The Hart Family: A Murder-Suicide That Exposed Systemic Failure and Institutional Racism
The Hart Family: A Murder-Suicide That Exposed Systemic Failure and Institutional Racism
When Love’s Facade Concealed a Decade of Abuse, Isolation, and Calculated Murder
On March 26, 2018, Jennifer Hart, 38, deliberately drove her white GMC Yukon XL SUV off a 100-foot cliff along California State Route 1 in Mendocino County, killing herself, her wife Sarah Hart, 38, and their six adopted African American and biracial children in an intentional murder-suicide that shocked the nation and exposed catastrophic failures within child protective services systems across multiple states. The Hart family case stands as a chilling indictment of how institutional racism, institutional incompetence, inadequate oversight of homeschooling, and fragmented state-by-state child welfare systems allowed two white women to systematically abuse, starve, isolate, and ultimately murder six Black and biracial children while presenting themselves to the world as progressive, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and champions of diversity.
The bodies of five of the six children were recovered from the wreckage and the surrounding area. One child, Devonte Hart, 15, was never found; his body was presumed swept out to sea or lost to the Pacific Ocean. His biological mother, who had fought for years to maintain contact with her son, did not learn of his death until a journalist informed her nine months after the crash.
The Victims: Six Children Erased by Their Adoptive Mothers
The Hart family tragedy cannot be reduced to statistics—eight dead, one intentional crash, six children who would never become adults. Each of these six children possessed irreplaceable human dignity, distinct personalities, and futures that were stolen not by accident or tragedy, but by deliberate, premeditated murder disguised as a family crisis.
California State Route 1 in Mendocino County, where the Hart family SUV was deliberately driven off a 100-foot cliff on March 26, 2018
The Scheurich Children: Markis, Hannah, and Abigail
Markis was the oldest of the six children murdered on March 26, 2018, and the eldest biological son of Tammy Scheurich, a white woman living in South Texas with complex mental health histories including borderline personality disorder, major depression, and experiences of homelessness. Markis was born when his mother was barely eighteen—a young woman struggling with her own trauma and instability. His biological father’s role in his life remains unclear from available records, but Markis grew up in the care not only of his mother, but of Nathaniel Davis, a man who loved his children and gave them his last name even though he was not their biological father.
By the time Texas CPS became involved in Markis’s life in 2004, he was six years old. He had been removed from his mother’s custody due to medical neglect allegations stemming from his sister Hannah’s severe staph infection requiring surgical intervention. Markis was placed in foster care, but his biological mother signed away her parental rights in the summer of 2004, believing her children would be adopted by a Black couple in Missouri City (a suburb of Houston) with three children of their own. She said goodbye to her children at Hermann Park zoo, promised Markis she would see him again someday, and walked away, expecting never to know where they went.
Instead, in 2006, Markis—along with his sisters Hannah and Abigail—was placed with Jennifer and Sarah Hart, a white lesbian couple in Minnesota, more than 1,000 miles away from his biological family in Texas. He would never see his biological mother, father figure, or siblings again.
By 2013, when Oregon CPS visited the Hart home, Markis was described as “somewhat soft-spoken and reserved.” He appeared thin, but a doctor found “nothing abnormal” during examination. What the doctor’s report failed to capture was a child who was malnourished, under-stimulated, isolated from peers, and living in constant fear of his adoptive mother. He was a child for whom physical thinness represented psychological and emotional starvation as well.
Manner of Death: Markis’s body was found at the crash site and recovered from the vehicle wreckage on March 26, 2018.
Hannah was six years old when she told her Minnesota teacher that her mother had hit her with a belt. She was nine years old when she was punched repeatedly in the bathtub by her mother, Jennifer, because a penny fell out of her pocket. She was sixteen years old when, in the middle of an August night in Woodland, Washington, she jumped from a second-story bedroom window and ran to a neighbor’s house wrapped in a bramble-covered blanket, missing two front teeth, pleading for protection.
Hannah was born to Tammy Scheurich in 1998. For the first part of her life, before CPS removed her at age eighteen months due to a medical incident that was not her mother’s fault, Hannah knew her biological mother, her sisters, and a household that, while imperfect, was rooted in biological family connection. Once removed, Hannah was placed in foster care, and then—when she was eight years old—she was adopted by two white women she had never met, taken more than 1,000 miles away from her biological family, and severed from any legal right to know where she came from.
By 2008, when Hannah was six, a Minnesota teacher noticed bruising and reported it to authorities. Hannah had told the teacher that her mother hit her with a belt. Yet the case was handled with minimal consequence, and the Hart family remained intact.
In 2010, when Hannah was eight, her sister Abigail reported abuse, and Sarah Hart was convicted of misdemeanor domestic assault—a conviction that should have triggered immediate removal of the children from the home. Instead, two days after Sarah’s conviction, the Hart family withdrew all six children from public school, eliminating the very professionals (teachers, school counselors, nurses) whose responsibility it was to monitor for abuse.
