisome. It's really hard for me to believe social workers would approve them to take such traumatized kids, with 3 adopted of similar age already at home.

Yikes. That is a huge, huge red flag, IMO.

 

[savagewoman]

I will be interested to know if the moms phones are recovered and home PC. It could reveal planning and searching for locations that the road is high enough for a murder suicide.

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[K_Z]

IMO, just nothing at all about this crash seems innocent or accidental. I think there is zero possibility this was a happy family on a planned road trip that ended up at the bottom of that cliff.

 

[ShayHay!]

I think there may well have been something going on with the family, but Devonte recently going to neighbours, saying his parents were denying him food as punishment, just sounds an awful lot like something he'd picked up from stories about the Turpin case. I can definitely see that a 16 year old who is being denied sugar and processed food, and given vegetarian food,
might use that as a story to get some tasty junk food from the neighbours, or perhaps the family were broke.

Whatever their story turns out to be, I don't believe it was identical to the Turpins, the family were out and about in the world, though they'd been burned by too much publicity in 2014, death threats, etc.

Your supposition of why a child might claim to be hungry sounds more like something a six-year-old, not a sixteen-year-old would do.

 

[LietKynes]

I will be interested to know if the moms phones are recovered and home PC. It could reveal planning and searching for locations that the road is high enough for a murder suicide.

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RSBM

That ^^^^^

 

[jpo74]

those poor kids. i doubt drivng off that cliff was accidental. there is no brake marks on road. i wonder where other kids are? praying they are found ok

 

[DAnthrplgst]

Your supposition of why a child might claim to be hungry sounds more like something a six-year-old, not a sixteen-year-old would do.

I think it would be perfectly acceptable for a 16yo. A 6yo isn't going to cook up some story to get treats from a neighbor, a troubled 16yo on the other-hand would, they are capable of more complex thinking.

As for the source of the accident, until I hear something from LE I'm not going to make any assumptions. At this point there are too many variables to explain an accident. As Tricia likes to remind us from time-to-time, lets be careful with our words, family members and outsiders are likely reading here and as we saw in the Lucas Hernandez case many people have no problem stealing the content from this forum and reposting it to other places while twisting the words of the WS poster.

 

[crimenerd]

Why am I thinking Thelma and Louise...sigh.

 

[K_Z]

More back story and details from an article updated this evening. None of this information about the couple and their kids is encouraging, IMO.

Police head back to California cliff to search for missing NW kids -- and answers

Former Alexandria Police Department Det. Sgt. Larry Dailey, who investigated the case, recalled the girl's injuries weren't severe compared with other incidents involving children he'd seen in his 31-year law enforcement career. Nor had there had been signs of other abused or injured siblings in the home.

What struck Dailey, however, was how the girl's parents bristled at him and a state social worker who were contacted by the school, he said.

"From what I recall, they were very anti-system folks." Dailey, who retired in 2014, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Thursday. "They didn't like the school or that the police intervened, and they certainly didn't like the outcome."

Dailey also said Sarah and Jennifer Hart, two white women, and their six adopted children, who were all black, stood out in Alexandria, a small city of 13,000 about 130 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

"I think they had faced a lot [of] problems and were leaning in the direction to move out of town," Dailey said.

Shortly after, the family moved to the West Linn area and began to homeschool their children. Sarah and Jennifer Hart also became estranged from their immediate families in the Midwest, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation said.

Deputy Bill Holcomb led the team as they trained high-powered telescopes on the surf below and looked for any sign of the missing children.

The tide was one of the highest Holcomb had seen all week. The high water was both a blessing and a curse, he said: It prevented searchers from accessing the beach, but it also stirred up anything that may have come to rest on the sea floor.

Holcomb said the team would start at the crash site and work south. Close to shore, the currents tend to move that direction, he said, but about a half mile out they turn north again.

At the same time, Barney said, the California Highway Patrol is working to reconstruct the couple's travels in the 24-hour period before the crash. Investigators were working backward from the crash to retrace their movements from Clark County, where the Sheriff's Office and count officials are also probing the family's background and recent activities.

Barney confirmed next of kin has been notified of the deaths.

Authorities were also investigating at the family's home Thursday afternoon.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2018/03/police_head_back_to_california.html

BBM

 

[K_Z]

Onetime Minn. Family Involved In Deadly Plunge From Calif. Cliff

In Alexandria, where they lived before heading out west, neighbors say they’ll always remember the Hart family as good people — making their deaths and the DCS investigation ever more shocking.

“They were just nonchalant, wonderful people,” neighbor Chris Dillon said.

From day one, Dillon says Jennifer and Sarah Hart and their six children were ideal neighbors. The handyman says he not only helped around their house, but fixed the kids’ bikes.

“They were just the perfect family,” he said. “Never caused any problems, no headaches, no nothing.”

It’s how Mike and Lorraine Fealy remember them, too.

“They were nice, well mannered, just good neighbors,” Mike Fealy said.

Last week in Washington state, the Harts’ new neighbors called the Department of Child Services. They say one of the children came over starving, begging for food.

“They portray this happy little family,” Dana Dekalb said in Oregon. “Yet the night before, their daughter is telling us ‘please, please, please,’ begging us not to make her go back, and that they’re abusing her. And then Devonte coming over here and telling us that he’s being starved to death, and they’re mean.”