For the next seven years, Hannah disappeared from public view. No teacher saw her. No school nurse noted her malnourishment. No mandatory reporter heard her cry for help. She was isolated in homeschools in Oregon and Washington, fed minimally, abused psychologically and physically, terrified of her adoptive mothers, and forbidden from telling anyone the truth about what was happening in her home.
In August 2017, at sixteen years old, Hannah could no longer endure the abuse. She jumped from the second-story window of her bedroom, approached her neighbors in the darkness, wrapped in a bramble-covered blanket and desperation, and begged for protection. “Don’t make me go back! They’re racists, and they abuse us!” she cried to Dana DeKalb. Her two front teeth were missing. Her body was skeletal. Her eyes conveyed absolute terror.
The next morning, Jennifer and Sarah Hart came to the DeKalbs’ home and explained that Hannah was lying, that she was troubled, and that her biological mother was bipolar. They retrieved their daughter and brought her back home. No charges were filed. No investigation was opened. Hannah was returned to her abusers.
Six months later, on March 26, 2018, Hannah Hart’s body was thrown from a vehicle careening down a California cliff. Her remains were not recovered until months later, and DNA confirmation of her identity did not occur until January 2019—months after her burial, months after her biological mother had finally learned of her death from a journalist.
Manner of Death: Presumed dead in vehicle crash; remains recovered from beach months later; DNA confirmed January 2019.
Abigail was born on December 27, 2003, to Tammy Scheurich during what Tammy remembers as a time of relative stability—a moment in her chaotic life when she believed she could build a future for her children. Abigail was born just after Christmas, a child who arrived in a family struggling but hopeful. Yet less than two months later, CPS removed all three of Tammy’s children due to a mishandled medical incident involving Abigail’s older sister, Hannah’s staph infection, and Abigail was placed in foster care, where she would remain until she was adopted by the Harts at age two and a half.
Abigail grew up never knowing her biological mother, never understanding why she had been removed, never having the right to know her own family history. She was adopted by two women she did not know and taken to a state where nobody was paying attention to her welfare.
When Abigail was six years old, in 2010, she came home from school to find her mother, Jennifer, waiting. According to the police report filed after a teacher reported bruising, Abigail had a penny in her pocket. When the penny fell out, Jennifer flew into a rage. She dragged the six-year-old to the bathroom, submerged her head under cold water in the bathtub, and then beat her repeatedly with a closed fist. She punished Abigail further by grounding her, and part of that grounding included missing lunch at school.
Abigail was so small that when a Minnesota social worker examined her as a six-year-old, the worker noted that Abigail appeared to be only two years old in terms of physical development. Her failure to thrive was obvious. Yet the case was processed, services were supposedly provided, and eventually the case was closed—and Abigail was immediately withdrawn from public school.
For the next eight years, Abigail lived in a state of isolation and hunger. She went to an “Oregon school” (homeschool) where no one checked on her welfare. She was not seen by doctors. She was not examined by teachers. She was not protected by any system designed to protect children. She was simply gone—disappeared from the public eye in a way that should have triggered an alarm but did not.
Manner of Death: Found dead at the crash site; body recovered on March 26, 2018.
Tammy Scheurich: The Biological Mother Left Behind
Tammy Scheurich’s story is essential to understanding the Hart family tragedy because it illuminates how child welfare systems, rooted in structural racism and class bias, prioritized removing children from a poor, struggling white mother rather than supporting her, and then—inexplicably—placed those children in the home of two white women who would abuse them for over a decade.
Tammy was born around 1985. She grew up in poverty, experienced abuse, and struggled with mental illness from a young age. She was nineteen when she had Markis, and she was still a teenager when she had Hannah. She loved her children, and she had help from Nathaniel Davis, an older man who became a father figure to them and who loved them as his own. She also had help from her own grandparents.
In July 2003, Hannah contracted a severe staph infection from an ant bite at a birthday party. The infection was serious enough to require surgical removal of infected tissue. A doctor filed a report with CPS alleging medical neglect, though Tammy had sought treatment for Hannah. Suddenly, Tammy found herself entangled with child welfare authorities.
Tammy was young, poor, and scared. In her fear, she briefly considered signing away her parental rights, believing her unborn child would be adopted by a stable Black couple in a Houston suburb. She reconsidered, believing she could build a stable life for her children.
But then, on February 9, 2004, Hannah had a respiratory episode. Tammy called for medical help, but because she had no one to care for Abigail and Markis, she had to wait for her ride. A doctor had instructed her to get Hannah to a hospital, and Tammy did get her there—but according to CPS, not quickly enough. According to Tammy’s account, she called an ambulance. According to a police report, she waited too long.
At the hospital, a nurse came to speak with the child welfare professional who was already present. When the nurse left, the CPS worker had paperwork in hand: all three children were being removed. Tammy would never again have custody of her biological children. She would sign away her parental rights, believing they would be adopted by a Black couple in Missouri City. She would say goodbye to them at Hermann Park zoo, where she took them on one final outing to see the animals and the zoo before they were gone from her life forever.
“I talked to Markis and told him that I wouldn’t be seeing him anymore, and that I loved him, and one day I would be seeing him again,” Tammy remembered decades later, crying as she recounted that goodbye.
Tammy never saw them again. She had no legal right to know where her children went, no right to maintain contact, no right to information about their lives. After her parental rights were terminated, “my right to know anything went away,” she said.
For fourteen years, Tammy did not know that her three biological children were in Minnesota, then Oregon, then Washington. She did not know they were being abused, starved, isolated, and beaten. She did not know that a teacher had reported her daughter being hit with a belt. She did not know that her baby daughter was being punched in a bathtub. She did not know that her children were jumping out of windows and begging neighbors for food. She did not know they were terrified.
Tammy learned of her children’s deaths on October 10, 2018, when journalist Roxanna Asgarian called her with the news. The crash had occurred on March 26, 2018. For 197 days, Tammy did not know her children were dead. No law enforcement officer called her. No coroner’s office notified her. The only person who thought to inform her was a journalist who was investigating the systemic failures that had led to her children’s deaths.
“Those are my children,” Tammy said when she learned. “This was not supposed to happen.”
The Davis Children: Devonte, Jeremiah, and Ciera
Devonte was born in Houston, Texas, to Sherry Davis and Nathaniel Davis. Nathaniel was not his biological father, but he was his father in every way that mattered. Nathaniel loved Devonte, cared for him, nurtured him, claimed him as his own, and gave him his last name. For the first years of Devonte’s life, he was surrounded by biological family and by the man who loved him like a son.
In 2008, when Devonte was six years old, Sherry Davis failed a drug test. The second drug test failure. Suddenly, Devonte and his siblings were removed from Nathaniel’s care. Sherry, who was struggling with addiction, lost custody. Nathaniel, who had been the consistent, loving presence in these children’s lives, was denied the right to adopt them because he was not a biological relative and because of residency issues and bureaucratic complications.
Instead, the children were placed in foster care, and in June 2008, Devonte—along with his biological siblings Jeremiah and Ciera—was placed with Jennifer and Sarah Hart, a white lesbian couple in Minnesota, more than 1,000 miles away from his biological father. He was never told why. He was never given the chance to say goodbye. He was moved.
For ten years, Devonte lived with the Harts. For ten years, he was not allowed to see his biological father. For ten years, he was fed minimally, made to do yard work at night, kept isolated from the world, and lived in a state of constant hunger and fear.
In March 2018, weeks before the crash, Devonte began approaching his neighbor, Bruce DeKalb’s, home, asking for food. He started with one request a day. Within a week, he was asking three times daily. His body was so malnourished that his head appeared larger than his frame. He begged DeKalb not to tell his mother. He explained that his parents withheld food as punishment, that his siblings went days without eating, that he “doesn’t like his parents.”
Devonte was terrified. He was also desperate. He was a fifteen-year-old boy who had been removed from the only consistent, loving parent he had ever known, placed with two women who starved him, isolated him, and terrified him. He had no way out.
On March 23, 2018, his neighbor Bruce DeKalb called Washington State CPS and reported that Devonte was being starved, that the entire family showed signs of abuse and neglect, that the children were malnourished and terrified. That same day, CPS arrived at the Hart home for a welfare check. The Harts did not answer the door. The next day, they fled Washington. On March 26, they drove their SUV off a 100-foot cliff.
Manner of Death: MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD. Devonte’s body has never been found. It is believed he was in the vehicle at the time of the crash, but his remains were never recovered. The only child whose death remains unconfirmed—the only child whose biological family has no physical evidence of his death.
Jeremiah was born in Houston, Texas, to Sherry Davis. He was six years younger than his biological sister Ciera and eight years younger than his brother Devonte. By the time he was adopted by the Harts at age four, Jeremiah had experienced removal from his father figure’s care, placement in foster care, and adoption by two women in a state far from his biological family.
Like his siblings, Jeremiah was isolated, malnourished, controlled, and terrified. He was described by neighbors as walking in single file with his siblings, instructed on when he was permitted to use the bathroom, acting like a “trained robot.” He rarely left his home. He was not seen by teachers, doctors, or any mandated reporter. He was invisible—which was exactly what his adoptive mothers wanted.
Manner of Death: Found dead at the crash site; body recovered March 26, 2018.