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2018/03/28/deadly-california-cliff-plunge/

BBM

Big dichotomy on how people who knew them and interacted with them portray the couple.

But at least this article is being somewhat honest, and admitting this:

Now, deputies are investigating if it was a deliberate act.

 

[KaylaraOwl]

That is a huge amount of area they could be in, if they weren't actually in the SUV when it went over the cliff.

 

[sweetcaro]

May these 3 beautiful children miraculously be safe somewhere! Such an unbelievably tragic story.

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[K_Z]

That is a huge amount of area they could be in, if they weren't actually in the SUV when it went over the cliff.

Yes, as I said, about 500-650 miles from their home. That's huge area.

Hopefully they can recover the SUV black box soon, and at least figure out if the car braked, or what the speed was. An article says that model has a black box feature to record various accident parameters.

 

[K_Z]

“The search and rescue team is out there today moving from the crash site in a south direction, which is where the current is currently going,” Barney said. The team, which includes a Human Remains Detection (HRD) dog, has stuck to land today, seeing if any of the children’s remains have washed ashore, he added.

“We’re investigating two theories,” Barney said. “One is that they were with the family and they are most likely lost and perished in the ocean.”

The other, he said, is that the three missing children are with friends or relatives, likely in Washington. “It’s a long shot, but we’re hopeful,” Barney said.

At this point, however, it is likely that all eight family members were together at the time of the crash, he said.

Barney said Thursday that the autopsies of Jennifer, Sarah, Markis, Jeremiah and Abigail Hart were already underway and would continue into Friday. A final ruling on cause of death, he said, could take 60 or more days, as the doctor must first send out a toxicology report and then review all pertinent reports.

California Highway Patrol has not yet determined the nature of the crash. CHP Officer Olegario Marin said Thursday that a Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team (MAIT) team was investigating the scene. The family’s car has already been retrieved from the scene. “Until we get information stating otherwise, it’s treated like any other crash,” Marin said.

http://tdn.com/news/local/search-co...cle_2f0c6554-4940-5125-a583-25e39243cd6c.html

 

[K_Z]

More about the child abuse/ domestic assault sitution in MN:

Years before Devonte Hart told neighbors his parents withheld food from him as punishment, his younger sister, who was then 6 years old, told police and a social worker she would not be given meals when she misbehaved.

In a 2010 interview with authorities, Abigail Hart also said one of her mothers had struck her with a closed fist and later placed her in a cold bath before hitting her again in a fit of anger.

"She had a penny in her pocket and this made her mom mad," reads an Alexandria, Minnesota police report obtained Thursday by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Abigail's parents told police their daughter had a problem with lying. And at least two of her five other siblings said during an investigation their parents grounded them or sometimes gave spankings but were never violent.

But Sarah Hart later pleaded guilty to abusing their daughter, even though Abigail — who was found with bruises on her stomach and back — told authorities it was her mother Jennifer who had physically hurt her and withheld meals.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-n...f/2018/03/devonte_harts_little_sister_to.html

BBM. What?? Now which mother did the abuse? Did Sarah take the blame for abuse by Jen??

This story is getting more convoluted by the minute.

There was a LOT of stress inside that home, IMO.

 

[Lilibet]

I will be interested to know if the moms phones are recovered and home PC. It could reveal planning and searching for locations that the road is high enough for a murder suicide.

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I’m quite familiar with the route I assume they took: I-5 to Grants Pass OR, 199 to the coast, 101 south to where it meets Hiway 1 near Leggett and heads west to the coast. On 101 south of Crescent City (just south of the Oregon border) there’s a stretch that curves through the redwoods high above the ocean. It would have worked well except that stretch of road is somewhat heavily traveled and it’s very slow (10-40 mph). It would be hard to build up enough speed to catapult off the edge between trees. It’s a scary highway IMO and it could have happened there, but highway 1 is a better choice...less traveled, few trees, and they could pick up speed on the the bridge right before they went off the edge. Pretty much the only lighting along these stretches of road is headlights.

So, if this was planned, it was either researched or one of the women had been there before. It is certainly not a “day trip” even for me in Southern Oregon...probably 7 hours, with long stretches on winding two lane highway. I wonder if they spent the night in Eureka.

Has anyone checked what the weather was like along this route on the Friday they left WA, especially near Westport? Bad weather could make the trip much longer than the estimated 10 hours (I’m pretty sure it takes longer than that at best).

 

[K_Z]

The Latest: Authorities search home of family in cliff crash

4:15 p.m.

Portland, Oregon, TV station KOIN reports that the Clark County sheriff's office went to the home in Woodland, Washington, on Thursday in search of information such as phone and bank records.

It comes as authorities in California try to retrace the movements of the Hart family.

1:32 p.m.

Experts say investigators should be able to determine how fast an SUV believed to be carrying a family of eight was traveling when it plunged off a cliff in California.

No one saw the 2003 GMC Yukon XL drive off a flat, dirt pullout overlooking the Pacific Ocean this week.

But Marcus Mazza, an engineer and reconstruction expert with Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Robson Forensic, said Thursday that the SUV was required to have a "black box" that records accident data.

https://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/state/article207283234.html