Ciera was the youngest of the Davis children, born in Houston to Sherry Davis. She was four years old when she was placed with the Harts in June 2008. The Harts renamed her “Sierra”—another small erasure of her biological identity, another step toward making her theirs and severing her from her origins.
At the time of the crash, Ciera was twelve years old. She had spent eight of her twelve years isolated from her biological family, malnourished, controlled, abused, and terrified. She was approximately half the size she should have been. She was invisible to any system designed to protect children.
Ciera’s body was recovered on a beach near the crash site approximately two weeks after the incident.
Manner of Death: Found dead approximately two weeks after the crash on beach north of main crash site.
Sherry Davis and Nathaniel Davis: The Biological Family Separated by Systemic Racism and Class Bias
Sherry Davis struggled with substance abuse. Nathaniel Davis was a man who loved his children—a man who called an aunt in 2008 and expressed hope that he might someday be reunited with the children he had raised as his own. Yet the child welfare system, which is supposed to prioritize the safety and unity of biological families, prioritized removal and permanent separation.
When Priscilla Celestine, an aunt, tried to get custody of the children after they were removed, she was initially denied. Dontay, the older brother, was sent to a residential treatment center at age ten—essentially jailed for having “behavioral issues.” As an adult, Dontay has cycled in and out of the prison system.
The three younger siblings were given to the Harts. Nathaniel waited and hoped for a reunion. He never saw his children again.
Jennifer and Sarah Hart: The Face of Evil Disguised as Progressivism
Jennifer Hart and Sarah Hart presented themselves to the world as pioneers of adoption, champions of diversity, LGBTQ+ rights advocates, and progressive parents who had opened their home to “hard to place” children—large sibling groups, biracial and Black children, children with “special needs.”
On Facebook, Jennifer curated an image of a blended family living their best lives: six smiling children in matching outfits, holding signs proclaiming “Love is Always Beautiful,” photographed in sunny backyards and at music festivals and pride events. The photos were heart-warming to those who saw them. They presented a narrative of love, acceptance, and progressive values.
The reality behind the photographs was catastrophically different. What the photographs did not show was a decade of systematic abuse, starvation, isolation, and calculated psychological control. What the Facebook images did not capture was children so terrified of their mothers that they acted like “trained robots,” children so malnourished that their physical development was years behind their biological age, children whose very existence was being erased by two women who controlled every aspect of their lives.
Jennifer Hart: The Architect of Abuse
Jennifer Hart, 38, was the driver of the SUV that went off the cliff. She was also the perpetrator most implicated in the abuse of the children. Neighbors described the children as being “scared to death of Jen.” Teachers noted that Jennifer was the one administering punishments. Victims reported that Jennifer was the more violent parent.
Jennifer was estranged from her own father after 2001. Members of both families noted that Jennifer had distanced herself from relatives and cut off contact with people who questioned her parenting. This pattern—isolating from outside influence, severing ties with biological family members, creating an insular household—is classic abuser behavior.
Jennifer’s intelligence was average to above-average. Her ability to manipulate professionals was sophisticated. She knew what to tell social workers about adoption, special needs, food issues, and behavioral problems. She presented as respectable, normal, and caring. A Minnesota social worker would later note with frustration: “The problem is ‘these women look normal.'”
Sarah Hart’s Google search history revealed premeditation in the days before the fatal crash.
Sarah Hart: The Convicted Abuser
Sarah Hart, 38, was the passenger in the SUV. She was also the abuser who was convicted in a court of law—a conviction that should have resulted in immediate removal of the children from the home, yet instead resulted in the erasure of the children from public oversight through homeschooling.
In April 2011, Sarah Hart pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic assault for beating her six-year-old daughter,r Abigail. The victim had been punched repeatedly in a bathtub because a penny fell from her pocket. Sarah admitted the spanking “got out of control and was not proper and was ‘too much.'”
Sarah’s sentence was minimal: one year of probation and community service. Two days after her conviction, all six Hart children were withdrawn from public school.
Sarah’s Google searches in the days before the crash were chilling: “Lethality of Benadryl,” “How to kill yourself by drowning,” “No-kill shelters for dogs.” These searches revealed a woman who was not acting impulsively, but rather deliberately planning a murder-suicide that would ensure the children could not be separated, could not tell their stories, could not find their biological families.
The Abuse: A Decade of Systematic Control
The Hart family history is characterized by one consistent element across all three states where they lived: food deprivation. Food was not withheld by accident or neglect. Food was withheld as a weapon, a tool of control, a mechanism for punishing children into compliance and robbing them of the physical and emotional strength to resist or seek help.
In Minnesota, teachers reported that Hart children were stealing food, eating from garbage cans, and eating off the floor. When teachers asked Jennifer and Sarah about this behavior, the Harts blamed it on the children’s psychological issues stemming from their “adoption,” their “food issues,” and their “high-risk” backgrounds.
In Oregon, a family friend observed Jennifer Hart ordering a pizza for the children and then limiting each child to one small slice. When Jennifer discovered the pizza was gone, she punished the children by withholding breakfast and forcing them to lie in bed for five hours.
The friend also witnessed Jennifer Hart restricting sugar and other foods, using food deprivation as a mechanism for controlling the children’s behavior. Another witness reported that children begged to eat, were told no, and were forced to remain isolated in their rooms as punishment.
In Washington, Devonte Hart came to his neighbor’s house three times a day begging for food. He told the neighbor that his parents withheld food for “one meal or entire days” as punishment. The neighbor described Devonte as looking “distorted,” his frame “tinier than his head,” his physical development so compromised by malnutrition that his proportions were abnormal.
After Sarah Hart’s conviction in April 2011, all six Hart children were immediately withdrawn from public school. This timing was not coincidental. Abusive parents who face investigations by child welfare or law enforcement often remove their children from school—the one place where mandated reporters (teachers, counselors, nurses, coaches) have regular access to children and the ability to notice signs of abuse.
The Harts claimed to be homeschooling. They pulled their children out of the public school system and into a home-based education model that eliminated oversight, eliminated mandated reporters, and guaranteed that no one would see the children regularly except the perpetrators.
In Oregon, when the family moved there in 2011, they did not register for homeschooling as required by state law. In Washington, when they moved there in 2017, they did not register for homeschooling there either. They simply kept their children at home, isolated, unseen, unmonitored.
During the August 2017 incident, when Hannah jumped from the window and fled to her neighbor’s house, the Harts explained to neighbors the next day that they were considering homeschooling because “one of the children was being bullied.” They strategically deployed an explanation that positioned themselves as protective parents while actually using homeschooling as a tool to increase isolation and control.
Psychological Control and Fear
Neighbors described the Hart children as acting like “trained robots”—children who walked in single file, who were instructed on when they could speak, who were instructed on when they could use the bathroom, who displayed no spontaneity or joy.
Friends and family members reported that the children acted “scared to death of Jen.” They appeared to be under constant surveillance, constantly monitored, constantly afraid of doing something wrong that would trigger punishment.
The children rarely left their home. They had no peer relationships. They had no community. They had no one who could advocate for them, no one who could intervene, no one who could tell them that what was happening was wrong.
The Abuse History Across Three States: A System That Failed
Minnesota (2006-2011): The First Red Flags
The Hart family’s history of abuse allegations began in Minnesota, where they lived after adopting their first three children (Markis, Hannah, and Abigail) in 2006.
2008: One of the Hart children, age six, told a teacher that her mother had hit her with a belt. The teacher reported it to police. When interrogated, Jennifer Hart admitted hitting the child with a belt. The child also reported falling down stairs and having “food issues” (stealing food at school, eating from garbage).
When police spoke with both parents, Jennifer admitted to hitting the child. Sarah said the child had fallen down the stairs. Despite the admission of hitting the child and the visible bruising, the case was handled with minimalconsequencese. No charges were filed. The children remained in the home.
2010: Abigail, age six, was beaten in the bathtub by Jennifer Hart because a penny fell out of her pocket. Teachers saw the bruising and reported it to authorities. When police investigated, Abigail told them that Jennifer was the one who hit her, though both parents were present. Sarah Hart ultimately pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic assault.
Sarah was sentenced to probation and community service. Two days after her conviction on April 9, 2011, all six Hart children were removed from public school permanently. The case was closed despite the pattern of abuse allegations, despite the conviction, despite clear indicators that the children were at risk.
Child Protective Services records across three states failed to identify patterns of abuse in the Hart family ca.se
Oregon (2011-2017): Coaching and Dismissal
The family moved to West Linn, Oregon, in 2011 after Sarah’s conviction. They did not register for homeschooling as required by law.
2013: Alexandra Argyropoulos, a family friend who allowed the Harts to stay in her home for two weeks, observed what she characterized as “controlling emotional abuse and cruel punishment.” She witnessed Jennifer Hart withholding food from the children as punishment. She witnessed children being punished for laughing—forbidden to speak for entire days.
Argyropoulos reported her observations to Oregon’s Department of Human Services. When Oregon DHS investigated, they interviewed the children individually. The children made “no disclosures of abuse or neglect,” according to case reports. Yet two interviewed persons (not the children) reported concerns about food limitation and excessive discipline.
Oregon DHS noted that when they spoke with the Minnesota social worker (who was providing background information), the Minnesota worker observed that the Harts were skilled at manipulation: “The problem is ‘these women look normal.’ They know what to tell professionals about special needs adoption, ion and food issues. They get professionals to assign the problem to the children rather than the parents.”
Despite this insight—essentially a direct warning from Minnesota that the Harts were manipulative and dishonest—Oregon DHS concluded that the children had been “coached” to deny abuse and therefore there was “insufficient evidence” to substantiate the allegation.
The case was closed. Argyropoulos was devastated. “My heart is completely broken,” she stated to the Associated Press after the Harts’ deaths. “The current system failed to protect these children from their abusers.”
Washington (2017-2018): The Final Report Before Death
The family moved to Woodland, Washington (30 miles north of Portland), in February 2017. They did not register for homeschooling. They did not inform the school district that they had children.
August 2017: Hannah Hart, sixteen years old, jumped from her second-story bedroom window at 1:30 a.m. She was wrapped in a bramble-covered blanket and missing two front teeth. She approached neighbor Dana DeKalb’s home and pleaded: “Don’t make me go back! They’re racists and they abuse us!”
Hannah begged for protection. She told Dana that her mothers were racist, that they abused her, that they whipped her with belts. Dana brought her inside and considered calling police, but when the Hart family rang her doorbell at 6:30 a.m., Dana relented and allowed them to retrieve Hannah.
The Harts explained that Hannah was lying, that she was troubled, that her biological mother was bipolar. They took Hannah home. No investigation was opened. No charges were filed. Hannah was returned to her abusers.
March 2018: Devonte Hart began requesting food from neighbor Bruce DeKalb. What started as one request per day escalated to three requests per day within a week. Devonte begged DeKalb not to tell his mother. He explained that his parents withheld food as punishment, that his siblings went without food for entire days, that he didn’t like his parents.
Neighbors who had never seen most of the Hart children except through windows began asking questions. How many children lived in that house? Why didn’t they ever leave? Why did they look so thin and small for their ages?
March 23, 2018: Bruce DeKalb calthe led the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) and reported child abuse and neglect. He reported Devonte’s begging for food, his statements that food was withheld as punishment, his fear of his parents, his extreme malnourishment. He also reported the August 2017 incident when Hannah had jumped from the window.
A caseworker from DSHS arrived at the Hart home for a welfare check. She found a car in the driveway, but no one answered the door despite multiple knocks. She left her business card.
March 24-25, 2018: The Hart family fled Washington in their white GMC Yukon XL. They took no luggage, no suitcases, no overnight items. They did not take their two dogs. They headed south toward California on a two-day drive. The family’s finances came substantially from Texas state payments for the adopted children. A CPS investigation would have threatened that income stream.
March 26, 2018: Jennifer Hart deliberately drove the family’s SUV off a 100-foot cliff on California State Route 1 in Mendocino County. Sarah Hart, sitting in the passenger seat, made final Google searches on her phone, looking up the lethality of Benadryl. Both women had administered the medication to the children—a sedative to ensure they would not resist, would not struggle, would not escape.
The vehicle crashed at 20 mph after accelerating from a complete stop with 100% throttle engagement. There were no skid marks indicating an attempt to stop or swerve. There were no seatbelts on any occupants. The crash was deliberate, calculated, and intentional.
Five bodies were recovered from the wreckage or nearby. One child, Devonte Hart, was never found.
Systemic Failures: How a Nation’s Child Protection Systems Allowed This to Happen
The Hart family deaths in 2018 did not occur in a vacuum. They occurred within a documented history of child protective services failures across three states, adoption system failures, homeschooling oversight failures, interstate information-sharing failures, and systemic racism that consistently favored white adoptive parents over Black biological parents and communities.
Failure #1: No Unified National Registry of Child Abuse
The Hart family was able to move from Minnesota to Oregon to Washington, leaving behind abuse allegations in each state, because there is no unified federal or national system for tracking child abuse reports and investigations across state lines.
Minnesota knew the Harts had abuse allegations. Oregon could access Minnesota records if they made a deliberate effort to do so. Washington only learned about the Harts after a neighbor reported them on March 23, 2018—three days before the family died.
If the Harts had lived within the same state, information about their abuse history would have been more accessible. But moving across state lines created a system failure that allowed them to essentially “restart” in each new jurisdiction, presenting themselves as a new family with no history.
Failure #2: Homeschooling as a Tool for Isolation and Control
When Sarah Hart was convicted of assaulting her six-year-old daughter in April 2011, a protective response would have been to mandate that the children remain in public school, where mandated reporters could monitor their welfare. Instead, the Hart family withdrew all six children from public school two days after the conviction.
This timing was not coincidental. Abusive parents frequently withdraw children from school after CPS involvement or criminal conviction because school is the one place where mandated reporters—teachers, counselors, school nurses, coaches—have regular access to children anda legal obligation to report signs of abuse.
Yet there is no federal mechanism to flag when children are removed from school following abuse allegations or CPS involvement. Pennsylvania is the only state with any restriction on this practice, prohibiting convicted child abusers from homeschooling within five years of a conviction. No other state has this protection.
The Harts removed their children from public school, and the children disappeared from any system of oversight. No teacher saw them. No school nurse examined them. No coach watched them. No counselor spoke with them. For seven years—from 2011 until 2018—the six Hart children had no regular contact with any mandated reporter except in the last month of their lives, when their new neighbors in Washington began to observe them and raise concerns.
Failure #3: Cases Closed Without Resolution
In Minnesota, after the 2010 abuse incident and Sarah’s conviction in 2011, CPS opened a case requiring the Harts to participate in services. Yet there is no documentation that these services were effective. There is no documentation that children were assessed to be safe before the case was closed. After closure, the family immediately withdrew the children from school and left the state.
This pattern is systemic. Child welfare workers are often overwhelmed, underfunded, and resource-strapped. Cases are opened, minimal services are provided, cases are closed—often without genuine resolution of the underlying abuse concerns.
In the Hart case, closure was followed immediately by removal of children from school and relocation to a new state—the very actions that an alert social worker would have flagged as high-risk behavior.
Failure #4: Interviewing Children in Front of Perpetrators
When Oregon CPS investigated in 2013, they interviewed the Hart children. Yet the children made “no disclosures of abuse,” according to case reports. A Minnesota social worker who consulted with the Oregon team warned them that the children had likely been “coached” to deny abuse—which means the children had been taught what to say to professionals to avoid triggeringan investigation.
Yet rather than viewing this “coaching” as evidence that abuse was occurring, Oregon DHS viewed it as evidence that the children’s denial was reliable. This represents an inversion of child protection logic: children who have been coached to deny abuse should be recognized as victims, not exonerated of having been abused.
Failure #5: Medical Exams That Found “Nothing Abnormal”
When Oregon CPS examined the Hart children in 2013, a doctor noted that five of six children “fell below growth charts and appear small in stature.” Yet the doctor “expressed no concerns at this time.”
How can a professional examine five children who are all below their expected growth curves and “express no concerns”? This represents a systemic failure in medical training and assessment. Children who are malnourished, who fail to thrive, who show stunted growth—these are red flags for abuse and neglect. Yet the doctor’s examination apparently prioritized reassurance over protection.
Failure #6: Adoption System Failures and Interstate Adoption Oversight
The Hart children were adopted from Texas by families in Minnesota, Oregon, and eventually Washington. The adoption process involved vetting by a Minnesota agency, submission of home studies to Texas for approval, and placement of children with the Harts. Yet once the adoption was finalized, oversight essentially ended.
Texas received $11,000+ monthly from the state for the care of the six adopted children. This represented nearly 50% of the Hart family’s household income. Yet there was no mechanism for ongoing oversight, no requirement for regular home visits, no system to aggregate reports from multiple states into a unified picture of abuse.
Failure #7: Erasure of Biological Families
Perhaps the most profound systemic failure is how the Hart family case illuminates the erasure of biological families from their children’s lives. Tammy Scheurich, the biological mother of three of the murdered children, had no legal right to information about her children after her parental rights were terminated in 2004. When her children died in 2018, no law enforcement agency contacted her. She was not informed. She did not know they were dead until a journalist called her.
Similarly, Nathaniel Davis, the father figure who had raised Devonte, Jeremiah, and Ciera from birth, had no legal right to information about them after they were adopted. He was not informed of their deaths. He learned about it later, after his children were already buried.
This is structural injustice rooted in class bias and racial bias. The families who were most likely to lose custody were poor, often families of color. The adoptive parents were more often white and more financially stable. The court system prioritized removal and permanent adoption over supporting biological families and the community.
The Hart children were murdered. But they were first erased from their biological families, first separated from the people who loved them most, first placed in a home where they were systematically abused. The adoption system that was supposed to protect them instead delivered them to their killers.
The Crash: Murder-Suicide by Calculated Intent
On March 26, 2018, Jennifer Hart deliberately drove an SUV off a 100-foot cliff in Mendocino County, California. Expert analysis of the vehicle’s air bag computer determined that the vehicle accelerated from a complete stop to 20 mph in 3 seconds with throttle at 100% engagement. There were no skid marks indicating an attempt to stop or swerve. The crash was not an accident.
The Harts’ Google search history in the days before the crash revealed deliberate planning:
- “Lethality of Benadryl” (investigating whether Benadryl could cause death)
- “How to kill yourself by drowning” (researching methods of suicide)
- “No-kill shelters for dogs” (ensuring their dogs would not be left to die with them)
The family had taken no luggage, no suitcases, no overnight items on their “two-day trip” to California. This was not a vacation or planned excursion. This was a drive to the location where they intended to end their lives.
Memorial tribute to the eight Hart family members who died on March 26, 2018
Jennifer Hart was behind the wheel, intoxicated, her blood alcohol content over the legal limit. Sarah Hart sat in the passenger seat, likely drugged with Benadryl. Two of the children also had elevated levels of Benadryl in their systems—sedative medication that Sarah had administered to ensure they would be incapacitated, unable to resist, unable to escape.
On March 23, three days before the crash, a Washington State caseworker had arrived at the Hart home to investigate child abuse allegations. The family was not there. The next day, they fled. Within 48 hours of a CPS welfare check, the Hart family had driven 260 miles south and were preparing to drive their vehicle off a cliff.
The decision was made consciously, deliberately. “They both decided that this was going to be the end,” California Highway Patrol investigator Jake Slates stated at the coroner’s inquest. “That if they can’t have their kids, nobody was going to have those kids.”
The Coroner’s Inquest and Verdict
On April 4, 2019, a fourteen-person coroner’s jury unanimously ruled:
- Jennifer Hart: Suicide
- Sarah Hart: Suicide
- Markis, Hannah, Abigail, Jeremiah, Ciera, and Devonte Hart: Homicide (caused by the deliberate actions of Jennifer and Sarah Hart)
No criminal charges could be filed because both perpetrators were deceased. No trial would occur. The only accountability mechanism available was the coroner’s inquest, which determined the cause of death but not criminal culpability.
Yet the verdict was clear: Jennifer and Sarah Hart deliberately murdered their six adopted children.
Aftermath: Unresolved Injustice and Systemic Reform
Tammy Scheurich, the biological mother of Markis, Hannah, and Abigail, learned of her children’s deaths more than six months after the crash when a journalist contacted her. No law enforcement officer had bothered to inform her. She had no legal right to information after her parental rights were terminated fourteen years earlier. When she learned, she wept: “Those are my children. This was not supposed to happen.”
Nathaniel Davis, the father figure who had raised Devonte, Jeremiah, and Ciera from birth, learned of their deaths after they were already buried. He had spent years hoping for reunion, yet the child welfare and adoption system had permanently severed his relationship with the children he loved.
Dontay, the oldest son, who had been denied adoption by the Harts and instead sent to a residential treatment center at age ten, has cycled in and out of the prison system as an adult. He survived the Harts, but he was damaged by the foster care system that removed him from his father figure’s care and failed to find him a permanent, loving family.
Sheriff Tom Allman, who oversaw the investigation, stated that he had three unanswered questions:
- “Why did this happen?”
- “How did this happen?”
- “What can we—and I’m talking we as a government—do to prevent this from happening again?”
And then he said: “I do not know the answers to any of those three.”
Yet the Hart case provided clear lessons for reform:
- National Registry of Child Abuse: Create a unified federal system for tracking child abuse reports and investigations across state lines, so that families cannot escape accountability by moving to a new jurisdiction.
- Homeschooling Oversight: Implement federal standards for homeschooling that require parent qualifications, curriculum oversight, and regular check-ins with state education officials. Ban convicted child abusers from homeschooling. Flag when children are removed from school following child abuse allegations.
- Mandatory Case Resolution Standards: Establish criteria for case closure that require documented evidence that children are safe before cases are closed. Require ongoing oversight of high-risk families rather than closure and abandonment.
- Interstate Adoption Oversight: Establish federal standards for ongoing oversight of interstate adoptions, including regular home visits and case review by the originating state.
- Biological Family Rights: Reform the adoption system to prioritize support for biological families when possible, and to maintain communication and information-sharing with biological families even after parental rights have been terminated.
- Addressing Structural Racism: Acknowledge that child welfare systems have historically removed children from poor families and families of color at disproportionate rates. Reform intake, investigation, and case closure processes to address this systemic bias.
Conclusion: When Progressive Values Became a Disguise for Evil
The Hart family tragedy exposes a profound truth: evil does not wear a recognizable face. It does not announce itself. It does not appear in forms we expect. Jennifer and Sarah Hart presented themselves as progressive, as advocates for diversity, as champions of LGBTQ+ rights, as white women who had adopted Black and biracial children in an act of love and family-building.
Yet behind the Facebook images of matching outfits and smiling children, behind the visible participation in pride events and social justice movements, existed a decade of systematic abuse, starvation, isolation, and ultimately, calculated murder.
The Hart children are dead. Markis, Hannah, Abigail, Jeremiah, and Ciera were found and recovered. Their bodies rest in graves. Devonte Hart’s body was never found. He remains missing, his resting place unknown, his biological father still grieving a son he cannot properly lay to rest.
The Hart family case is not merely a story of individual evil. It is a story of systemic failure—of child protective services systems that prioritize case closure over child safety, of adoption systems that transfer millions of dollars to adoptive families while severing biological family connections, of homeschooling policies that create unmonitored spaces where abuse thrives, of interstate mechanisms that fail to aggregate warning signs until it is too late.
The six Hart children were murdered on March 26, 2018. But they were first destroyed by systems that were supposed to protect them.